Last week Steve Harvey brought fellow comedian, Monique, on his show to chastise her for being a "difficult black woman." It's no secret that Monique has always been outspoken and unafraid to speak her truth, much like most comedians, but unfortunately, upsetting the wrong people got her blackballed from the industry---according to Lee Daniels.
Let me give you some context. In 2009, Monique starring in the award-winning film, "Precious," directed by Lee Daniels. The film earned Monique her long-awaited Academy Award and launched the career of Gabby Sidibe. According to the comedian, she thought her career would skyrocket even higher, as that is what they say happens after you win these types of awards. She thought she would be offered roles, make better money and have more industry respect. Instead, she claims she offers she received were subpar to those of other actors and actresses and that she was sold out by director Lee Daniels, Tyler Perry, and Oprah Winfrey.
It started during the press tour for the film "Precious," in which Perry and Winfrey were producers. According to Monique, she was asked to do more promotion for the film than was specified in her contract, and she declined if they were not prepared to pay her more. This is what got her labeled as "difficult" to work with, and even though she won the award for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards, and some Hollywood producers no longer wanted to work with her.
Mo'Nique fires back at Lee Daniels: I'm not bla...www.youtube.com
Since then, Monique has starred in very few roles, and her talk show, "The Mo'Nique Show" has been canceled. Both Lee Daniels and Tyler Perry have spoken out about the decline of Mo'Nique's career.
Since then Mo'Nique had claimed that Daniels, Winfrey, and Perry have all privately come to her to comfort her in the fact that she had done nothing wrong, but that none of them had the balls to say it publicly to defend her in the press. To further back up her claims Mo'Nique released a recorded conversation with Tyler Perry in which he admits that she was not paid all of the money she was due from the film and that he didn't personally think she was being difficult, just that it was hard to navigate though dealing with her not wanting to do "national press unless she was paid," as well as deal with Daniels' and Winfrey's feelings on the matter.
Fast forward to 2019, and not only are we still talking about this, but Steve Harvey decided to chime in by saying that he didn't agree with the way Mo'Nique went about defending herself, which led to him inviting her on his talk show to hash it out.
Mo'Nique and Steve Get Real: Part 1www.youtube.com
After Mo'Nique calls out her "friend" Steve for also telling her she was in the right privately but throwing her under the bus publicly, he turned into the tap dancing, money hungry, Uncle Tom we know him to be. He admitted that it was alright of him to sell her out because money must come before integrity, and a man's point must come before a woman's as he awkwardly wouldn't allow her to continue to speak. But of course, we knew that the second he showed up to that infamous meeting with President Trump.
What also didn't help the actress, was her failed attempt at getting black people to boycott Netflix.
Last year, Mo' Nique was offered $500,000 to record a standup show alongside Amy Schumer, Dave Chappelle, and Chris Rock. She later found out that Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock were offered 20 million, and Amy Schumer, 13 million.
She cited both sexism and racism after it was argued that the other comedians had better resumes and that was the reason they were offered more. Arguably, that makes no sense as Mo'Nique was one of the Original Queens of Comedy and her career trajectory included her own successful sitcom in which she was the lead star as well as a talk show and various movies. Schumer's resume is hardly half of that, while Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle have no Academy Awards or talk shows under their belts. And as much as a genius I think Chris Rock is, I can't even remember the last big thing I saw him in. "Grown Ups 2?"
Steve Harvey, a man who (along with his wife) does nothing but flex his riches on Instagram, of course, tried to silence Mo'Nique by labeling her gripe with being grossly underpaid as "rich people problems?" REALLY?