Mo’Nique & Steve Harvey Argue About Her Being 'Blackballed' By Hollywood

"Sister" Mo'Nique and "brother" Steve Harvey surely fight like siblings.

On Wednesday's (February 13) episode of the Steve Show, the long-time friends had quite the heated discussion about Mo'Nique's alleged blackballing by Hollywood following her Academy Award in 2010, and her infamous Netflix boycott.

Steve came out the gate swinging, beginning the discussion by asking her why she believes she's been labeled as "difficult."

"I said one word, and that was 'no,' Mo'Nique explained. "I said no to some powerful people — I said no to Oprah Winfrey, I said no Tyler Perry, I said no to Lee Daniels and I said no to Lionsgate. The difficulty came when people that look like me, like Oprah, Tyler, Lee Daniels — and I gotta put my brother Steve [Harvey] on the list — y’all knew I was not wrong. Each one of you said to me, 'Mo’Nique you’re not wrong.'"

"When you went on the air and said, 'My sister burned too many bridges and there’s nothing I can do for her now,' do you know how hurt I was?" she asked before Steve pushed back. "You and I had this conversation," he replied. "I thought you went about it wrong. I felt you had done yourself a disservice by the way you chose to go about it." Steve then detailed how he disagreed with how she publicly addressed her issues with Oprah, Tyler, Lee.

As fans know, during one of Mo'Nique's stand-up comedy shows in 2017 she publicly accused the Hollywood heavyweights of blackballing her. The claim came seven years after she refused to campaign for her role in Precious (which earned her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress) during awards season. That decision, along with some other alleged diva behavior, led to her being called out by Lee, who openly criticized her for her "demands" back in 2015. Mo'Nique's issues with Hollywood don't end there, in January 2018 Mo'Nique called for a Netflix boycott "for gender bias and color bias" after the streaming service offered her $500,000 for a comedy special despite paying her fellow comedians like Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, and Amy Schumer, multi-million dollar payouts.

While speaking with Steve, Mo'Nique addressed both situations, saying she lost a lot of opportunities following both situations. She added that she was hurt by the fact that she was forced to stand alone during both incidents because other prominent African Americans in the industry, including Steve, refused to stand by her publicly. "When you called me with the morning show on the phone, I said to you, 'Steve, my family is suffering behind this and y’all know I did nothing wrong. My husband did nothing wrong.' But none of y’all in real time was strong enough to go public and say, 'We can’t throw our sister under the bus,'" she explained.

After admitting that he should have reached out to her in her time of need, Steve offered a solution. "What I want, really, is for you to come through because I know who you really are. I hate what’s happening to you. I hate what they’re saying that’s not true," he said. "I want them to know that you’re caring, that you’re a great mother, that you’re an incredible talent. I don’t like the fact that you’ve been blackballed. You’re too talented to have to worry about all this, 'Where’s the next [paycheck] coming from?' [...] What we need to do to [is] move forward and fix this."

Steve then suggested a way all parties involved could move forward, saying, "These people owe you an apology. You owe those people an apology. Then we could move forward [...] I’m going to try and arrange — I’m going to do my best — to get the conversations that need to be had between you and these people so you can hear from them."

"I’m going to then ask them will they say it publicly, for the benefit of everybody, so you can get the release that you need," he continued. "Then I’m going to ask you to tell these people and apologize for some bashing [that you did]. When everybody can come to that, that’s a chance for us to move [forward]."

Watch Mo'Nique and Steve's full interview below!

Photo: Getty Images


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