Mo’Nique and her husband, Sidney Hicks, sat down for a live stream discussion on their show ‘Open Relationship’ to talk Steve Harvey’s recent removal from NBC and how herself or others should not celebrate the news.
Monique kicked off the discussion and shared that she has received numerous tags on social media regarding the cancellation of Steve Harvey’s talk show ‘Steve’ and his replacement as host of ‘Little Big Shots.’ She said the memes and posts have been celebratory in nature and she does not agree with the way fans have been addressing the issue.
“We do not celebrate what appears to be someone else’s demise. We do not stand and applaud and say ‘Yeah, look what’s happening,’ ‘That’s what you get.’ That’s not where we’re coming from. That’s not a stance we’ve ever taken,” Monique said. She continues, “So what I would ask y’all to do…we gotta love our folks through it.”
Sidney expressed the fear of “speaking up” in the entertainment industry and explained that they will always speak out for “their people” when they are being mistreated unjustly in the industry.
He said, “It’s a difference between people doing things because they’re diabolical and they’re mean and terrible people. And it’s a difference between them not buying into the fear that’s been purposefully put into our community that says man, if you speak out Id rather know what I’m going to get from these people thank try to speak up for equality and then not know what’s going to happen.”
Sidney also brought up the point of late Martin Luther King Jr., stating although people knew what he preached was right, they didn’t want to stand behind him out of fear of repercussions and the “ass whoopin” that came along with speaking up. The “system” is what makes black entertainers say things they don’t really mean about their own people out of that fear.
Steve Harvey, Lee Daniels, Tyler Perry, and Wayne Brady were all mentioned in the discussion and were all being defended by both Monique and Sidney because according to Monique, “it’s really hard to circumvent the system.” She stated, “That’s why you have to have a foundation. Because without that foundation, the system will whip your ass…when the foundation is not strong y’all, we get lost in it.”
How do you feel about Monique not feeding into the Steve Harvey slander despite their disagreements? Do you agree with her?
Did Dr. King say that? Those words?