May 27, 2024 • 51 mins
Bethenny asked Mo’Nique straight up about the alleged bad blood between her and Kevin Hart, Oprah and Tyler Perry…and Mo’Nique does not mince words in her response! Plus, she reveals details regarding her open marriage!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
So, first of all, last time I canceled because my
mother passed away, I think like two days or three
days before. And what was weird was I really did
want to even talk to you then, but I didn't
want to sort of hijacket with like emotion and my stuff.
But I had this weird feeling about you, like I've
wanted to have you on and I don't even know
(00:33):
anything about you. I've just seen clips. I mean, I
know I've seen your work, but I don't know. I
like felt connected to you, and I kind of wanted
to have you on even though my mom had just passed,
and now reading about you like it could have happened,
I just I don't know, I feel you. So thank
you for being here because I'm really just excited to
talk to you and it's just like an instinct.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
So thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Thank you for having me baby.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
So I've been reading about you, and You've had a
really interesting life of so many traumatic experiences. And the
thing this term that I was talking about with regards
to my mother and her death, the term that came
out of that was generational trauma. And when I was
(01:17):
reading about you, I literally was like, this woman has
experienced generational trauma from what happened with your brother, with
your parents, with their parents, and like, I don't know
why that just like was the first thing I was like, Wow,
I could have talked to her about this stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, because oftentimes we want to make it about the
culture and white and black and you can't relate because
you're this and you're that. And then when you come
down to it, our shit is almost the same, the trauma,
the relationships with family, those things. If you say, now,
(01:54):
close your eyes and tell me are the white or
black when it comes to the trauma and families and
how we've been told to hide it, be quiet, let
it go. So I think that it's all relatable when
it just comes to human human life and human people.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Well it's right. And women stifle a lot and just
take it on their back and we wear it in
our bodies energetically. So you are a state. You started
as a stand up and an actress, you were dared
to be to get on stage and you just got
up and on an open mic, and what did you
what did you do? You had no plan? You literally
(02:31):
just stood up or you planned before you didn't.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Well, here's the thing, Bethany I never planned on being
an actress. Being an actress was something that as a
little girl, I said, Oh, one day, I just said,
I know I'm going to be famous. Now I did,
I knew, I knew and everything in me I was
going to be famous.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
That's interesting. I relate to that too, because as a kid,
I thought about trying to act. But I don't think
I was actually very good, not unlike you is good,
but I wanted. I think it has but I think
that has to do generational trauma too. You're like craving
some adoration and love, and that's sort of embarrassing to
admit when you're younger because it seems so thirsty and desperate.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
But when you get.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Older, like you're I don't know how old do you
mind if I ask cowbled, You're I'm fiftic.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
So as you get to be the sage, like what
is there to lie about? What is there physically to
lie about? Mentally emotionally, like here we are, we're on
the back nine, let's be honest. So I feel like
and we might not have even been in touch with it,
but I'm like, I just wanted to be somebody and
to be something and someone to pay attention to me,
because no one in my house was, and my mother
wouldn't even take me to go to like try to
go into the city to figure out how you could
(03:36):
even audition. And she always taunted me by telling me
someone once offered me a Disney contract, but she turned
it down. My whole life, I was like obsessed with that,
chasing whatever that was or wasn't. But so like you,
I kind of thought I was gonna be something, but
you really thought you would actually accomplish it, because I
don't know that I really thought I would. I just
thought it was like what I wanted to do. I
(03:57):
don't know that I thought I could land it. You
thought you could like land it did.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Everything that has taking place in my life. I willed it,
and I already saw it. And I say that humbly.
That humbly. I saw me getting an NAACP award before
I got it. I saw getting that Oscar award before
(04:20):
I got it, Like I saw those things before they
actually happened, and I believed it. Like I used to
sign my autograph, I used to wrap a talel around
me in the bathroom as a little girl and hold
the brush in my hand and say I want to
think because I saw that. I believe that. So I
(04:41):
understand when people say, well, how'd you happen? They say,
I willed it. In this industry we're in, we've got
to will what we're looking for. And even with the
black ball, even with the fights that I'm having, I
saw that too.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
So what do you I'm so jumping out of place
because you're inspiring me because one of the things I
was gonna ask you later was like what do you
what do you want? And what do you see happening?
So what do you see now? Because I know you're
fighting for a lot of different things, and you're being
very vocal, and you're being fearless, and it's got to
be liberating but also slightly scary talking about unfair practices
(05:20):
like disparity, things like that, so inequality. So what do
you see happening? What are you envision is going to happen?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
What I envision happening. I do believe that Tyler Perry,
I do believe that Oprah Winfrey. I do believe those
two people will come around. That's why I won't stop
and to say to is it a little bit scary?
There's no fear in it at all, Bethany Nice, There's
because I believe that the moment I show fear is
(05:49):
the moment the universe says you don't believe it and
you don't trust it. So I have an amazing husband
who was truly a king. That takes all doubt, all fear,
all anks, all of that is removed. Because when I'm home,
I'm a wife, I'm a mommy, I'm a grandmother. I
(06:11):
am not the business. I am the things that signed
up for.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
You have a foundation, a strong foundation. So the business
is the frosting, but you have the cake at home, like.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
That's come on, you put that together.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
So you're yeah, the business is the which I get
completely too. The business is a vehicle, a tool, and
you need to use it because it's certainly used you.
So them coming around, what's the definition of Oprah Winfrey
and Tyler Perry coming around? What's the definition of that?
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Did you see when Lee Daniels gave a public apology?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
No, I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Research it. Lee Daniels walked on stage while I was
on stage and gave a public apology. My coming around
for them, Bethany, is for them to do the same
thing to give up public apology. And I don't think
what they understand that makes them even bigger because what
they did is said, let me show you I'm human,
Let me not be this powerhouse that you better be
(07:12):
afraid of me, you better not say anything. And don't
you know what I can do? Well? Okay, but don't
you know how bigger you will be once you take
accountability for the shit that you created and say, hey,
I got to own that.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
And literally, you don't want an opportunity, You don't want
anything financial. You want acknowledgment. That's all you want is
just an acknowledgement.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
And I don't want you to put words in my mouth.
I do want an acknowledgement that you know what we did,
you wrong? And yes, I want financial accountability from Todd Perry,
Yes I do. That man's cost my family tens of
millions of dollars to a lie that he admitted to.
That's why everybody we interview with if we send them
the tape, because I don't want to put words in
(07:53):
anyone's mouth. You admit it to doing wrong, so now
you have to be accountable for that.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And do you see it happening? Do you see it happening.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I do you do if you're paying attention, No one
escapes if they're right sep paying attention baby to the
way the world is going. Right now, you don't escape
when you've been, in my humble opinion, malicious on purpose,
you can't escape it.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Now, what about the industry overall? Because you speak, you
you've spoken, You've been very vocal about that. You would
be Melissa McCarthy. Which is a great reference because it's
something that is tangible. You've really laid it out as
something people could understand. I mean the career you've had.
