Mo’Nique and Netflix are friends again. The comedienne and actress announced that she will be filming her next stand-up special with the streamer, just weeks after she settled a lawsuit with the company over racial and gender bias. Mo’Nique revealed news of the special, and a new Netflix film, on Tuesday with a video posted to the streamer’s Twitter account.
“Can y’all believe this shit? I done came on home to Netflix,” she declared with a laugh. “I’m so excited to share that I’ll be shooting my first Netflix comedy special. Oh, and in case you didn’t hear, I’m also reuniting with my friend, my brother, director Mr. Lee Daniels on the Netflix film The Deliverance.”
Indeed, the announcement is somewhat of a surprising development: the Oscar-winning star has publicly criticized Netflix since 2018 and called for a boycott after the company offered her only $500,000 for her special, a number she alleges was discriminatory when compared to the multi-million dollar fees paid to other comedians. In 2019, she filed a lawsuit against Netflix for racial and gender discrimination.
“When we asked Netflix to explain the difference — why the money was so different — they said, ‘Well, we believe that’s what Mo’Nique will bring,’” she said in a video in 2018 calling for a boycott. “We said, ‘Well, what about my resume?’ They said, ‘We don’t go off of resumes.’ Then we asked them, ‘What was it about Amy Schumer?’ and they said, ‘Well, she sold out Madison Square Garden twice and she had a big movie over the summer.’ Is that not Amy Schumer’s resume? And then Netflix said, ‘By the way, we believe Mo’Nique is a legend, too.’ Why shouldn’t I get what the legends are getting?
She added that Schumer had also rejected her own initial offer of $11 million from Netflix due to its disparity with her male counterparts, to which the streamer reconsidered and offered an additional $2 million. After Mo’Nique went public, Wanda Sykes said that she rejected an offer that was less than half of what Mo’Nique was offered. The messy history, though, is ostensibly behind her and the streaming giant now that the lawsuit has been settled (terms of the settlement were not public).
The news also affirms another reconciliation: Mo’Nique made up with Daniels earlier this year, ending a 13-year-long feud between the two longtime friends and collaborators. Daniels directed Mo’Nique in her Oscar-winning role in Precious, before he allegedly blackballed the actress over disagreements about her promotional duties for the film.
Mo’Nique’s special will film in Atlanta later this year.
