Oscar-winning actress Mo’Nique is raining insults down on longtime adversary Oprah Winfrey once again, this time by accusing the billionaire media maven of failing The Color Purple cast and crew.
Mo’Nique, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for 2008’s Precious film that Winfrey also produced, has been publicly feuding with her for more than a decade about inadequate treatment and compensation on that set.
The topic reared its head again on the set of The Color Purple when Oscar-nominated actress Henson went public with complaints about lack of food in trailers, inadequate trailers and having to drive herself to the set every day.
“Everything was, ‘Didn’t I champion for y’all?’ I was like, ‘Stop it. You didn’t champion for those Black women, for our sisters,” Mo’Nique said in a recent interview with The Root.
“What [she] did was, ‘We can treat them like we always treat them, who gon’ check me boo? I’m Oprah Winfrey,’” she continued. “You know everything should have been done when you showed up…Now when you hear our beautiful sisters saying, ‘yeah but it got fixed,’ it’s like we’re making it worse.”
The comedic actress added, “So, when Oprah Winfrey sits at the helm and Taraji P. Henson says, ‘It’s an honor that we were hand-picked for this movie,’ Well, if they were hand-picked for that movie, those women should have been taken care of from the moment go.”
Mo’Nique’s husband, Sidney Hicks, took the baton and also lashed out at Winfrey, who is known mononomously as Oprah.
“If you look up the title of ‘producer,’ you’ll find that what Oprah fixed should have already been prepared when they got there. You shouldn’t have to fix that because it should have already been done.”
“Oprah got caught,” Mo’Nique quickly added in response to her husband’s remark. “That’s what happened.”
Oprah defended herself against the onrush of negative press while on the Golden Globe red carpet.
“Everything got handled,” she said of issues on set. “It’s so disturbing to me because why is my name even in this conversation? I’ve been the champion for everybody.”