I mean most people have not won the awards. You
are an award decorated actress, comedian. So what can how
(08:43):
do you see that laying out?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Like?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Where does where does the come up and tap happen
with the industry? How does that disparity get reconciled?
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Well, you know, I think that there are some people
Bethany that are afraid to touch Monique and Monique' husband
and then and there are some people that say, you
know what, we just want to do good business. That's it.
We want to do good business. And when the business
is over, you go enjoy your space and I'm gonna
go enjoy mine, and those people are out there so
(09:12):
to say, how does this thing go? Well, we never
know how tomorrow's gonna go because we don't know if
we're going to be in it. However, if we are
lucky enough to be in it, if we get the
blessing to be in it, we keep fighting to make
it better, not just for no need. But they are
some little girls that are not here yet that if
my story is daemed important enough and they get a
(09:34):
chance to read it, what they will say is that
woman kept swinging for us until she left this earth.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And how is it working now? And how is how
is your career right now? Like the opportunities, like what's
the tide, what's the temperature?
Speaker 2 (09:49):
How is that going well?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Right now? I just got off of a thirty city
tour with Kat Williams, who was absolutely incredible, and the
movie The Deliverances get ready to come out with Lee
Daniels Netflix. So that's what's happening.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
When we're good people, people.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Would always say to me, what's next, what's next? And
I would give them my resume. Baby, well I got
this and this and this, and then the universe said,
do you believe what that's what's next, because we got
something else in mind for you. So when people say, Monique,
what's snacks, my honest answer to you is I hope
tomorrow because.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I get it.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, well that that that's interesting too, about like getting
up on stage doing stand up because someone dares you.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
You're a person who.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
You come from a place of yes, it sounds like,
and you just go with what's presented in front of you.
And I don't literally search for any ideas. I don't
search for anything. I don't go for deals. I like
listen to what's going on and whatever either I'm interested
in or when something knocks on my door. So many
people think that the key to success is being like
having a whole plan and a roadmap. And I'm exactly
(10:58):
like you in the sense that I was on Bravo
and I did have a feeling in my mind that
I was going to get a spin off. I was
like sort of like envisioning it, like you said. But
I always just kind of if you're not open to
the road, you're gonna miss so many things. So I
do get that. But you're always working. It sounds like
you're like you're in the car. The car is no,
(11:20):
I'm not no right now. It sounds like, well, when people.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Say you're always working, there are people that die in
their hotel rooms, Bethany because they were always working. There
are people that die on the stage because they're always working.
I take pride and not always working.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
It seems like you always have something that you've just
been doing or can be doing. It seems like you're
in you have some version of being in demand by
somebody at some time and someone wants to do something
with you.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
I was in demand yesterday and I'm gonna tell you
what they were demanding. So my son Jonathan is now
trying to eat really healthy, and he said, Mommy, can
you make me some of them recy cup with my
almond butter crunch. So this morning I got up, baby
and method that damn chocolate and put it and I
got it. Complete it. When I finished talking.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
To you, Oh I got it.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I just got all the sweetish candy for my daughter
and she just called me crying from school because she
lost a bracelet. I got her and she's apoplectic, and
I'm like, it's okay, Everything's going to be okay. Being
a mother, especially at this age, is more valuable. You
really appreciate it, and you know where we've come from.
It sounds like you broke the chain from your childhood.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Do you feel like you.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Have when you say break the chain? I'm just doing
it different. Break the chain is a good one because
I no longer want When I was coming up, a
lot of things felt like to me from my parents
it was a burden. Like it felt like it was
a burden to take me school shopping. It felt like
(12:53):
it was a burden to say, you know, I need
you to check my homework. It always felt like it
was this pressure. And I don't know what my parents
were dealing with at the time, right. So with my children,
I never want them to feel like it's a burden.
And I got a second chance at motherhood. And I
say that openly to people, and I've always said it
(13:15):
because when I had my first son, I was busy
trying to be famous. I was trying to make it.
I was trying to give us a lifestyle. So whatever
college he wanted to go to, there would be no questions.
Whatever he wanted in life, there would be no questions.
But what I wasn't doing was putting in the nurturing
because I was tired. I was trying to do it all.
(13:37):
So the sacrifice was my son. The first son didn't
get the nurturing mother. Well, I prayed for a second
chance and I received it, and I refused to sacrifice
it because I learned that lesson.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
And I didn't know that you've both been public speaking
about this, your son from your first relationship, and you
feel have you have you forgiven yourself? Have you given
yourself grace and like or do you still feel guilt?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I don't feel so.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
See there's a lot that's being left out. My son
and I sat down and had a conversation as to adults,
and we both apologized to one another. We both did
and at that moment we ask for each other's forgiveness
and we gave it. So at that point, I don't
play backsies. I don't play now. We had the conversation Monday,
(14:30):
but it's Tuesday. It's like we didn't talk and Wednesday
we're mad. I don't play backsies. So for my son
and I, as I've said on Shannon's shop, I hope
time heals it. We can only let time see what
it's gonna do. And as I said publicly about my son.
We'll see how it plays out. Because one thing about me,
(14:51):
Beth and me, how I do anything is how I
do everything.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
I've said that. That's really funny. I said that on
a show. Yeah yeah, business personal for you too. Business
you personal is business? Business is personal. Everything matters.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Everything matters.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yes, everything matters. So do you feel whole about it?
Do you feel like you have a hole in your
heart about like?
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Is it unrest that it's not resolved and or it's
just a it's a it's a moment in time, like
this is just a moment in time.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
It's a moment in time. And I'll say this to
the mothers out there or the father's out there that
feel like, what can I do? There's nothing you can do.
If you've apologized for your missteps, if you've asked for
forgiveness and forgiveness was given, there's nothing you can do.
So now, my son is a thirty four year old man.
(15:42):
Whenever he's ready, guess where I am. Guess where my
husband is.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
And you love him, you feel connected to him like
he's your son.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Feel I carried that baby. I laid down for that
one baby. Okay, for that one.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Of course, Yes, well I hope that gets resolved because
it's time goes by so quickly and then something happens,
someone gets sick, and then everyone wants to like make
up for it, and it just it's like it's hard
for people to see the forest from the trees in
the moment, you know, myself included, like and not everyone connects.
You can have a blood family member that you don't
(16:17):
necessarily connect with and you can have guilt about that.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I've had that myself, and.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I just think it's important to communicate on some level,
even the way you're saying it right now, like to
try to be vulnerable vulnerable about it because, like you said,
everybody comes from their own story and it is a
moment in time, you know, I, for the first time ever,
I forgive my mother and also mourned her terrible childhood.
