Mo'Nique says Oprah Winfrey stole movie roles from her and demands a public apology amid their 15-year feud
Mo'Nique addressed her 15-year-long feud with Oprah Winfrey on the "Club Shay Shay" podcast.
Mo'Nique accused Winfrey of stealing roles from her after she won her first Oscar.
She asked Winfrey to apologize for interviewing her estranged parents on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
Comedian Mo'Nique rekindled her yearslong feud with Oprah Winfrey, accusing her of stealing movie roles and blindsiding the "Precious" actor by interviewing her estranged parents on her show.
In 2019, Mo'Nique accused Winfrey, Tyler Perry, and Lee Daniels of having her blacklisted in Hollywood after she refused to participate in the Oscar campaign for the 2009 movie "Precious." Winfrey and Perry were producers for the film, while Daniels was the director.
Although Mo'Nique won the best supporting actress Oscar for the role, she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2015 that Daniels told her privately that she had been blackballed.
On Wednesday's episode of the "Club Shay Shay" podcast with Shannon Sharpe, Mo'Nique addressed her feud with the three American filmmakers and claimed that Winfrey took leading roles offered to her after the Oscar drama.
"Lee Daniels came out and said 'I did offer Monique 'The Butler,'' but as he said to me, he said 'Mo, at the time I didn't have no power, and I didn't have no money,'" Mo'Nique said. "So when Oprah said she wanted it, who played the lead role in 'The Butler?' Oprah Winfrey."
Mo'Nique said a similar thing happened with an unreleased Richard Pryor biopic.
Although Mo'Nique buried the hatchet with Daniels in 2022, she demanded an apology from Winfrey during the podcast. She also said Winfrey and Perry should appear on the podcast to address her claims.
"You've been unfair, you've been unjust, and you watched the black woman be thrown under the bus, and you said nothing," she said of Winfrey. "This woman has overstepped with me in so many ways."
"I'm not hurt personally. I'm hurt for our community," she told the podcast.
Mo'Nique said Oprah Winfrey didn't ask her before interviewing her estranged parents on her show
Mo'Nique also addressed the drama regarding her family's appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in 2010. In the episode, her eldest brother admitted to molesting Mo'Nique when she was seven and he was 13.
In 2023, Mo'Nique told The Hollywood Reporter that Winfrey told her that her brother would be on the show, not her estranged parents also, and avoided Mo'Nique's calls after the interview aired.
Mo'Nique said that she eventually confronted Winfrey at a party, and said Winfrey apologized and claimed that Mo'Nique's family showed up on the day unexpectedly.
Mo'Nique also told the "Club Shay Shay" podcast that her family also called the former "The View" co-host Barbara Walters to appear on the talk show before they spoke to Winfrey, but Walters rejected them.
"She said, 'Monique, I told your family I can't do that to you. I wouldn't do that to you. You just won that award. Why would I do that?'" Mo'Nique said of Walters, who died in December 2022.
Mo'Nique added that she would have shut down the Oprah interview if she knew her mother would be involved.
"We never talked about my mother being there," Mo'Nique said. "Oprah and I had a private conversation about our mothers. This is the part people don't know."
"I shared with Oprah Winfrey what we were going through and how I felt," she added. "But you don't tell me you have my mother and my father on your show, and you think that that's just OK?"
Representatives for Winfrey and Perry did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request to comment.
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