After crusading for her right to get fair pay for more than a year, Mo’Nique and her husband Sydney Hicks are exposing Black Hollywood again — this time singling out Tyler Perry in the process.
Secretly recorded phone calls to the hit filmmaker were released by Rolling Out Tuesday, June 25 reveal Perry sided with Mo’Nique on many of her claims, including her reputation as being difficult to work with, which he said was unfair.
Such claims emerged after Mo’Nique filmed “Precious,” the 2009 drama that earned her an Oscar but that she refused to travel internationally to promote since she wasn’t being compensated. The comic has said she was only paid $50,000 for the Lee Daniels-directed indie flick and Perry vowed to make things right.
“This is Tyler Perry talking. I’m gonna call and find out what money is coming in from Precious, and I’m going to send that to you,” he says in the audio. “I’m going to send that over to you. Whatever it is, I’m gonna send it to you.”
He later said the studio should have paid the star for promotion at Cannes Film Festival.
Mo’Nique had also lashed out at Perry for stepping away from his Madea character, who she said is “real to her gut,” and becoming “Tyler Perry the billionaire.”
“Madea [would] make Tyler’s ass step his ass up. I’m talking to Madea right now,” Mo’Nique said. “Madea, I need you to pull Tyler’s ass in the back and say, ‘Baby, you watching this sister and her family starve. You’re watching it. What do you want me to do? Listen, don’t you play with that baby like that. You know the s— y’all did to her was wrong. You gave $400K – $500K to charity and you know that b—- got $50K. Where’s my pistol? Where’s my pistol? Cause I need to shoot this n—a. Now I’m not going to kill him, I’m going to shoot him in his ass to let him know Madea’s mad as s— right now.'”
Mo’Nique first made the phone call public on in May of last year, when she exposed Perry, Daniels and Oprah Winfrey for allegedly blackballing her in Hollywood.
Yet as the snippets made their way around the interwebs of the chat, folks had differing responses.
“You have all my respect @moworldwide. I’m speechless…”
“Those Tyler Perry calls proves… what now?!? Everybody knows it was wrong and she should have gotten the money for the overseas stuff but that WASNT IN THE CONTRACT! Mo’nique and Sidney are messy and bad business. Period!”
“A lot of negroes owe @moworldwide an apology. Some like Jawn Murray and others attacked her viciously. Blacklisting her and going after her right here @Twitter and Black sisters stood by in silencec—cor piled on. When will we learnc— we are all we have. ”
“Mo’Nique and her ‘Daddy’ really gotta find a more professional way to have conversations with persons. They basically forced the answers they wanted out of Tyler Perry.”