Like thinking about why people aren't just the way they are.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
For no reason.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
People don't abuse for no reason, people don't drink for
no reason. People have something going on behind, and if
you can look at the origin of that, it makes
it more palatable to understand, which is what you said
earlier about where your parents came from. Why they kind of,
you know, marginalize what.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
You were doing.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
So and but you have a you feel like you've
gotten a second chance, and you have a great relationship
with your son.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
With my sons.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Sons. You have two sons, so you've been all three boys.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
I have five all total.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Oh okay, wow, okay, and go ahead, so.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
With the one. And and here's also what I say
to people. My story is not unique. It's Monique story
because it's Monique, this unique story, but it's not unique.
It's not a story of Oh, I can't believe that.
That's why I say to women, especially black men, because
(17:41):
because that journey can be different from anyone else's. If
you know what you're walking in, be unafraid to walk
in it. They'll make us fearful. You'll begin to backtrack
on what you know to be true. Yes, be right,
and you'll start backtracking and then you am I crazy. Yeah,
(18:03):
Well twenty of them did it, But why am I
the only one that's not doing it? Because they know better.
You gotta be so okay and you're staying as you
have been. You gotta be so okay when the rest
of the party say we don't want to play with
you no more. Okay, Well, let me get my toys
and take my ass over here with the people that
want to play with me. You've got to be okay
(18:23):
with that. And I think another thing that we do,
we lose. I'm sure you've told your babies, don't you
let nobody bully you.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I'm sure you've told you Oh my god, yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
You're better tell the truth. But we go up and
we drop that off, and you see people get bullied.
You see people and you're like, well, what happened to
the principles that we were given as children? So I
just chose not to change the principles that I was getting.
I'm not gonna do it.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
I mean, you're saying basically what I say to my
daughter in relationships, in school and in my life. Never
accept less than what you deserve, and you know what
you deserve. Hopefully that starts with having self worth. And
sometimes you have like you flounder because you don't have
self worth, and that's when you're willing to accept less
and you're afraid and making decisions out of fear. You
have to have a little bit of success sometimes to
(19:15):
get to the point where you can stand up for yourself,
you know, like that you got to get to that point,
and it's very It does feel like standing at the
top of a mountain and you're pretty much alone when
you're being courageous and speaking up about things that most
people won't and they won't go the whole distance. They'll
go three miles, five miles, they won't go the whole marathon.
So then you're alone running the rest. But I get that,
like I really do, gets.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
You take when you know what you're standing at.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, but it's very liberate. It's like telling the truth
is very free because you just know you don't have
to hide anywhere. There's nothing to do. It's what it is,
and people are scared of it. It's very scary for people.
So I get it.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
People have been in a position where they didn't have freedom.
So yeah, damn if I'm gonna let you take mine
from me, yep, going to hold on to it, beath
and until they say, Monique is your turn. And then
when I get to the next place, I'm gonna walk
through the door and say, yeah, I know I'm free, right,
So what Hey, long as y'all know what y'all get.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Well, you are an open book. And I never want
to bring up something and someone doesn't want to talk
about So if you don't want to talk about anything,
you just tell me this is not a gotcha show.
But you're it's like almost like I didn't read it,
and you're saying that your story is not that unique.
I mean, I your brother abusing you sexually is is
it's it's it's chilling to me. I mean it's it's
(20:28):
it's real, but not unique. I know it's I know,
I know. So how have you dealt with that? How
have you liberated yourself from that? The fact that he
went on Oprah and admitted it had to be validating
and and sometimes you want that public validation because people
never believe women no matter what. It always and you
(20:50):
never believe yourself. Half the time, we think we're imagining things.
Did you ever think something? Has something ever happened to
you that you like, no happened, But then you're sort
of imagining it because your your mind's playing tricks on you.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
My crown wouldn't let me do that, Bethany. It'd be like, no,
that shit happened, Monique, And we're not going to make
pretend it didn't. Like you ever heard Dick Gregory, and
Dick Gregory said, when the universe puts the magic glasses
on you, you cannot take them off.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
And you have to see things for what they are,
not what you want them to be. So I believe
I got those glasses as a very young girl, and
I had to see things for what they were. Did
I want them to be different? Did I want my
parents to be more involved? Did I want that not
to happen from my brother? Yes, but it did. So
(21:40):
I have to see it for what it is and
to say how did I cope? How did I get
through it? I'll tell you for a long time, Bethanie,
I didn't because I got to me address it. And
when I got married to my best friend from tenth grade,
he said to me, listen, I'm going to need you
to stop using your bad behavior. You got to stop
using your brother molesting you as a crutch, because now
(22:03):
you've gotten used to not taking accountability for your shit,
and you've gotten used to saying, well, I did that
because of what my brother did to me. He said,
you are a grown woman right now.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I call that wearing your story?
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Oh baby? What you Every time it was my brother's fault,
and he said, I need you to grow up and
take accountability for your decisions and your choices. Right now.
When you were a little girl, there was nothing you
can do. Now you're a grown woman, you were fully
responsible for your choices, your decisions, and your thoughts. That's
(22:37):
when I was able to drop it off.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
So you intervened in your own behavior. Do you forgive him? Yes,
because he's a product of his environment and his generational trauma.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
As I said to my children, that is my brother's
burden to charactery. It's long on my burden. My brother
actually went to jail from molesting his stepdaughter. So when
you've done nothing wrong, and it can be hard to
walk in it when you got people saying you crazy,
(23:08):
just shut up. Just because my mother said to me
when I did the article in essence, she said, well,
don't tell him it's Gerald, Just tell him it was
a family member.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
And I said, my, if I do that, that puts
everybody on trial.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Right, it puts everybody on try.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
And by the way, also like now you're protecting now
you have you're the hostage, holding a hostage secret like
somebody else's secret. Like, now that's on your it's your problem.
I mean yeah, I mean right now, you're protecting this
person and not protecting yourself. I mean you had to
be liberated from it. Do you did you did you feel?
(23:46):
Did you know instinctively as a kid that it was wrong?
Because I've had that experience as well with a brother.
But I didn't. I don't think I even knew it
was wrong. Like I play the movie back later and
go back to it and didn't.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I didn't know it was wrong. I just it was
just what happened.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
I knew it was wrong from jump because the moment
you go, sh, this is wrong because you're telling me
to be quiet.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Oh okay, the moment you go.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Sh, this is wrong. And I think with molestation for me,
here's where me and Oprah Winfrey have a problem too.
