Interviewed by Dr. Ladel Lewis

Written by Shonell Bacon

Comedian and Oscar-winning actress Mo’Nique speaks straight with no chaser. Being bold and speaking your mind, especially while also being a Black woman, can make you a champion for sisterhood or a pariah to an industry that prefers you “know your place.”

No matter how she is perceived, however, Mo’Nique is exactly what we see and hear when we view her. “Who I am at my core is who I am on the surface,” she stated, adding, “I don’t know how to be anybody else other than Mo’Nique. I don’t know how to put on masks. I don’t know how to make pretend. I just know how to be me.” And in living in her truth, Mo’Nique is a hard-working mama who is about her family, her business, and her desire to unify and uplift other black women.

Living for Family

Being a wife and mother are Mo’Nique’s greatest joys. Sheer love exudes from her as she speaks of the love she has for her husband, manager, and business partner Sidney Hicks and her children, sons Shalon, Michael, and twins Jonathan and David. Like a starry-eyed schoolgirl, she recounted the history between her and Sidney, stating, “We have such an amazing love story.” The pair have been best friends since the 10th grade when they were 14 and sitting next to each other in class at Randallstown High School in Maryland. “Since we were 14,” she said, “I never saw him angry, and he’s always been very kind. I had never met anyone that kind.”

Now, 15 years into her marriage with Sidney, Mo’Nique feels like she’s living the fairy tale. When talking about being a mother, she stated, “I get to experience Mother’s Day … this beautiful family every day.” Not even a pandemic could shake the joy Mo’Nique has in spending time with her family. For some, having to stay inside so much would cause major cabin fever. However, for Mo’Nique and her family, they reveled in it. “We are homebodies,” she stated. “When they said we couldn’t go outside, we were like ‘What?’ because we don’t go outside. We are very comfortable at home, so it didn’t affect us. We enjoy home.”

Handling Her Business

Mo’Nique is as serious about her business as she is about her family. Her approach to the stage today illustrates it. Twenty-five years ago, while performing at the Uptown Comedy Club, Mo’Nique’s goal was to make her audience laugh. Now, she stated, “The entertainer I am has something to say.” Today, the stage represents a place to be real with the audience, to create an experience between her and them. “Let me introduce you to me, let me let you know me for real,” she described it. “And if we’re laughing while I’m on the stage, that’s beautiful. There have been times that we’ve cried together while I was on the stage, too. I love the freedom of the audience, that they allow me to be free in the sense that they allow the emotion to be free.”

That freedom is also reflected in how Mo’Nique and Sidney work together for her career. “I have been with the big boys in Hollywood,” Mo’Nique stated, “but it was my husband and my black attorney Ricky Anderson that negotiated the biggest deals of my career.” She remembers telling Sidney, “I know my worth,” and his response was, “Then let me do what I do.” Because, like Mo’Nique, Sidney was and is about his family, he handles every negotiation with the family’s best interests in mind. It was that focus that allowed him and Anderson to obtain the largest deal at the time in BET’s history for The Mo’Nique Show.

Mo’Nique also credits her marriage in creating balance in her family and work lives. “When I am home, I am home,” she said. “I am a wife and a mother. I’m at the baseball games, I am at the laser tag, we are out in the backyard cooking out, we’re in the pool.” But when she has to work, then she works. She’s never out of the loop, however. “Sid and I operate as one. If I’m not here, I am here. If he’s not here, he is here, and that’s the balance of it.” She tells other sisters in the business to be home when they are home. “Take off the celebrity cap and be what you are for your family when you need to be home.”

Uplifting the Sisterhood

Whether it’s family, business, or anything in between, Mo’Nique consistently embodies the goal of uplifting: uplifting her man and her sons, her business moves, and the sisterhood. This was seen in her case against Netflix. In 2020, a federal court allowed her lawsuit regarding racial and gender discrimination against Netflix to move forward. For Mo’Nique, this case is part of a larger issue, systemic racism, which, she stated,

I know the stories of the sisters who came before me and the ones who did stand up and did fight, and now we celebrate those women in their death. And we make movies about them and now the women that are playing them in the movies still aren’t getting paid fairly, so how do we keep that foolishness going? We have to get to a place where we are unafraid to just say no, I don’t know the outcome, I don’t have a crystal ball on it; however, what we do know is we stood up to it.

Her desire to stand with her sisters was prevalent in a recent Instagram post she shared about legendary R&B artist Anita Baker. Last March, Baker asked her fans to stop promoting, buying, and streaming her music as she was trying to reclaim her masters from labels. Although, as Monique said, we all know that things happen when Black people show up in big ways, “For some reason, to get behind a black woman is challenging even when we know it’s right,” but, she argued, “when it’s your turn, wouldn’t you want them to stand with you? We have to lose that mentality that ‘I got mine, you got yours to get.’ No, because if I don’t have mine, got damn it, don’t nobody have none of it.” By standing for those who paved the way, “we truly let them rest for the sacrifices they have made.” And if you think your one voice doesn’t matter, Mo’Nique is quick to say that one voice multiplied by 10 million other voices “is a mighty got damn roar when we stand.”

Moving Forward

At 53, Mo’Nique is aiming to be better with time. “I’ve watched so many women in my family not take advantage of getting better, and I want to give my children something different than my mother gave me. I want to do something different for my grandchildren than my grandmother gave to me. I want to be better with my attitude, my spirituality, my friendships, and sisterhood.”

Good health is a priority for Mo’Nique. She remembered when Sidney once asked how much she weighed, and too embarrassed to tell the truth, she lied, giving him a smaller number. His response? “That’s too much, and I want you for a lifetime.” Blown away by the love she felt in that statement, she thought, Okay then, I have to do something because I want him for a lifetime, too. Mo’Nique admits that as a food junkie, this has been one of the hardest challenges of her life, but she’s fighting for more than her good health, as she added, “I’m about to become a grandmother, so I want to be able to run and race my grandbaby, got damn it, and win for real!”

Being better also has Mo’Nique looking at her future, to which she said she is working on the biggest project of her life, “and that’s to be the matriarch of my family. When I leave here, and my family speaks of me, I want them to speak of me with pride and an honor and not because of what I did on camera but because of who I was to my family.”

When asked about a quote that Mo’Nique lives by, it’s not surprising it’s one that came from her husband: “Every day could be a great day, and if you don’t believe me, try missing one of them.” Just seeing how Mo’Nique lives her life out loud is a testament to how she embraces each day as if it could be great.

“Keep your eyes peeled,” Mo’Nique says for her future projects. To do so, follow her on Instagram (@therealmoworldwide) and her OnlyFans page (https://onlyfans.com/therealmoworldwide).

Unapologetically strong. Unapologetically soft. Unapologetic to be a black woman.

-Mo’Nique’s definition of a Courageous Woman-

Give yourself your best because everybody around you will reap the benefits of that. I know it’s working for me.

-Advice from Mo’Nique-