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Mo'Nique
Mo'Nique at the 2010 SAG Awards.
Born	Monique Imes1 December 11, 1967 (1967-12-11) (age 42) Woodlawn, Baltimore County, Maryland, U.S.
Occupation	Actress Comedienne Talk show host Author
Years active	1999–present
Spouse(s)	Mark Jackson (m. 1997–2001) Sidney Hicks (m. 2006–present)
Official website

Monique Imes-Jackson (born December 11, 1967),¹ known professionally as Mo'Nique, is an American comedienne and actress. Mo'Nique rose to fame in the UPN series The Parkers while making a name as a stand-up comedian hosting a variety of venues, including Showtime at the Apollo. Mo'Nique transitioned to film with roles in such films as Phat Girlz, and Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins.

In 2009, she received critical praise for her role in the film Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire. She has won numerous awards including an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Golden Globe Award, and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award for her performance in Precious. She is the sixteenth African American actress to receive a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and the fourth to win. Overall, Mo'Nique is the twelfth individual African-American to win an Oscar for acting; and the seventh winner during the decade of the 2000's. She hosts The Mo'Nique Show, a late-night talk show that premiered in 2009 on BET.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 2.1 Television roles 2.2 Film and video career 2.3 Theatre 2.4 Books and radio 3 Personal life 4 Filmography 5 Awards and nominations 6 References 7 External links 7.1 Interviews

Early life

Mo'Nique was born in Woodlawn, Maryland.¹ She is the youngest of four children born to Steven Imes, Jr., a drug counselor, and Alice Imes, an engineer.² Mo'Nique graduated from Milford Mill High School in Baltimore County and attended Morgan State University.³

Before working in her chosen career, Mo'Nique worked as a phone sex operator.⁴ She got her start in comedy at the downtown Baltimore Comedy Factory Outlet, when her brother Steve dared her to perform at an open mic night.

Career

Television roles

She is best known for the role of Nicole "Nikki" Parker on the UPN television series The Parkers. The show ran from 1999 to 2004. Mo'Nique was subsequently featured on a number of leading stand-up venues, including stints on Showtime at the Apollo, Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam, and Thank God You're Here.

She was also named hostess of Showtime at the Apollo. She is currently the hostess and executive producer of Mo'Nique's Fat Chance, a beauty pageant for plus-sized women, on the Oxygen cable network. She hosted the first season of Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School on VH1, where she crowned Saaphyri as the winner.

Her 2007 documentary I Coulda Been Your Cellmate!, focuses on women who are incarcerated. Mo'Nique touches on the common factors that bring many women into the penal system in her interviews with individual women. In the interviews, she does not shy away from the facts of what happened or excuse the actions of the inmates, but she attempts to help the women see the worth they still hold. The documentary was related to her filming a comedy special at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, also known as The Farm. In 2007, Mo'Nique had a guest-starring role on the hit television series, Ugly Betty as L'Amanda, Mode's weekend security guard.

Mo'Nique stars in her own late-night talk show called The Mo'Nique Show. Taped in Atlanta, the show premiered October 5, 2009 on BET.⁵

Film and video career

Mo'Nique has had a number of supporting roles in film. She appeared in the 2008 comedy film, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins with Martin Lawrence. She has had roles in Beerfest, 3 Strikes, Two Can Play That Game, Half Past Dead, and Garfield: The Movie, in which she voiced a CGI character but her role was cut from the movie. She also appeared in Soul Plane.

In 2005, Mo'Nique played a significant role in the Tony Scott bounty hunter thriller Domino, co-starring Keira Knightley and Mickey Rourke. In 2006, Mo'Nique was cast as the lead in Phat Girlz, a comedy about an aspiring plus size fashion designer struggling to find love and acceptance. The film was met with lukewarm response from critics and fans. It did earn back its $3 million production cost in its first weekend of release.⁶

She was featured in soul singer Anthony Hamilton's video "Sista Big Bones", the second single from his Ain't Nobody Worryin' album. She plays the role of a beautiful plus sized woman whom Anthony secretly admires because she has always loved herself.

Mo'Nique hosted the 2003 and 2004 BET Awards and appeared as the host again for the 2007 BET Awards. She received positive responses in July 2004 with her opening performance of Beyoncé's famous "Crazy in Love" dance; as well as in 2007 by performing her "Déjà Vu".