We spoke about that, Bethany, and we spoke about that
offline when she called me up and asked me, can
your brother come on the show? He's called me, I said,
(24:37):
of course. She said, he wants to talk about him
molesting you, and he wants to apologize to you. I said, Oprah,
the man I know is he's up to something, but
I don't like his blessing he could be in a
different place. I just don't want anything to do with him. Now,
what Oprah Winfrey did not tell me was that my
mother was going to be there. What Oprah Winfrey did
(24:59):
not tell I mean, is that my father was going
to be there. See that's and when you say unique,
that's the uniqueness of this situation when you have two
black women on the phone talking when no one can
hear this conversation. And I'm telling this woman what I'm
dealing with with my mother, Wow, with my mother, and
she told me about hers too, which I will never repeat. However,
(25:23):
when I kick it on, you have my mother and
your audience, because she said to me, if you want
me not to do the show, I won't do the show.
That's just when she told me it was my brother.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Hell and if you knew it was your pet, you
felt like you were exploited for ratings.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
And if you knew, you didn't know the whole story exactly.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
It's like, how do you do that when I'm telling
you what I'm dealing with? And that really put the
nail in the coffin for my mother and I we
oh wow, we never spoke again.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Oh my God, So you're saying, Oprah Winfrey is the
reason that you have not ever spoken to your mother again.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
I won't do that to her. I won't put it
all on her because I'm right. It was what it
was before she came. What I will say is she
wasn't an honest enough, an honest enough woman to say, listen,
we have your mother too. Because had I known my
mother was going to be their destiny, I would have
said immediately shut it down, because I did not need
(26:17):
the world seeing how greedy.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Well, because also your parents are trying to protect themselves
and that they were around for that experience, and that's
one of your issues. They didn't protect you from it.
So now there they're all trying to create their own
narrative and you're like left out. It's like one voice
against three and whatever they're spinning.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Had Oprah Winfrey said, Monique, your mother's gonna be here,
I would have said, hey, baby, shut it down. Because
what Oprah Winfrey doesn't care about because I've said it repeatedly.
See Oprah Winfrey didn't walk through the walmart and have
women coming up to her saying, you know what, Monique,
your mother wasn't shit for that, because it's still my mother, right,
she didn't have that. I had to deal with that repeatedly.
(26:57):
Now they felt like they were protecting me, and I
appreciate it, but it's still my mother that you tell
me she ain't right.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
You had to live it more than you had to
keep living feeling that your mom is a bad mother.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Like it was like it was doubling accountability for that.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
You have had some life you feel you've definitely you
must have. Do you have trust issues? No, you're trusting.
You're still trusting.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
I have. I'm married to a man. By the way,
we just celebrated eighteen years, made fenty.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Congratulations, thank you.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
I'm married to a man that I had been best
friends with since I was fourteen years old, and he
is exactly who he said he was. Wow, from fourteen
to now fifty six. How could I have trust issues
when the union has allowed me to see what true
unconditional love really is. Because I don't know about you,
(27:51):
but I know with my traumas and my yesterdays, it
was hard for me to love.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Oh my god, you don't know about I mean, yeah, no, yes,
you're very You've got the big foundation. You've got the trust,
you've got, the life partner, you've got your foxhole.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
And oftentimes it's not the other person's fault, as much
as we want to make it they fault. We couldn't
get out of.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Our own way, my story of my life.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
You couldn't get out your own way, so you could
have lost somebody that was the greatest thing for you.
But because of your yesterday, you couldn't close the book
on it. So everything that you thought was related to yesterday,
it's easy to blame it on today. It's easy.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yeah, if you are not a full person, if you're
not a person that you would want to be in
a relationship with, and if you haven't resolved your stuff,
you're just dumping it.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
One, and not everyone has to want it, you know.
Not everyone has to want that, And it all comes
in many shapes and sizes.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
But I agree with you like you have.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
We have to face these traumas, we have to go
through them like a storm you cannot avoid. That's why
it's funny. I we would have had a different We
could have had this talk and that talk, and it
would been very different, but interesting. I had a gut
instinct about you because I would have just been telling
you that I was living for the first time to
your point about being abused. I put it in a
box and I did not revisit it until fifty three
(29:11):
years old, for two weeks, like a dog in this house,
just wandering crying and like reading let I did not
visit my childhood for probably with like almost forty years.
It was like a movie that I was living through
that time. But I went. I chose to go through
the storm. I didn't choose to go be with other
people to grieve and mourn and you know, drink and
(29:32):
look at pictures and laugh. I chose to just like
be a dog, and it were I wanna say it worked.
I like had a profound experience because I moved through
it the hardest thing I ever did. It was one
of the hardest things I've ever done. So yes, like
it's hard to be in relationship when there are so
many relationships and traumas that aren't resolved or addressed or acknowledged.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
You know, sis, I think about I was just talking
about this this morning. I think about the bones I'll
never get a chance to me that is a part
of me. And when they look at my picture, what
do I want them to see what Usians do I
want them to have about their great great great grandmother,
about what do I want them to say? So I
(30:15):
have to live in what I want them to say.
You know, I have to live that. I have to
live that that my children see, we didn't see our
mother broken, we didn't see our mother defeated, we didn't
see our mother damn. So that way their story to
their children and their children to their children. So that
(30:36):
is what allows me to make sure I'm going every
day saying, let me enjoy this moment.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
That's the generational healing that you're that is, that is
the breaking the chain, like because you're healing for future generations.
(31:04):
I read that you're in an open marriage, which is
so fascinating because you're talking about your soulmate and it's
not a one size fits all. It's the way that
you are living your life that you and your husband
as partners, have decided to live your life.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
So what does that mean?
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Because it comes in many shapes and forms, and I've
heard I'm so with sixty percent of marriages ending in divorce.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
I'm very open minded and I.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Always say, like whatever works for a couple like we
can No one can walk in people's shoes, and everyone
wants to assign their own beliefs or values or failures
or fears on other couples. So my question is, what
is open marriage when yours is described as such?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
What is that? What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Oh, let me tell you what it mean, because it
has different meanings. Okay, when Sydney and I first got together,
it was my best friend. We were like brother and
sister from tenth grade. He came to the first two
marriages he was into as my brother. Okay, So when
I was in my other marriages, I didn't know how
(32:06):
to be nobody's wife, definite. I didn't know what the
commitment really meant because I was gonna do what I
wanted to do anyway. So who did I call when
I was doing what I wanted to do anyway? My
best friend to say this is what I'm doing? Right?
And then when we first got together, I said, hey,
you know who you're getting involved with. Right when we
(32:29):
first got together, I was married to my best friend.
He had not yet become my husband.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I was married to this my sibling almost like they
say yes yes.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
So when we first got together, it meant that if
we wanted to have other partners, we could.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
That is exactly what it meant, because you were just
marrying a partner you wanted a life partner didn't have
to mean that every single need gets to filled by
the other person at the time.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
At that time, he was not yet my husband. What
was I his wife? Though we were married. We were
best friends that got married. And as time started moving on,
I started looking at my best friend as my king
because I started seeing things that I had never seen
in a man before, not my father, not my brothers,
(33:20):
not my uncles. I had never seen that kind of
strength in a man. And I remember when I first
told him I wanted to still see other people. He said, Monique,
we've been loving each other since tenth grade. Do you
think that would stop me from loving you?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
So, he said, I've been loving you for this many years?
