Following the release of Mo’Nique‘s Netflix comedy special My Name is Mo’Nique, fans have been put on to some secrets from the comedian’s past.
During the standup special released Tuesday, the Baltimore native recalls how she revealed to her late grandmother MiMi about being afraid to live in her truth, fearing it would damage her relationship with the woman who was so dear to her heart.
“I adored how she adored me. When we would walk into the store, if I was on a magazine cover, she made sure everybody in that f**king store knew that I was her grandchild, and I was her prize,” she recounts in the special. “So I couldn’t tell my grandmother my secret thoughts and my fantasies because I didn’t want her to love me privately, and I did not want her to leave this Earth thinking that she was a failure.”
She continued: “But I kept that secret, and I promised myself I wouldn’t ever tell anyone that. I would take that to my grave, because I saw how they treated the people in my family with that disease — because they made us believe it was a disease.”
Things turned around when she met the future father to her twin boys Jonathan and David, adding that she was terrified to tell her husband about her secret desires.
“I’m so scared, because I’m saying, ‘Please, when I tell you, don’t walk away from me — because it’ll take my breath away. But I gotta tell you, because you know me, you know when something ain’t right?’ And something hadn’t been right for years. But because I’m a celebrity, a star, I could mask it. I could mask it with my pretty things. But that night, the mask had to come off.”
“I must keep it a fantasy because I know me, and they would talk about me in the LGBTQ community,” she continued. “They would talk about me, and they would say that bitch fights for equality, but that bitch ain’t willing to give equality.”
The Precious star has never shied away from divulging details about her marriage with Sidney Hicks, her husband of 17 years. But now she is opening up about why she is rethinking her open marriage agreement.
In a recent interview, the Oscar winner said that her husband, who is the mother to her 17-year-old twin sons is “the best manager that I’ve ever had, and I’ve had the big boys,” adding that she and her husband have been practically inseparable since they wed in 2006.
When they married, they were both candid about being in an open relationship, which she dished in her podcast Mo’Nique & Sidney Open Relationship. But now she is changing her tune.
“Life began to happen. I began to see a strength I had never seen before. He loved me at my worst,” she said. “I didn’t want to sacrifice that just for a lay. So I grew out of that.”
The Queens of Comedy actress, whose latest Netflix special is set to debut April 4, first spoke up at her open marriage during an Essence interview the same year she wed. Ten years later, during an interview with The New York Times, she doubled down on her choice to be in an open relationship, stating that “people didn’t understand.”
“They thought it was about swinging and orgies, and then there were individuals who are vehement about God, and they were bringing God into their opinions,” she said at the time. “People lost their minds, and the criticism has never let up.”
