Lee Daniels believes the only person to blame for Mo’Nique‘s career troubles is Mo’Nique.
The comedian, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Daniels’ “Precious,” previously slammed the director, along with Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, for allegedly blackballing her from Hollywood and paying her unfairly for her work on the film, an accusation all involved have vehemently denied — and one that Daniels finds incredibly offensive.
“I fought hard for her to get that job. I wanted her to get that job. And she was paid her money,” Daniels, 58, told “Raq Rants” on Friday. “She was paid the money for the budget that we had. And for her to badmouth myself and Tyler and Oprah is disrespectful and it’s wrong. She’s out of pocket.
She’s really wrong.”
He added, “I respect her [as an] actor because she gave me her soul, but I gave her mysoul. And for that she was given the Golden Globe and the Academy Award … and it breaks my heart that she feels that we blackballed her. No one blackballed her. Mo’Nique blackballed her. And for her to continue to speak about Oprah and myself and Tyler is disrespectful.”
In February 2015, Mo’Nique lamented to The Hollywood Reporter, “I got a phone call from Lee Daniels maybe six or seven months ago, and he said to me, ‘Mo’Nique, you’ve been blackballed.’ And I said, ‘I’ve been blackballed? Why have I been blackballed?’ And he said, ‘Because you didn’t play the game.’ ”
Mo’Nique reportedly refused to campaign for “Precious” during awards season despite taking home the Golden Globe and Academy Award for her role as Mary Lee Johnston, the abusive mother of the titular character.
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