Is that going to really you know, is that going
to make a difference? Which is very evolved, very like
that's like elevated, so evolved beyond. So now, okay, so
now you how many years were you together then when
you were saying I still want to see other people,
I'm gonna.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Say it may have been five to seven.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Years okay, and then had so then he had it shift.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
It just shifted. It was one day everything felt different
and I didn't want to be with anybody but my husband.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
I didn't want And also look at your life.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Who knows what voids you were trying to fill through
other things like we have a thousand reasons for doing
things like maybe I.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Tell women my husband loved me like I was at
my best when I was at my worst, because most
men wouldn't have been able to deal with that. Most
men wouldn't have been able to deal with Now I'm
a public figure, I'm a celebrity, I'm famous. There's a
little bit of money in the bank, and now I'm
(34:39):
making all the rules. Most men, the egos wouldn't have
let them. Yeah, of course, But when you're dealing with
somebody that is a king, Oh, that man is a king.
And he was able to have conversations with me, Bethany,
that no one when I went to the side pychiatrist,
(35:00):
and I went to a psychiatrist for years. Everything that
the psychiatrist said to me, he would say to me
before I went there. He said, but I need you
to go talk to somebody who has no dog in
the front because when I talk to you, you think
I'm judging right, But when they talk to you, and
I would come home and say everything you said to me,
(35:22):
Doctor Wanzo said to me, I saw this man Bethany
love on our children in a way that I've never
seen a man do that I've never seen. My husband
is the greatest human being I've ever met in my life.
Let me just say that.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
So you fell in love with him within the marriage,
and then in lust with him, and like you've had
a layered cake, the cake has many layers, so you've
had many different experiences within the relationship.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
I think that's a message to people to be open
minded about relationship and the journey that it takes. And
everybody thinks it's supposed to be a one size fits
all and it has to be this. And I think
that marriage is marketed to twenty year olds about the
white dress and the big ring everything, but not the marriage,
not like the commitment and not what it really takes
and just like being on the journey, and I think
that's something has to be thought of more so, I
(36:13):
think it's inspiring to be honest about what you both
want in your relationship and that that can change and
evolves amazing.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
And I watched my parents being a marriage for over
fifty years, but neither one of them evolved. What she
married is what she got till she died. He was
what he got to lead doctors. Right, So write these
two people be in a relationship, but not like one another.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Right.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
And that's all the marriages that I saw my uncle.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Yeah, exactly. It's like a burden.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yeah, you check the box to get married, but then
when you're in it, you got to just be the
two people that are complaining and surviving instead of thriving.
And you sound like you're thriving. You talk about I
(37:06):
read about the Melissa McCarthy thing that I referenced earlier,
and is that is the difference in your career from
someone like hers who has had a similar trajectory. Is
the difference the color of your skin?
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (37:20):
So I was in Chicago two days ago and I
was just walking. I came off the plane and I
was sweaty, and I had a T shirt on and
like just a ratty cart again and cargo jeans. And
I'm not vain, I don't really care what I look like.
And I just was walking with a like mom big
oversized water bottle and a bag of cheesy popcorn, and
(37:41):
I just was a little bit of a wreck. I
was like sweating. I literally just wanted to take a
hot It was eighty degrees. So I passed by Chanel
and I wanted to just walk in and look just
I saw something in the window. I just wanted to
walk in and look. And the man at the door
opened the door. There was no security outside at this time,
and he opened the door halfway and he said, do
you have an appointment? And I said no, and he said,
I'm sorry, you have to have an appointment. It was
(38:02):
really brief and it was dismissive and I felt slighted.
And I posted about this and it became this viral thing,
like the sociological Experiment, and I went back the next
day dressed to the nines looking like a Chanel model
because I had an appearance. It wasn't like I was
doing it for this. I happened to bring my alpha
for the next day. I had hair makeup looked like
Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl, Like it looked like I
(38:24):
was wearing head head to toe Chanelle. I wasn't but
it was that vibe coincidentally, and I said into the video, like,
if I walk in here looking different than I did
yesterday and I'm treated differently, Christmas is canceled, so lo
and behold. I walked up to Chanelle this day. There
were three guards because I had seen my video I
think from the day before, and people were saying it
wasn't because of the way I looked, but that it
(38:45):
was because it's not safe in Chicago, and it's a
whole discussion that's not that important. But what is important
is that the next day I looked different and they
let me in right away. And many people have come
into my comments saying and nicely, really nicely, like not
coming at me, saying you were able to change your
clothes and look different the next day. I'm a black
woman and I can't change the color of my skin,
(39:07):
and that's how we get treated.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
And it really did it.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Just the way that this was said on this particular
issue wouldn't have been something I would have thought would
be brought up, and it was actually really profound.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
It just made me.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Feel a little small, you know, and I really thought,
oh my God, for people to feel every day just
like it doesn't always have to be overt, but there'd
be a nuance of like, you're just not at the
same level. And I just I just spelt differently about
reading those comments. It was just something, It was just
something different about it.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Sometimes when you get a little a little bit to
walk in it, you understand it differently. And that was
just a little taste. And you were able to put
up a post and the next day they start switching
shit around to make sure we accommodate if this woman
comes back. Well, you're right. All you had to do
(40:04):
was go get yourself pretty up and now you go.
So you got a little, not even a taste, you
got a little drip on your tongue. I saw a
clip of the Roast with Kevin Hart, and I saw
my comedic sister, Chelsea Handler, and she was saying, you know,
(40:25):
Kevin made me these promises and he said he got
me and he didn't have me. And it was a joke, right.
I'm saying, oh, well, he lied to you too well,
Only to come to find out the joke was on
me because I did a thing on that what Kevin
Hart told me something and he didn't follow through with it,
and I had a conversation about that well to find
(40:47):
out that supposedly the joke was on me, and I said,
you know, it's a roast. I get it, But however,
do you mock fun and make a joke out of
somebody else's I won't say a pain somebody else's concerned.
It's even to do that. I'm a white woman. I
(41:07):
can do that. I can make fun of this black woman.
And guess what, the black people are gonna laugh with me.
Kevin Hart's gonna look at me and we're all gonna
have a blast. That's what we walk in every single day,
every day. So for me, Bethany, as a big black woman,
I will never be quiet, never, because there's a little
(41:28):
girl coming behind me who's not here, who's depending on
my big ass mouth. She's depending on it because I
depended on somebody's I depended on Haddie McDaniel, I depended
on iuld be Wells. I depended on those black women
before me that can have that door kicked open a
little further. So it is our job to kick it
(41:49):
open even more. And now you, as a white woman
experiencing a taste of that didn't feel good. Now your
opinions and you're appro which may be different and your
understanding of what a black woman is saying because you
felt just a mosquito bite of it.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Yeah, and it just there's something about those comments and
I was like wow, and it was just very it
was it was stated very in a way that I
really really just felt their pain, you know what I mean,
this person's pain.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
It was a few people.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
I'm glad you dealt with that because your conversations with
your daughter now may be different. Because if you're ignorant
to something, I can only tell you my ignorance. I
can't tell you anything else right, and can only tell
you was to share with me what I thought. But
now that you've walked in that, now your conversation with
your baby girl not maybe it better be different.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
And the truth is I this is besides the point,
I think, but like to that issue. Obviously, I've bought
so many things that you know, I could call ahead.
