Mo’Nique is back, taking on Hollywood in full force with starring roles in popular streaming shows, trending TV movies, an upcoming Netflix comedy special and a horror thriller just over the horizon.
The comedienne recently opened up to The Hollywood Reporter about her recent resurgence on the big and small screens and the journey of forgiveness that has led to this fruitful new season of her life.
“It made dollars and cents. And for all those years, it just wasn’t making sense,” Mo’Nique said of her return to the business. “Back then, I didn’t feel a glow. I felt disappointment. I felt the same injustices and inequalities that all the Black women who came to Hollywood before me felt.”
“Oftentimes people call that anger. They call it bitterness. They call it unstable. They give it all these titles except what it really is.”
Mo’Nique has long been open about the fact that her retreat from Hollywood was initially prompted by a falling out she had with director Lee Daniels and the film studio Lionsgate when it came time to promote her Oscar-winning performance in 2009’s Precious at the Cannes Film Festival. The actress refused to do so without additional pay. When informed that that was not quite how the promo machine worked, she respectfully declined, opting instead to spend some much-needed downtime (she was also in the midst of filming her BET talk show The Mo’Nique Show at the time) with her husband and then 4-year-old twin sons.
“And that was a problem,” she recalls to The Hollywood Reporter. “The problem of ‘How could this fat Black woman say no to the powers that be in Hollywood?’”
Co-producers Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry each made attempts to sway Mo’Nique into joining in the promotional run…
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