Mo'Nique claimed on the January 28, 2008 Oprah Winfrey Show that Martin Lawrence gave her invaluable advice about show business: "He pulled me to the side and he said, 'Listen, don't ever let them tell you what you can't have.' Since that day, I've made some of the best deals I've ever made in my career because it keeps ringing in my head. ... It will stay with me forever."⁷

In 2009, Mo'Nique appeared in the film Precious, directed by Lee Daniels. She won the Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize for her critically acclaimed performance in the film. The African-American Film Critics Association (AAFCA) awarded Mo'Nique with the Best Supporting Actress Award in December of 2009. They also announced that Mo'Nique received the AAFCA's first ever unanimous vote in an acting category. Moreover, she received "Best Supporting Actress" awards from the Stockholm International Film Festival, the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Boston Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Online, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association, the Las Vegas Film Critics Society, the Utah Film Critics Association, the Detroit Film Critics Society, the Indiana Film Critics Association, the Online Film Critics Society, the National Society of Film Critics Awards, the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, and the Critics Choice Awards. Time magazine ranked Mo'Nique's outstanding performance as the "Best Female Performance of 2009," beating performances by Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock, Carey Mulligan, Julianne Moore and Marion Cotillard. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, beating Penelope Cruz, Vera Farmiga, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Anna Kendrick along with a Golden Globe Award, beating Penelope Cruz, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick and Julianne Moore Screen Actors Guild Award, Independent Spirit Award, and the BAFTA Award⁸⁹¹⁰¹¹

Theatre

Mo'Nique's first play was Eve Ensler's Obie Award-winning production of The Vagina Monologues, in March 2002. Mo'Nique, along with Ella Joyce (Roc); Wendy Raquel Robinson (The Steve Harvey Show and The Game) and Vanessa Bell Calloway (What's Love Got to Do with It), were the first all black celebrity cast to perform The Vagina Monologues. Executive produced by YYP & Associates, LLC, the show was produced and directed by noted theater producer/director, Yetta Young.

Books and radio

Mo'Nique is the author of the best-selling book Skinny Women Are Evil: Notes of a Big Girl in a Small-Minded World. She also released a 2006 cookbook called Skinny Cooks Can't Be Trusted.

Mo'nique was part of the Washington DC WHUR radio show with George Wilborn.

In 2006 she occasionally filled in for afternoon personality Michael Baisden when his contract with ABC Radio was in the process of getting renewed.¹²

In 2008, Radio One inked a deal for her to get her own radio show, Mo'Nique In the Afternoon (or The Mo'Nique Show) which premiered on several Radio One-owned Urban Adult Contemporary-formatted R&B/soul radio stations in July 2008. The show lasted until March 18, 2009 when Mo'Nique decided leave to "further her career in television, film, and comedy."¹³

Personal life

Mo'Nique was briefly engaged to accountant Marvin Dawson.¹⁴

Prior to her current marriage, Mo'Nique was married and divorced twice. She has twin sons Jonathan and David, and another son, Shalon. She and her husband, Sidney Hicks, have what she calls an open marriage, as she mentioned in a profile in The New York Times:

“

We have an agreement that we'll always be honest, and if sex happens with another person, that's not a deal breaker for us, that's not something where we'll have to say, 'Oh God, we've got to go to divorce court because you cheated on me.' Because we don't cheat.15

”

She later clarified her comments on an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show that aired January 28, 2008. She told Oprah Winfrey that in her prior marriages, she was constantly searching for "that extra oomph".¹⁶ Mo'Nique explained, "When I said I had an open marriage, people automatically jumped to sex. They automatically went there. But I've been best friends with my husband since we were 14 years old. When we say open, we're very honest. There are no secrets. Oftentimes you have people that are married, but they're strangers, and we refuse to be those people".¹⁷ She concluded, "I've had to sneak and I've had to lie, and I don't want to do that any more. But my husband is so awesome and so fine and so—oh, girl....No other man can compare".¹⁷

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1999–2000	Moesha	Nicole "Nikki" Parker	TV, 3 episodes
1999–2004	The Parkers	Nicole "Nikki" Parker	TV, 111 episodes
2000	3 Strikes	Dahlia
2001	The Hughleys	Nicole "Nikki" Parker	TV, 1 episode
	Baby Boy	Patrice
	Two Can Play That Game	Diedre
2002	Half Past Dead	Twitch's Girl
2003	Good Fences	Ruth Crisp	Television Movie
2004	The Bernie Mac Show	Lynette	TV, 1 episode
	Soul Plane	Jamiqua
	Hair Show	Peaches
	Garfield: The Movie	Rat	Role was deleted in final cut of the film
2005	Shadowboxer	Precious
	Domino	Lateesha Rodriguez
2006	Farce of the Penguins	Vicky	Voice
	Phat Girlz	Jazmin Biltmore
	Beerfest	Cherry
	Rugrats: Tales from the Crib	Aunt Moo	Voice
	Nip/Tuck	Evetta Washington	TV, 1 episode
2007	Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School	Host	TV, 13 episodes
	The Boondocks	Jamiqua (Voice)	TV, 1 episode
	Ugly Betty	L'Amanda	TV, 1 episode
2008	Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins	Betty
	Steppin: The Movie	Aunt Carla
2009	Precious	Mary Lee Jones	See awards and nominations
	The Mo'Nique Show	Herself	Host