I don't want to be the person has to call
ahead and like get special. So I be a person
walking down a street, sweating and opening a door and
going into a store like.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
Obviously I'm gonna say this. What I used to work
at a boutique years ago when I was seventeen years old, right,
and it was beautiful things in that store, and you
had to be buzzed in, and there were some people
that could not be buzzed in. That's just how if
you look like you were on drugs, if you look like.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
I didn't look like I was.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
No, I didn't look at I'm saying, But it was
the way I was spoken to. It was there are
two ways to say something, and it was dismissive. Yeah,
you could say, if you have an appointment, that'd be lovely,
call Jane between these hours, and no problem, Like there's
two ways. But it was just like starting from no.
The no was before the conversation. The no was the
first glance was no. And that's so yeah exactly to.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
Some people when I was working at that boutique. Baby
not right now. Of course.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Obviously I've been a hostess at restaurants, I've been everything.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yeah, of course. And by the way, I'm not always pleasant.
I can be bitchy sometimes I'm not. Also, the first
experience you're having in a retail experience representing a brand,
the first experience of persons coming off the streets, sorry,
that's an aggressive now, you know, like so, And it
wasn't yeah anyway, who cares, it's it's it's we enough
to go on forever.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
But the comment was what was compelling. I wanted to know.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Because you've you've been vocal about Kevin and Tyler and Oprah,
and do you feel that they're.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Bad people? Do you feel that they're not good people?
Speaker 3 (44:29):
I've always said my husband and I both always said
we don't think they're bad people. We've always said and
as a matter of fact, let me be clear on
your show right now, Kevin Hart has always been my baby,
Kevin Hart said, I was like his mother, his aunt,
his sister. Do I love Kevin Hart? Yes. When Kevin
Hart got in an accident, I didn't want to hear
(44:50):
from nobody. I found my way to Kevin Hart. I said,
let me hear your voice, baby, let me hear you talking.
That's the relationship that I believe we had. So when
something happens and you don't keep your word with no accountability,
is that how you would treat somebody like your mother?
These are your words, not mine. So I still love
(45:11):
Kevin Hart, and I still believe the day is gonna
come around when Kevin Hart is gonna call me and say, hey, mo,
I played that one wrong, because I'm never gonna be
as anybody. Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey. I think that
they are people that got caught in their power.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
You think it's part of the machine. You think some
people are good people, but the machine is so big,
and it's bigger than the people.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
I think they got caught in their power. I think
they got caught in I am the mighty, and no
one can say anything they are the wiz. I am
the wiz, and but if you really come back here
and you really see the Wiz, you'll find out just
who they are. That's why they never want to sit
down publicly and speak to my husband and I because
within seconds, Bethany, within seconds, not minutes, seconds, the community
(46:02):
of people that stand for right wouldn't know just what
they were looking at. And I believe they're gonna find
it in their heart because I'm not the only one.
People just don't do things the one person don't work
like that. I think that, and this is my humble opinion.
I think that there are people to say I don't
want to ruffle no feathers, so I'm gonna just stay quiet. Well,
(46:22):
that's that's their right.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
I'm not I've never met either of them.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
I've met so many people in this industry, but I
just never met either of them, So I don't know
any I literally don't know them. Kat Williams is intriguing
to me. Did you guys have a great rapport? Do
you have a good relationship? Was it a good experience?
Speaker 3 (46:38):
Have you ever met someone, Bethany that you heard all
the rumors, you heard all of what they not and
they do this and they do that, and then you
meet them and you see pureness all over them. M hmm.
Kat Williams is one of the purest people I've ever
met in the game called entertainment. I've ever met, and
(47:04):
he's brilliantly funny. But for as funny as he is,
his heart is far bigger like that. That's what I
have to say about.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
How did you come together? Did you come together because
you've had these similar experiences with some of the same people,
or it was coincidental?
Speaker 2 (47:21):
I saw him on club Okay.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
I then called Rodney Perry because Rodney Perry knows everybody's number,
including Jesus you need it, I said, Rodney Perry. I
need to get in contact with Kat Williams. I need
to tell that brother. I'm so proud of him. He said,
I don't have Cat's number, but I got a person's
number that will have Cat's number, and that was Red Grant.
Red Grant called me back in about twenty minutes and said, hey, mo,
(47:46):
let me give Cat a call. Let him know you're
trying to find them. Well, in about thirty minutes, my
phone rings, Hello, Monique, this is Kat Williams. That was good,
I said, Cat, I'm so proud of you. I'm so
proud of you because I've never seen anybody be so
feerce and fearless and unwavering. I'm so proud of you, brother,
(48:07):
and I would love to play with you one day.
What that means on the stage together, yeah, oh, he said, Well,
I got a few dates that you can fill in.
I said, Kat, I'm not a feller, but whenever you've
got time for us to play, let's play at. Williams
and my husband got on the phone together. When they
got finished, I had thirty cities.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Wow. And it was an amazing experience.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
When you walk out into a crowd of front of
between ten thousand and sixteen thousand people and they're standing
on their feet and they're shouting your name in every
city you go to.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
I was so grateful. Yeah, so grateful, so amazing.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Especially at your I mean we're a similar age at
our Age, like everything we get.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Is like gravy.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
You're like, wait, this is still the tables are still
hotay you know what I mean? Yes, I always say
like when thea go cold, I'll walk out, but when
they're hot, I'm up there, I'm out, I'm doing it.
So that's why I feel like at our Age, you're like, wait,
this is like gravy.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
This is amazing.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
That's our Age. We just getting started.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
I kind of feel that, I mean I do. It's
just different. It's like really the Juicy Center, it's very good.
And how's your health because I've read that your fans
kind of helped you with your thyroid situation.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
They noticed something you didn't even see in yourself.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
Okay, Bethany, So for some years now, right, I was
getting comments like mo, go get your throat checked out.
It looked like you're thigroid. I was like, Okay, I've
just got a fat neck. I'm good I'm good, because
that's all I've ever been told.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
Oh, you got a fat neck.
Speaker 3 (49:40):
So I had a thyroid storm and it's shut me
completely down.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
Wow, I was hype or hypo or it's the other
one lower high.
