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Off the top of your head, when is the last time you saw Mo’Nique since her 2010 Oscar-winning breakthrough performance in Precious?

Yeah, didn’t think so. Reportedly, there is a very good reason for that.

The 47-year-old comedienne tells The Hollywood Reporter in the upcoming Feb. 27 issue that she was set to have roles in surprise hit, The Butler as well as current ratings magnet Empire, but Lee Daniels, the brainchild behind both works told her the industry was no longer any country for her and all the opportunities “all just went away.”

“I got a phone call from Lee Daniels…And he said to me, ‘Mo’Nique, you’ve been blackballed.’ I said, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘Because you didn’t play the game,'” she remembers. “I said, ‘Well, what game is that?'” she continued. “He gave me no response.”

Daniels did, however, give a response to The Hollywood Reporter saying, “Mo’Nique is a creative force to be reckoned with. Her demands through Precious were not always in line with the campaign. This soured her relationship with the Hollywood community. I consider her a friend. I have and will always think of her for parts that we can collaborate on, however the consensus among the creative teams and powers thus far were to go another way with these roles.”

It is speculated that her travels leading up to her Academy Award spurned everyone to turn their backs on her, seeing that she noticeably did not campaign for the Oscar and famously thanked the powers that be “for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics.”

Mo’Nique goes to admit that she’s “difficult,” and/or “tactless” but bigs up her better half with, “That’s why I have my beautiful husband because he’s so full of tact. I’m just a girl from Baltimore. But being from that place, you learn not to let anybody take advantage of you.”

Only time will tell if Mo is able to rise from her Hollywood purgatory. In the meantime, relive her former glory with her 2010 Best Supporting Actress acceptance speech.

[E!]

Photo: WENN