Mo’Nique: Lee Daniels Said I Was ‘Blackballed’ In Hollywood

Wondering where Mo’Nique (real name Monique Angela Hicks) has been, since snagging her 2010 Oscar? Welp, according to the actress/comedian, since her memorable Oscar night, things haven’t been as upbeat as expected. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Mo’Nique chats about her memories of her own Oscar night and the surprising turn her career has taken since. She also reveals that director Lee Daniels informed her that she’d been ‘blackballed’. Peep a few excerpts.

Not campaigning for her Oscar nomination: 

You know, I received a lot of criticism [around the 2010 awards season] because people felt like I wasn’t campaigning. Remember that? (Laughs.) The things people were writing and saying, it was mind-blowing. But what I was saying was, “You want me to campaign for an award — and I say this with all the humility in the world — but you want me to campaign for an award that I didn’t ask for.” So when I’m in Utah at the Sundance Festival, and an Asian brother comes up to me and breaks down in my arms, and says, “Mo’Nique, I am Mary Jones,” do you know that’s the biggest award you could receive? It had nothing to do with a trophy. If people want to say I didn’t campaign because I took my family first? I’ll accept that.

If winning an Oscar has changed her life: 

I get asked that question a lot: How did the Oscar change my life? What it did was that it gave me a new reality. And it let me know that an award wasn’t going to change my life —

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