Mo'Nique


Monique Angela Hicks, known professionally as Mo'Nique, is an American comedian and Academy Award winning actress. She first gained fame as a member of The Queens of Comedy, as well as her role as Nicole "Nikki" Parker in the UPN series The Parkers while making a name as a stand-up comedian hosting a variety of venues, including Showtime at the Apollo. Mo'Nique transitioned to film with roles in such films as Phat Girlz and Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins. In 2002, she, along with several other female comedians, earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Comedy Album.
In 2009, she garnered critical acclaim for her performance in the film Precious and won numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She hosted The Mo'Nique Show, a late-night talk show that premiered in 2009 on BET; it was cancelled in 2011. In 2015, she drew rave reviews for her performance as Ma Rainey in the HBO biopic Bessie and earned a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.

Early life

Mo'Nique was born on December 11, 1967, in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of engineer Alice Imes and drug counselor Steven Imes, Jr. She is the youngest of four children. Mo'Nique graduated from Milford Mill High School in Baltimore County in 1985 and attended Morgan State University. She is a 1987 graduate of the Broadcasting Institute of Maryland.
Before she was an actress, Monique worked as a customer service representative at the phone company MCI in Hunt Valley, Maryland. She got her start in comedy at the downtown Baltimore Comedy Factory Outlet when her brother Steve dared her to perform at an open mic night.
During a 2008 Essence magazine interview, Mo'Nique revealed that she was sexually abused by her brother Gerald from ages 7–11; he went on to sexually abuse another girl and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. After her twin boys were born in 2005, Mo'Nique cut off all contact with Gerald. On April 19, 2010, he admitted on Oprah to sexually abusing her over several years. He also was abused by family members and struggled with substance abuse.

Career

Television roles

Mo'Nique portrayed Nicole "Nikki" Parker on the UPN television series The Parkers from 1999 to 2004. She was featured on many leading stand-up venues such as Showtime at the Apollo, Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam, and Thank God You're Here. Monique tackles race issues in her stand up routines, for instance at the Montreal Just For Laugh Festival in 2000: white and black people, we're just mad at each other, we don't know why we're mad at each other. We're not each other's enemy. We're not the enemy. It's the Chinese people we need to watch out for".
She was also named hostess of Showtime at the Apollo. She was the hostess and executive producer of Mo'Nique's Fat Chance, a beauty pageant for plus-sized women, on the Oxygen cable network. She hosted the first season of on VH1 where she crowned Saaphyri as the winner.
Mo'Nique's 2007 documentary I Coulda Been Your Cellmate! focuses on incarcerated women. In interviews with individual women, she touches on the common factors that bring many women into the penal system. The documentary was related to her filming a comedy special at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, also known as The Farm. In 2007, she had a guest-starring role on the hit television series Ugly Betty as L'Amanda, Mode's weekend security guard.
She starred in The Mo'Nique Show, her own late-night talk show. Taped in Atlanta, the show premiered October 5, 2009, on BET.

