Mo'Nique Says Director Lee Daniels Told Her She Was 'Blackballed' After Winning Oscar

Jason Merritt/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Many thought that after Mo’Nique won the Oscar for her role in Precious her career would skyrocket, but in fact the opposite happened. The comedian says she finally figured out why when she spoke with the film’s director, Lee Daniels.

“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,'” she tells The Hollywood Reporter. “And I said, ‘I’ve been blackballed? Why have I been blackballed?’ And he said, ‘Because you didn’t play the game.’ And I said, ‘Well, what game is that?’ And he gave me no response.”

Mo’Nique also recalled that she received “a lot of criticism [during the 2010 awards season] because people felt like I wasn’t campaigning. …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.'”

Mo’Nique also noted that she had a reputation of being “difficult” and “tacky.”

“One of the networks said to [Lee] that I was ‘really difficult to work with.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s funny, because I’ve never even worked with them, but OK.'”

Still, Mo’Nique said winning the coveted trophy did change her life in other ways.

“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 — that I had to be in control of changing my life,” she explained. “…It should come with more respect, more choices and more money. It should, and it normally does. Hattie [McDaniel] said, ‘After I won that award, it was as if I had done something wrong.’ It was the same with me. I thought, once you won the award, that’s the top prize — and so you’re supposed to be treated as if you got the top prize.”

“I respect everyone — but we over-respect no one,” she added.

In response, Daniels, who is now gaining new attention thanks to his hit TV show, Empire, issued a statement. “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,” he said. “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.”


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