Mo’Nique: Lee Daniels ‘had a problem’ with my Oscars speech
Last month, The Hollywood Reporter published an interview with actress and comedienne Mo’Nique in which she addressed being told she was blackballed in Hollywood.
Last month, The Hollywood Reporter published an interview with actress and comedienne Mo'Nique in which she addressed being told she was blackballed in Hollywood.
"Mo'Nique, you've been blackballed," the actress said director Lee Daniels told her in a phone call. Daniels directed "Precious," the movie for which Mo'Nique won her Academy Award. When she inquired why she'd apparently been blackballed, Daniels said because she "didn't play the game," and offered no further explanation.
Daniels spoke to CNN about Mo'Nique's alleged blacklisting on Wed. Feb. 25.
"We were on the campaign, and she was making unreasonable demands," Daniels said. In addition, he went on, Hollywood didn't respond well to the fact that she didn't thank the producers or the studio in her Oscar acceptance speech.
The demands Mo'Nique made during the "Precious" campaign, she told CNN on Feb. 26, were actually a request to be compensated for her time. Executives wanted Mo'Nique, who played Mary in "Precious," to fly out to France for the Cannes Film Festival. However, Mo'Nique told CNN's Don Lemon that the festival fell during a brief moment of downtime while Mo'Nique was between time-consuming gigs.
"When they called I had a couple days just downtime. I wanted to spend that with my husband and my kids." Mo'Nique has repeatedly said she makes it a practice to put her family first.
Her response to being blackballed is that the allegation simply is not true. Monday morning she told "Good Morning America," "I don't think that Hollywood has turned its nose up to me. I think that those are feelings that Mr. Daniels is having."
And as for her unthankful Academy Award acceptance speech, Mo'Nique told "GMA," "it had nothing to do with the producers, nor the studio. Mr. Daniels had a problem that I didn't say his name the night of the Oscar awards."
Though the two appear to be feuding, Daniels said he loved Mo'Nique and that she was a brilliant actress during his late February CNN interview.