Speaker 3 (49:52):
I'm hyper.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (49:54):
So I was on stage in New Orleans kat Williams
Dark Matter tour and when I tell you, everything went cloudy.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
Ey, oh this was recent.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
It was recent. Was Oh, everything went cloudy and I
couldn't see anything in front of me. So I'm on
stage and I'm saying, please let me get through it.
Please let me get through it, and knock on wood.
I got through it, and I got it. You know.
The people were very, very beautiful to me. And the
next weekend I was in the hospital.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Oh my god, that's.
Speaker 3 (50:26):
How bad it had gotten. It had got I mean it,
it was. I couldn't walk like, I couldn't stand straight up.
It was really bad.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
You're feeling good, You're feeling better around the men.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
I feel incredible and please excuse me for fan and baby,
but you understand. Yeah, okay. I started doing the nad
drips and the Meyers cocktail. Oh okay, I feel absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
And where do you live in Georgia.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
In the country.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
Oh okay, I mean well, I have to thank you
so much for being so open for coming on.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
I was, I was. I asked to have you on.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
I was super excited, and I was worried that something
would go wrong because I cancel for my mother passing.
So I'm just grateful for the conversation. I'd love to
meet you one day and I think it's a really
interesting and really talented and I was just excited for
you to be so open about your life.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
Thank you, and thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
So nice to meet you.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Say about you, I'm so grateful. Well, say hello to
your husband and all your kids, and.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
Just thank you. Have a wonderful, wonderful day.
Speaker 1 (51:31):
Honestly, you too, baby,
So, first of all, last time I canceled because my
mother passed away, I think like two days or three
days before. And what was weird was I really did
want to even talk to you then, but I didn't
want to sort of hijacket with like emotion and my stuff.
But I had this weird feeling about you, like I've
wanted to have you on and I don't even know
(00:33):
anything about you. I've just seen clips. I mean, I
know I've seen your work, but I don't know. I
like felt connected to you, and I kind of wanted
to have you on even though my mom had just passed,
and now reading about you like it could have happened,
I just I don't know, I feel you. So thank
you for being here because I'm really just excited to
talk to you and it's just like an instinct.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
So thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Thank you for having me baby.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
So I've been reading about you, and You've had a
really interesting life of so many traumatic experiences. And the
thing this term that I was talking about with regards
to my mother and her death, the term that came
out of that was generational trauma. And when I was
(01:17):
reading about you, I literally was like, this woman has
experienced generational trauma from what happened with your brother, with
your parents, with their parents, and like, I don't know
why that just like was the first thing I was like, Wow,
I could have talked to her about this stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, because oftentimes we want to make it about the
culture and white and black and you can't relate because
you're this and you're that. And then when you come
down to it, our shit is almost the same, the trauma,
the relationships with family, those things. If you say, now,
(01:54):
close your eyes and tell me are the white or
black when it comes to the trauma and families and
how we've been told to hide it, be quiet, let
it go. So I think that it's all relatable when
it just comes to human human life and human people.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Well it's right. And women stifle a lot and just
take it on their back and we wear it in
our bodies energetically. So you are a state. You started
as a stand up and an actress, you were dared
to be to get on stage and you just got
up and on an open mic, and what did you
what did you do? You had no plan? You literally
(02:31):
just stood up or you planned before you didn't.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Well, here's the thing, Bethany I never planned on being
an actress. Being an actress was something that as a
little girl, I said, Oh, one day, I just said,
I know I'm going to be famous. Now I did,
I knew, I knew and everything in me I was
going to be famous.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
That's interesting. I relate to that too, because as a kid,
I thought about trying to act. But I don't think
I was actually very good, not unlike you is good,
but I wanted. I think it has but I think
that has to do generational trauma too. You're like craving
some adoration and love, and that's sort of embarrassing to
admit when you're younger because it seems so thirsty and desperate.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
But when you get.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Older, like you're I don't know how old do you
mind if I ask cowbled, You're I'm fiftic.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
So as you get to be the sage, like what
is there to lie about? What is there physically to
lie about? Mentally emotionally, like here we are, we're on
the back nine, let's be honest. So I feel like
and we might not have even been in touch with it,
but I'm like, I just wanted to be somebody and
to be something and someone to pay attention to me,
because no one in my house was, and my mother
wouldn't even take me to go to like try to
go into the city to figure out how you could
(03:36):
even audition. And she always taunted me by telling me
someone once offered me a Disney contract, but she turned
it down. My whole life, I was like obsessed with that,
chasing whatever that was or wasn't. But so like you,
I kind of thought I was gonna be something, but
you really thought you would actually accomplish it, because I
don't know that I really thought I would. I just
thought it was like what I wanted to do. I
(03:57):
don't know that I thought I could land it. You
thought you could like land it did.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Everything that has taking place in my life. I willed it,
and I already saw it. And I say that humbly.
That humbly. I saw me getting an NAACP award before
I got it. I saw getting that Oscar award before
(04:20):
I got it, Like I saw those things before they
actually happened, and I believed it. Like I used to
sign my autograph, I used to wrap a talel around
me in the bathroom as a little girl and hold
the brush in my hand and say I want to
think because I saw that. I believe that. So I
(04:41):
understand when people say, well, how'd you happen? They say,
I willed it. In this industry we're in, we've got
to will what we're looking for. And even with the
black ball, even with the fights that I'm having, I
saw that too.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
So what do you I'm so jumping out of place
because you're inspiring me because one of the things I
was gonna ask you later was like what do you
what do you want? And what do you see happening?
So what do you see now? Because I know you're
fighting for a lot of different things, and you're being
very vocal, and you're being fearless, and it's got to
be liberating but also slightly scary talking about unfair practices
(05:20):
like disparity, things like that, so inequality. So what do
you see happening? What are you envision is going to happen?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
What I envision happening. I do believe that Tyler Perry,
I do believe that Oprah Winfrey. I do believe those
two people will come around. That's why I won't stop
and to say to is it a little bit scary?
There's no fear in it at all, Bethany Nice, There's
because I believe that the moment I show fear is
(05:49):
the moment the universe says you don't believe it and
you don't trust it. So I have an amazing husband
who was truly a king. That takes all doubt, all fear,
all anks, all of that is removed. Because when I'm home,
I'm a wife, I'm a mommy, I'm a grandmother. I
(06:11):
am not the business. I am the things that signed
up for.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
You have a foundation, a strong foundation. So the business
is the frosting, but you have the cake at home, like.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
That's come on, you put that together.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
So you're yeah, the business is the which I get
completely too. The business is a vehicle, a tool, and
you need to use it because it's certainly used you.
So them coming around, what's the definition of Oprah Winfrey
and Tyler Perry coming around? What's the definition of that?
