https://youtu.be/HgxBOsYgCH8?t=5m47s
Mo’Nique and husband Sydney Hicks are giving more insight into her issues with Tyler Perry, a beef the actress/comedian made public during a comedy show last month when she blamed him, Lee Daniels and Oprah for allegedly getting her blackballed.
“We shared with him what you can do to stop it is tell the truth about the situation,” Hicks explains on a Thursday, May 25, live stream of a call from Perry to the couple. “And he’s like, ‘Well, how’s that?’ At that point, Mo’Nique began to share with him where she had her problem with Tyler to start off with. It was with [director and writer] David Talbert where he saw David in Los Angeles and pulled David up and asked him how was his experiences with Mo’Nique on [the film] ‘Almost Christmas.’ And [Perry asked] that because his experiences with Mo’Nique didn’t go so well.
“David says, ‘That wasn’t my experience. It was incredible. I had a great time, she was a pro at what she did.’ [Then Perry said] ‘Oh ok, I’m glad to hear that because that wasn’t my experience.'”
Hicks added that Perry, who Lee Daniels accused of trying to steal the film “Precious”, said he lent his support to the movie with Oprah in order to give it more traction than it had with just Daniels. When Perry went to buy “Precious,” he became frustrated when the cost had increased from the original quote.
“Tyler shared that by the time he got to Mo’Nique … not promoting the movie, he was fed up, so it didn’t really matter to him why she didn’t do it,” Hicks says. “What mattered to him was that he was trying to form this relationship with Lionsgate [the distributor of “Precious”]. This was something he took to them and now the movie cost more than he expected. And the relationship he was having with Lee was going awry and now [Mo’Nique’s] not promoting the movie.”
Later in the live stream, Mo’Nique said she and Perry discussed the pay of Black Hollywood actresses, which the comedian said left Perry astounded.
“‘I was shocked to know what Taraji P. Henson’s quote is and what Octavia [Spencer’s] quote is. I was shocked to know how low their quotes are,'” Mo’Nique recalls Perry telling her. “I then said, ‘Well Tyler, you’re in the position to pay us fairly. See, the [$3 million-$5 million Oscar nomination and $6 million-$8 million Oscar win] quotes you gave us, they were right, but that’s what our white sisters are getting. So, now you’re in the position to pay us fairly.’
“‘See, Taraji P. Henson, in my humble opinion, she should be the highest paid in Hollywood. Or one of them, because this sister broke records around the world,'” Mo’Nique says she told Perry. “And then what Tyler Perry said was, ‘I’m paying Taraji more than she’s ever made’ and then I said, ‘But are you paying her fairly?'”
