Mo’Nique is asking fans why Dave Chappelle’s crusade against Netflix while hers did not.
According to Atlanta Black Star, Mo’Nique talked about her feelings on Get Into It with Tami Roman. Mo’Nique said she didn’t understand why people disregarded her battle to get Netflix to pay her more for a prospective comedy special–in which she asked her fans to boycott the streaming service.
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She also wanted to know why fans supported Chappelle when he asked his supporters to do the same in his battle to get the rights back to Chappelle’s Show.
“Remember we used to say Black women are at the bottom of the totem pole/ We’re now under it,” said Mo’Nique, once again referencing her ongoing feud with Tyler Perry over being blacklisted in Hollywood.
“There was a tape that I played to the world where y’all heard a Black man saying, ‘What I did to you was wrong and when my movie comes out, I’m going to apologize,'” she said. “Y’all heard the tape, but for some reason our community overlooked this man saying, ‘What I did, I violated you.’ So when you say, ‘Why is the response different,’ it’s because we’re no under the totem pole. We’re not even at the bottom, that’s why.” She also continued with her claims against Perry, Oprah Winfrey and Lee Daniels later in the interview saying that the three have remained quiet because they were aware that “the Black community” would criticize her.
“‘If we stay silent, it’ll just go away, and we’ll let the Black community tear her apart. Y’all know how we do each other. We don’t have to say nothing,'” she said, imitating what she believes the three moguls might be thinking about her and her career.
Mo’Nique feels her status as a comedy legend has been denied, despite others in the industry complimenting her on her success.
“When I said, ‘Listen, I gotta stand up against Netflix,’ I have to because when [Netflix] first started off, [Netflix] said, ‘You’ve done everything.’ When I did Kevin Hart, Kevin Hart introduced me as a legend, icon. So why is it that my legend and my icon is so different than the others?”
This, of course, isn’t the first time Mo’Nique has brought up Perry, Daniels and Winfrey, but it is the first time she’s spoken out since angering a sizeable amount with comments against Black women wearing bonnets, headwraps, and other protective head coverings outside.
“I saw so many of our young sisters in head bonnets, scarves, slippers, pajamas, blankets wrapped around them, and this is how they’re showing up to the airport,” she said in her Instagram video in May. “And I’ve been seeing it not just at the airport–I’ve been seeing it at the store, at the mall…and the qeustion that I’m having to you, my sweet babies, is when did we lose pride in representing ourselves?”
Many fans called Mo’Nique out on adding to the voices constantly policing Black women’s looks, but Mo’Nique has refused to apologize, saying, “I am unapologetic about what I said because I said it with nothing but love and I said it with no judgement. For the sisters that got it, I’m glad. For the ones that didn’t, I’ll wait.”
