Mo’Nique is finally getting her things and we love to see it! The beloved comedian has faced a lot of criticism over the years for standing up for herself and speaking out against the mistreatment she received during the press campaign for Precious for which she won Best Supporting Actress in the 2010 Academy Awards. Many in the industry labeled her “difficult” and blackballed her for years as a result. Now, it appears that she has become victorious in her battle against Netflix and has repaired her friendship with one of the people she accused of blackballing her. On July 19, Mo’Nique made the surprising announcement via Netflix’s Strong Black Lead that she will be starring in her own Netflix comedy special as well as Lee Daniels’ next Netflix film, Deliverance.
“Hey y’all, it’s your girl Mo’Nique, and I’m excited to say that I’ll be shooting my first Netflix special; in addition to reuniting with my friend, director Lee Daniels on the Netflix film The Deliverance,” she said.“You won’t want to miss either of them, so stay tuned! Thank you all and I love y’all to life!” The news of her Netflix deal comes after she and the streaming giant settled the gender and race discrimination lawsuit in June.
The Academy Award-winner filed a discrimination lawsuit against Netflix in 2019 after she claimed to have received a “lowball” offer to star in her own comedy special in 2017 in comparison to other comedians such as Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, and Amy Schumer. According to Mo’Nique, the offer was $500,000 while Chappelle and Rock received $20 million and Schumer walked away with $11 million. She also called out the streaming giant for underpaying Black women.
A year before that, Mo’Nique called for a boycott against Netflix but was met with mixed reactions. One infamous moment was when the mother of four got into a heated exchange with Charlamagne Tha God during a 2018 The Breakfast Club interview after he gave her “Donkey of the Day” for asking folks to boycott Netflix. She responded: “What you’re saying to the community is, as Black women, you’re devalued. And if you stand up and you make a stand and you say ‘We need equality and we have to say what’s right and what’s fair,” she told The Breakfast Club host. “And then a brother that looks like me from South Carolina that ‘the Donkey of the Day,’ you have to explain that to the community.”
She, however, was backed by some of her peers like Jada Pinkett Smith and fellow comedian Wanda Sykes who revealed that she too received a lowball offer from Netflix.
“.@moworldwide, thank you for speaking out. @netflix offered me less than half of your $500k. I was offended but found another home. #EPIX,” she tweeted.
While no details have come out yet about Mo’Nique and Netflix’s settlement, it’s easy to assume that The Parker’s star agreeing to do the comedy special came with a much larger payout than before.
What makes the announcement even more significant is that Mo’Nique reunited with Daniels after their fallout following Precious. The Queens of Comedy star repeatedly called out Daniels, Oprah Winfrey, and Tyler Perry for blacklisting her after she refused to do certain things during her press tour for the film. In an interview with Steve Harvey on his now-defunct talk show, Mo’Nique revealed the cause of her rift with the Black Hollywood elite. “We got labeled as ‘difficult’ because I said one word — and that was ‘no,'” she said of her and her husband/ manager Sidney Hicks.
“Now I said no to some very powerful people.. .the difficulty came in when people that looked like me, like Oprah, Tyler, Lee Daniels and I got to put my brother Steve on the list,” she added. “Y’all knew that I was not wrong. Each one of you said to me, ‘Mo’Nique, you’re not wrong.’ And when I heard you go on the air and say, ‘My sister burned too many bridges, and it’s nothing I can do for her now,’ Steve, do you know how hurt I was?”
Mo’Nique and Daniels reconciled publicly in April after the director brought her on stage at the St. George Theatre in Staten Island and apologized to her.
“It took me a long time to realize. I am so sorry for hurting you in any way,” he said.
“She was my best friend y’all — my best friend. Y’all think that Precious was just [us]? That wasn’t. That was God working through both of us. And we gonna f—king do it again!”
Along with The Deliverance, Mo’Nique will also be starring in Daniels’ Netflix thriller Demon House.
Let’s make things inbox official! Sign up for the xoNecole newsletter for daily love, wellness, career, and exclusive content delivered straight to your inbox.
Featured Image via Getty Images
RELATED
Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak