By: Amanda Anderson-Niles
Mo’Nique recently told the Hollywood Reporter that “Empire” creator Lee Daniels told her she had been blackballed, but the Oscar-winning actress wasn’t sure what caused the industry to withdraw support.
But according to a former BET employee, it’s plausible she was blackballed because of her husband Sidney.
Sian Pierre was hired by BET to do a special on the designer who designed Mo’Nique’s original dress for the Oscars, but recalls the actress’ husband calling to go off on him because he heard the dress would be revealed during the television special.
Pierre writes:
On Tuesday afternoon, my phone rang. “Hi, this is Sidney. Who am I speaking with?” I had no idea who Sidney could be, I had no friends or work associates with the name. Before I could even finish my name, he began screaming and immediately it clicked. “ARE YOU THE ONE WHO TRIED TO SHOW MO’NIQUE’S FUC*ING OSCAR DRESS ON TV?! ARE YOU THE PRODUCER?! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? I WILL GET YOU FIRED WHEN I TALK TO YOUR FUC*ING BOSS.”
I hate when people scream at me.
And I especially hate being blamed for a wrong that I never committed. After all, no one – not me or Tom Platt – wanted to show Mo’Nique’s dress. The story, as agreed upon by me and Platt, was to showcase the relatively unknown designers behind the dress.
I took a breath and responded with something like “First of all, Sidney. Don’t scream at me. Tom and I never planned on actually shooting the dress, as the story isn’t about your wife, it’s about the designers who are dressing her.” After a five minute back and forth, which was part-shouting match part macho ball-grabbing on his part, I was over dealing with Sidney, Mo’Nique’s nasty, mean husband. He assured me that he knew “Reggie Hudlin (the President of BET at the time) and Debra Lee (its CEO),” and that Mo’Nique was major at the network (she soon hosted her own late-night show) and that I was “f*cking with the wrong one.” And so, with my co-workers staring at me in horror, I gave him my boss’s number, telling Hicks “Feel free to talk to him, but I’m sure he’ll tell you the same thing, which, as I mentioned before, is that WE NEVER PLANNED ON SHOWING HER DRESS.”
And that should give you a micro-hint at the macro problem of why no one wants to work with Mo’Nique. Because aside from “not playing the game,” she has a non-professional husband who does all of her dealings. And, frankly, Sidney is not someone anyone wants to actually deal with. So while playing the game would be helpful, being nice (and informed) would probably help too. I hope she gets her chance for a renaissance in an unforgiving Hollywood, but I also hope she (and Sidney) have changed the tune.
Mo’Nique ended up wearing Tadashi Shoji to the event. And I always believed that Sidney and she cancelled on wearing the Platts on account of the BET interview. I’ll never know for sure.
Almost everybody on this site called it….the hubby’s got to go if she has a pray of salvaging what’s left of her career.
She ain’t going to let that man go. He’s her whole life. Sad, I know.
welp
This sounds about right. There were reports about him being terrible around the time she won the Oscar. I hope she wakes up one day and realizes he can’t possibly love her and ruin her at the same time. He’s using her.
I doubt it. She still thinks it’s because she’s black and didn’t play politics. She’s clueless.
She’s just happy to have a man. She made all those skinny b*tches jokes because she really hated being fat and thought she wasn’t good enough to get a man. So she’s desperate to keep him.
There it is. Well no sympathy here. I like Mo’Nique but she should have fired him a long time ago.
Cosign.
I side eyed him when she said he told her she needs to lose a lot of weight but I never see or him about him working out with her. Oh and to top it off, he demanded they have an open marriage. LOL.
Then he’s a terrible manager. These celebs need to understand sometimes it’s just best you don’t do business with your spouse.
Tea confirmed!!
She’s dumb for staying with this man. He has taken the best moment in her career and turned it into a blacklisting. Terrible management.
Monique husband messed her up everybody knows black actors have a very short leash in Hollywood they will blackball your a-s for anything. White actors can be child molesters, drug addicts and do anything and still get jobs. No it’s not fair but she should have taken advantage of the chance she had better.
Well we damn sure called it. Mo’Nique has very low self esteem due to her weight problems. She was just so happy to have a man interested in her that she lets him completely control her. When it’s all said and done she will regret giving him so much power over her life.
Some people did say her husband was the one who told her she should be paid to promote Precious and walk the red carpet. It just seemed so juvenile because it’s widely known that celebs don’t get paid to walk the red carpet during Oscars campaigning. They are usually compensated by gift bags and promotion. I really hope Mo can eventually see where she messed up and find a better manager.
Well she’s going to keep letting him manage her, so no sympathy from me.
I’m sorry but Sidney would have to go. It seems that every since they got married, she has been losing on everything. She was on air and right in the middle of broadcasting, they shut her show down. She never came back and they had 3 more hours to go. She was on late night and they canceled that. She hasn’t been on TV or film since Precious and it’s because of him. Hubby would have to go home and just be the husband. She needs a real manager.
I hate to hear this ish but I called it when it was all going down. I knew it had to be her man because Mo’Nique was well loved before him.