Academy Award winner Mo’Nique Hicks still hasn’t let that hurt go of allegedly being blackballed and missing out a spot of FOX’s surging Empire series.
In a new interview with Inside Edition, Mo’Nique left no stone unturned and revealed she was supposed to be Taraji P. Henson’s Cookie character.
Mo’Nique explained to INSIDE EDITION’s Les Trent that the show’s creator, Lee Daniels, who directed her in her Oscar winning role in Precious, wanted her to play Cookie.
“When he called me up, he offered me the role in Empire as Cookie,” she said.
Mo’Nique said Daniels even sent her a script.
Mo’Nique explained, “Maybe four days had gone by, and I hadn’t heard anything. So I’m trying to reach out to him to say, what time do I need to be in? Where do I need to be? When he finally returned the call, he says listen, the executives at Fox said that you’re difficult.”
Trent asked, “Mo’Nique are you difficult to work with? This is Lee Daniels, your friend, saying these things.”
“When I hear Mr. Daniels making those comments, he and I know that that’s not true,” she said.
Mo’Nique said her reputation for being difficult may have come from the fact that she wanted to be paid for promoting Precious at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009.
Lee Daniels told CNN, “There were demands that were made from her, on the Precious campaign that everyone knows about that hurt her.”
Mo’Nique said, “If you work a job Monday through Friday and you work 40 hours and then your boss says, ‘well I need you to come in on Saturday,’ do you do that for free, or is that considered overtime?”
“Do you think that there is a double standard when it comes to men and women?” Trent asked.
Mo’Nique replied, “Of course there is a double standard but it’s not just in this industry, that’s just life, period.”
So we ask you, fine readers of Hip-Hop Wired. When taking into consideration of Mo’nique’s exceptional ability, would she have been able to pull of the same performance as Taraji?
Watch the Inside Edition interview below and give us your opinions in the comment section.
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Photo: Derrick Salters/WENN.com
