Superstar comedienne Mo’Nique and her husband Sidney Hicks have a serious problem with the IRS. The pair was recently hit with a tax lien and a whopping $389,904.98 bill from the IRS for refusal to pay taxes. The agency claims that the couple owes $201,695.99 in back taxes for 2013 and another $188,208.99 for 2014. The government has threatened to seize their assets, which include a 10,600 square-foot home in Duluth, Georgia they bought for $2.8 million. The tax lien was filed in Gwinnett County, Georgia Superior court.
Since winning an Oscar for her role in the movie Precious, Mo’Nique has been passed over for major projects that included a role in the hit show “Empire”, The Butler and the upcoming Richard Pryor biopic where she was supposed to play the late comedian’s grandmother. All of this arose from a conversation she stated that she had with producer/director Lee Daniels who stated she was “blackballed” by Hollywood. According to Mo’Nique, “I got a phone call from Lee Daniels maybe six or seven months ago. And he said to me, ‘Mo’Nique, you’ve been blackballed.’ And I said, ‘I’ve been blackballed? Why have I been blackballed?’ And he said, ‘Because you didn’t play the game.'”
Mo’Nique claimed she was called tacky and tactless by Hollywood insiders because of her refusal to allow anyone to take advantage of her. Instead of her career taking off after her Oscar win, she found herself without serious work in the industry.
Last year, she made headlines when she stated that she and her husband were in an “open marriage” and that they allow each other to have different sex partners.
“When I say I’m in an open marriage, it was not my husband’s idea,” Mo’Nique said in the clip, which she filmed in her car. “Originally it was my idea because at the time when Sid and I got together 10 years ago — now keep in mind this was my best friend since I was 14 — but when we first got together I was still stuck in being famous and a celebrity and being a star, and I felt like I could have whatever I want. So I was still in an insecure place of, ‘I can have that, I can have that, I can have that.’ And because I was dealing with my best friend, my best friend said, ‘If that’s what you think you need, as your best friend, I don’t want to stand in the way of it.’”