Film and video career

Mo'Nique has had a number of supporting roles in film. She appeared in the 2008 comedy film, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins with Martin Lawrence. She has had roles in Beerfest, 3 Strikes, Two Can Play That Game, Half Past Dead, and Soul Plane. She voiced a character in ', but her role was cut from the movie.
In 2005, Mo'Nique played a significant role in Tony Scott's thriller Domino, co-starring Keira Knightley and Mickey Rourke. In 2006, Mo'Nique was cast as the lead in Phat Girlz, a comedy about an aspiring fashion designer struggling to find love and acceptance. The film was met with lukewarm response from critics and fans. It did earn back its $3 million production cost in its first weekend of release.
She was featured in soul singer Anthony Hamilton's video "Sista Big Bones", the second single from his album Ain't Nobody Worryin. She hosted the 2003 and 2004 BET Awards and appeared as the host again for the 2007 BET Awards. She received positive responses in July 2004 with her opening performance of Beyoncé's single "Crazy in Love" In 2007, she performed Beyoncé's "Déjà Vu".
In 2008, Mo'Nique stated on Oprah Winfrey Show that Martin Lawrence gave her invaluable advice about show business: "He pulled me to the side and he said, 'Listen, don't ever let them tell you what you can't have.' Since that day, I've made some of the best deals I've ever made in my career because it keeps ringing in my head...It will stay with me forever."
In 2009, Mo'Nique appeared in the film , directed by Lee Daniels, portraying an inner-city teenager's abusive mother. She won the Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize for her performance in the film. The African-American Film Critics Association awarded Mo'Nique with the Best Supporting Actress Award in December 2009. It also announced that Mo'Nique received the AAFCA's first ever unanimous vote in an acting category. Moreover, she received Best Supporting Actress awards from the Stockholm International Film Festival, the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Boston Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Online, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association, the Las Vegas Film Critics Society, the Utah Film Critics Association, the Detroit Film Critics Society, the Indiana Film Critics Association, the Online Film Critics Society, the National Society of Film Critics Awards, the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, and the Critics Choice Awards. Time magazine ranked Mo'Nique's outstanding performance as the Best Female Performance of 2009. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the Independent Spirit Award, and the BAFTA Award.
In November 2009, Mo'Nique said, "I own the rights to Hattie McDaniel's life story, and I can't wait to tell that story because that woman was absolutely amazing. She had to stand up to the adversity of black and white at a time when we really weren't accepted. Mr. Lee Daniels is going to direct it, of course, and I'm going to be Miss Hattie McDaniel. I really hope I can do that woman justice."
In 2014, Mo'Nique starred in Patrik-Ian Polk's drama film Blackbird as Claire Rousseau. Her last role was in 2016. In May 2017, she said Lee Daniels, Oprah Winfrey, and Tyler Perry had been blackballing her ever since she did not promote Precious'' in 2009.

Theater

Mo'Nique's first play was Eve Ensler's Obie Award-winning production of The Vagina Monologues in March 2002. Mo'Nique, Ella Joyce ; Wendy Raquel Robinson and Vanessa Bell Calloway, were the first all black celebrity cast to perform The Vagina Monologues. Produced by YYP & Associates, the show was directed by playwright and director Yetta Young as well as co-produced by Kellie R. Griffin, Lisa D. Washington and Anita Cal.

Books and radio

Mo'Nique is the author of the best-selling book Skinny Women Are Evil: Notes of a Bigg Girl in a Small-Minded World. She also released a 2006 cookbook called Skinny Cooks Can't Be Trusted.
Mo'nique was part of the Washington, D.C., WHUR radio show with George Wilborn.
In 2006, she occasionally filled in for afternoon personality Michael Baisden when his contract with ABC Radio was in the process of getting renewed.
In 2008, Radio One signed her to her own radio show: Mo'Nique in the Afternoon, which premiered on several Radio One-owned Urban Adult Contemporary-formatted R&B/soul radio stations in July 2008. It mainly aired on these stations that had a local lineup because some Radio One stations did not carry it due to their contracts with Michael Baisden. The show lasted until March 18, 2009, when Mo'Nique decided to leave to "further her career in television, film, and comedy."

Personal life

Mo'Nique was briefly engaged to accountant Kenny Mung.
From 1997 to 2001, she was married to Mark Jackson.
Mo'Nique gave birth to twin sons Jonathan and David Hicks in October 2005, two months early. In 2006, she married their father Sidney Hicks. In a New York Times profile, she mentions that she and Hicks have an open marriage:
She repeated this view later on The Oprah Winfrey Show when she said that, in her prior marriages, she was constantly searching for "that extra oomph". Mo'Nique explained,
When I said I had an open marriage, people automatically jumped to sex. They automatically went there. But I've been best friends with my husband since we were 14 years old. When we say open, we're very honest. There are no secrets. Oftentimes you have people that are married, but they're strangers, and we refuse to be those people.

She concluded, "I've had to sneak and I've had to lie, and I don't want to do that any more. But my husband is so awesome and so fine and so—oh, girl...No other man can compare".

Filmography

Film

Television

Residency show