About

Hey Girl, You Gonna Eat Your Cornbread? is a line used in a series of brainrot memes based on a clip from the 1999 comedy film Life in which the character Goldmouth (played by actor Michael Taliferro) asks Claude (played by Martin Lawrence) if he's going to eat his cornbread. The scene was reposted online numerous times throughout the 2000s and 2020s, going viral on several occasions. In March 2026, the scene became the subject of brainrot edits and memes on TikTok as a niche meme.

Origin

The "cornbread" scene comes from the 1999 comedy film Life, starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. In one scene, a prisoner named Goldmouth asks Lawrence's character Claude for his cornbread, saying, "Hey girl, you gonna eat your cornbread?" Claude, scared, goes to give him the cornbread. Eddie Murphy's character, Ray, stops Lawrence and ends up in a fight with Goldmouth.^[1]

The scene was reposted numerous times in the 2020s, occasionally inspiring memes. One early example is a recreation of the scene posted by TikToker^[2] @teejack_ on November 12th, 2020, garnering over 584,000 views in six years.

Spread

On February 17th, 2024, it was reposted by TikToker^[3] @daquawnjones to over 11 million views in a year. On November 14th, Instagram^[4] user morphaimedia posted an AI-generated reanimation of the scene that gained over 60,000 views in four months.

On March 1st, 2026, TikToker^[5] @funny.prank760 posted an edit based on the scene set to the "Eladeseleso" song, garnering over 850,000 views in five days.

The clip went viral throughout early March 2026 as the subject of brainrot memes and reaction memes, primarily on TikTok.

On March 2nd, TikToker^[6] @maybecouldbeperhaps27 posted an edit that declares the clip a "new niche meme" and splices in images of cornbread, garnering over 2 million views in four days.

As the meme spread, several AI-generated reaction memes spread with it, shared in the comment sections of videos sharing the meme. One of the most popular memes shows Goldmouth with lasers shooting out of his eyes, but it is unclear who created it.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References