Has Mo’Nique BEEN BLACKBALLED BY THE INDUSTRY?
If you’ve been wondering why you haven’t seen Mo’Nique on the big screen lately, it could be because she’s been blackballed!
Mo’Nique won a coveted Oscar back in 2009 but since that time, it seems things have all gone downhill for her career.
Rumors of blackballing circulated after Mo’Nique’s BET show was canceled and there were also whispers she was ‘difficult’ & ‘hard to work with,’ with many reporting that her Academy Award win made her attitude worse.
[Sidebar: And the fact that she snubbed the Oscars the following year didn’t help matters
Now the actress has come forward with claims that she she’s been blackballed by Hollywood and she even says that a conversation with Director Lee Daniels, confirmed it for her.
Mo’Nique says she now knows now why she wasn’t flooded with offers for acting roles after her Oscar win… she was blackballed!
In an essay to be published in the 27 February issue of the Hollywood Reporter, previewed by E! News, the 47-year-old former star of The Parkers, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the title character’s abusive, domineering mother in Precious, writes that it was director-producer Lee Daniels who clued her in about her situation a few months ago.
Noting that an Oscar win “normally does” lead to “more respect, choices, money” in the business, that wasn’t the case in her situation.
Mo’Nique writes, “But I got a phone call from Lee Daniels…And he said to me, ‘Mo’Nique, you’ve been blackballed.’ I said, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘Because you didn’t play the game.'”
After steamrolling the competition throughout the 2009-10 awards season, Mo’Nique famously didn’t campaign for her Oscar, going on to say in her acceptance speech that she was grateful to the Academy “for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics.”
“I said, ‘Well, what game is that?'” her THR piece continues. “He gave me no response.”
People who would say that she’s “difficult,” “tactless” or “tacky” would “probably be right,” the actress writes. “That’s why I have my beautiful husband because he’s so full of tact. I’m just a girl from Baltimore. But being from that place, you learn not to let anybody take advantage of you.”
Since co-starring in Precious with Gabourey Sidibe, Lenny Kravitzand an unrecognizable Mariah Carey, the 47-year-old actress only has a few credits to her name, none of them major theatrical releases.
Mo’Nique also writes that she was offered the role of Forest Whitaker’s wife in Lee Daniels’ The Butler, a part that ultimately went to Oprah Winfrey; a role in the Daniels-produced Fox hit Empire; and the role of Richard Pryor’s grandmother [also now set to be played by Oprah] in the upcoming biopic Daniels is working on—but, she adds, “they all just went away.”
Of course Daniels was given the heads up about Mo’Nique’s claims and he issued the following response in a statement to THR:
Mo’Nique is a creative force to be reckoned with. Her demands through Precious were not always in line with the campaign. This soured her relationship with the Hollywood community.
I consider her a friend. I have and will always think of her for parts that we can collaborate on, however the consensus among the creative teams and powers thus far were to go another way with these roles.
Translation: Mo’Nique. You’re blackballed.
Meanwhile, according to her Instagram posts, Mo’Nique spends all that extra time she has working out everyday.
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