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Result	Category	Series or film
2001	NAACP Image Awards	Won	Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series	The Parkers
2002		Nominated	Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture	Two Can Play That Game
		Won	Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series	The Parkers
2003		Won	Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series	The Parkers
2004		Won	Outstanding Actress in a TV Movie, Mini-Series, or Dramatic Special	Good Fences
		Won	Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series	The Parkers
2005		Won	Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series	The Parkers
2004	BET Comedy Awards	Nominated	Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Box Office Movie	Soul Plane
		Won	Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series	The Parkers
2005		Nominated	Outstanding Lead Actress in a Theatrical Film	Hair Show
2004	Black Reel Awards	Won	Television: Best Supporting Actress	Good Fences
2009	Sundance Film Festival	Won	Special Jury Prize	Precious
	NAACP Image Awards	Won	Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
	Independent Spirit Awards	Won	Best Supporting Actress
	Satellite Awards	Won	Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
	Stockholm International Film Festival	Won	Best Actress
	Washington DC Area Film Critics Association	Won	Best Supporting Actress
	Detroit Film Critics Society	Won	Best Supporting Actress
	Los Angeles Film Critics Association	Won	Best Supporting Actress
	Boston Society of Film Critics	Won	Best Supporting Actress
	New York Film Critics Online	Won	Best Supporting Actress
	New York Film Critics Circle	Won	Best Supporting Actress
	National Society of Film Critics	Won	Best Supporting Actress
	Broadcast Film Critics Association	Won	Best Supporting Actress
	Screen Actors Guild Award	Won	Best Supporting Actress
	Southeastern Film Critics Association	Won	Best Supporting Actress
	San Francisco Film Critics Circle	Won	Best Supporting Actress
	Toronto Film Critics Association	Nominated	Best Supporting Actress
	Golden Globe Awards	Won	Best Supporting Actress
	British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award	Won	Best Supporting Actress
	London Film Critics' Circle	Won	Actress of the Year
2010	Academy Awards	Won	Best Supporting Actress

References

External links

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive and inappropriate external links or by converting links into references.

• Official Website Intro & *Official Website Main Page
• The Mo'Nique Show official site
• Mo'Nique at the Internet Movie Database
• Mo'Nique at TV.com
• TheLoop21.com interview with Mo'Nique

Interviews

• Mo'Nique Interview on Self Confidence with Al Sharpton on AskDoctorv.com
• Mo'Nique Interview on PR.com
• Booted from flight, comedian accuses - "Airline's actions won't fly with Mo" (Daily News, July 2006)
• Interviews with reality stars on Vh1, MTV, and SciFi

v • d • e Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Jennifer Connelly (2001) · Catherine Zeta-Jones (2002) · Renée Zellweger (2003) · Cate Blanchett (2004) · Rachel Weisz (2005) · Jennifer Hudson (2006) · Tilda Swinton (2007) · Penélope Cruz (2008) · Mo'Nique (2009) Complete list · (1928–1940) · (1941–1960) · (1961–1980) · (1981–2000) · (2001-present)

v • d • e Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture Jennifer Connelly (2001) · Meryl Streep (2002) · Renée Zellweger (2003) · Natalie Portman (2004) · Rachel Weisz (2005) · Jennifer Hudson (2006) · Cate Blanchett (2007) · Kate Winslet (2008) · Mo'Nique (2009) Complete List · (1943–1960) · (1961–1980) · (1981–2000) · (2001–present)

v • d • e Screen Actors Guild Award - Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role Helen Mirren (2001) · Catherine Zeta-Jones (2002) · Renée Zellweger (2003) · Cate Blanchett (2004) · Rachel Weisz (2005) · Jennifer Hudson (2006) · Ruby Dee (2007) · Kate Winslet (2008) · Mo'Nique (2009) Complete list · (1994-2000) · (2001-present)

Persondata
NAME	Mo'Nique
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Imes, Monique; Imes-Jackson, Mo'nique
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Actress, comedians
DATE OF BIRTH	December 11, 1967
PLACE OF BIRTH	Woodlawn, Maryland, United States
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH