NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 29: Actress Mo'Nique (L) and husband Sidney Hicks arrive for the New York screening of "Bessie" held at The Museum of Modern Art on April 29, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Brent N. Clarke/FilmMagic)
Mo’Nique gave poetic comedy throughout her recently released Netflix special My Name Is Mo’Nique. She weaved fearlessly into topics like her special education middle school classes, her mother’s gambling addiction, and her grandmother’s rejection of her aunt, Uncle Tina.
She tearfully spoke about her grandmother and Uncle Tina’s relationship–leading to how she hid her sexual desires for women out of fear her grandmother wouldn’t love her publicly.
The first time she revealed those desires out loud was to her third husband, Sidney Hicks, and she admitted she was “so scared.”
“I watched those two women struggle. I watched them struggle in a way that my grandmother left this Earth, and they just couldn’t come together because she thought that she was a failure because she brought a gay child into the world. The church had f**ked her up to believe that her daughter was a sin, right? And that’s how she treated her,” the comedienne said.
Mo’Nique explained that her grandmother’s disapproval of Uncle Tina confused her. She couldn’t understand how her grandmother couldn’t “wrap [her] arms around [Uncle Tina] ’cause the way she came here.”
“I watched them struggle, and when my grandmother left here, my Uncle Tina became a homeless drunk because she just couldn’t understand why her mother could not love her the way she needed to be loved, and I felt cowardly when my grandmother left because I couldn’t tell my grandmother who her grandaughter really was cause I didn’t wanna be loved privately. I adored how she adored me.”
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