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Did you see when Lee Daniels gave a public apology?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
No, I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Research it. Lee Daniels walked on stage while I was
on stage and gave a public apology. My coming around
for them, Bethany, is for them to do the same
thing to give up public apology. And I don't think
what they understand that makes them even bigger because what
they did is said, let me show you I'm human,
Let me not be this powerhouse that you better be
(07:12):
afraid of me, you better not say anything. And don't
you know what I can do? Well? Okay, but don't
you know how bigger you will be once you take
accountability for the shit that you created and say, hey,
I got to own that.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
And literally, you don't want an opportunity, You don't want
anything financial. You want acknowledgment. That's all you want is
just an acknowledgement.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
And I don't want you to put words in my mouth.
I do want an acknowledgement that you know what we did,
you wrong? And yes, I want financial accountability from Todd Perry,
Yes I do. That man's cost my family tens of
millions of dollars to a lie that he admitted to.
That's why everybody we interview with if we send them
the tape, because I don't want to put words in
(07:53):
anyone's mouth. You admit it to doing wrong, so now
you have to be accountable for that.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And do you see it happening? Do you see it happening.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I do you do if you're paying attention, No one
escapes if they're right sep paying attention baby to the
way the world is going. Right now, you don't escape
when you've been, in my humble opinion, malicious on purpose,
you can't escape it.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Now, what about the industry overall? Because you speak, you
you've spoken, You've been very vocal about that. You would
be Melissa McCarthy. Which is a great reference because it's
something that is tangible. You've really laid it out as
something people could understand. I mean the career you've had.
I mean most people have not won the awards. You
are an award decorated actress, comedian. So what can how
(08:43):
do you see that laying out?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Like?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Where does where does the come up and tap happen
with the industry? How does that disparity get reconciled?
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Well, you know, I think that there are some people
Bethany that are afraid to touch Monique and Monique' husband
and then and there are some people that say, you
know what, we just want to do good business. That's it.
We want to do good business. And when the business
is over, you go enjoy your space and I'm gonna
go enjoy mine, and those people are out there so
(09:12):
to say, how does this thing go? Well, we never
know how tomorrow's gonna go because we don't know if
we're going to be in it. However, if we are
lucky enough to be in it, if we get the
blessing to be in it, we keep fighting to make
it better, not just for no need. But they are
some little girls that are not here yet that if
my story is daemed important enough and they get a
(09:34):
chance to read it, what they will say is that
woman kept swinging for us until she left this earth.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And how is it working now? And how is how
is your career right now? Like the opportunities, like what's
the tide, what's the temperature?
Speaker 2 (09:49):
How is that going well?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Right now? I just got off of a thirty city
tour with Kat Williams, who was absolutely incredible, and the
movie The Deliverances get ready to come out with Lee
Daniels Netflix. So that's what's happening.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
When we're good people, people.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Would always say to me, what's next, what's next? And
I would give them my resume. Baby, well I got
this and this and this, and then the universe said,
do you believe what that's what's next, because we got
something else in mind for you. So when people say, Monique,
what's snacks, my honest answer to you is I hope
tomorrow because.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I get it.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, well that that that's interesting too, about like getting
up on stage doing stand up because someone dares you.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
You're a person who.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
You come from a place of yes, it sounds like,
and you just go with what's presented in front of you.
And I don't literally search for any ideas. I don't
search for anything. I don't go for deals. I like
listen to what's going on and whatever either I'm interested
in or when something knocks on my door. So many
people think that the key to success is being like
having a whole plan and a roadmap. And I'm exactly
(10:58):
like you in the sense that I was on Bravo
and I did have a feeling in my mind that
I was going to get a spin off. I was
like sort of like envisioning it, like you said. But
I always just kind of if you're not open to
the road, you're gonna miss so many things. So I
do get that. But you're always working. It sounds like
you're like you're in the car. The car is no,
(11:20):
I'm not no right now. It sounds like, well, when people.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Say you're always working, there are people that die in
their hotel rooms, Bethany because they were always working. There
are people that die on the stage because they're always working.
I take pride and not always working.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
It seems like you always have something that you've just
been doing or can be doing. It seems like you're
in you have some version of being in demand by
somebody at some time and someone wants to do something
with you.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
I was in demand yesterday and I'm gonna tell you
what they were demanding. So my son Jonathan is now
trying to eat really healthy, and he said, Mommy, can
you make me some of them recy cup with my
almond butter crunch. So this morning I got up, baby
and method that damn chocolate and put it and I
got it. Complete it. When I finished talking.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
To you, Oh I got it.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I just got all the sweetish candy for my daughter
and she just called me crying from school because she
lost a bracelet. I got her and she's apoplectic, and
I'm like, it's okay, Everything's going to be okay. Being
a mother, especially at this age, is more valuable. You
really appreciate it, and you know where we've come from.
It sounds like you broke the chain from your childhood.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Do you feel like you.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Have when you say break the chain? I'm just doing
it different. Break the chain is a good one because
I no longer want When I was coming up, a
lot of things felt like to me from my parents
it was a burden. Like it felt like it was
a burden to take me school shopping. It felt like
(12:53):
it was a burden to say, you know, I need
you to check my homework. It always felt like it
was this pressure. And I don't know what my parents
were dealing with at the time, right. So with my children,
I never want them to feel like it's a burden.
And I got a second chance at motherhood. And I
say that openly to people, and I've always said it
(13:15):
because when I had my first son, I was busy
trying to be famous. I was trying to make it.
I was trying to give us a lifestyle. So whatever
college he wanted to go to, there would be no questions.
Whatever he wanted in life, there would be no questions.
But what I wasn't doing was putting in the nurturing
because I was tired. I was trying to do it all.
(13:37):
So the sacrifice was my son. The first son didn't
get the nurturing mother. Well, I prayed for a second
chance and I received it, and I refused to sacrifice
it because I learned that lesson.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
And I didn't know that you've both been public speaking
about this, your son from your first relationship, and you
feel have you have you forgiven yourself? Have you given
yourself grace and like or do you still feel guilt?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I don't feel so.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
See there's a lot that's being left out. My son
and I sat down and had a conversation as to adults,
and we both apologized to one another. We both did
and at that moment we ask for each other's forgiveness
and we gave it. So at that point, I don't
play backsies. I don't play now. We had the conversation Monday,
(14:30):
but it's Tuesday. It's like we didn't talk and Wednesday
we're mad. I don't play backsies. So for my son
and I, as I've said on Shannon's shop, I hope
time heals it. We can only let time see what
it's gonna do. And as I said publicly about my son.
We'll see how it plays out. Because one thing about me,
(14:51):
Beth and me, how I do anything is how I
do everything.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
I've said that. That's really funny. I said that on
a show. Yeah yeah, business personal for you too. Business
you personal is business? Business is personal. Everything matters.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Everything matters.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yes, everything matters. So do you feel whole about it?
Do you feel like you have a hole in your
heart about like?
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Is it unrest that it's not resolved and or it's
just a it's a it's a moment in time, like
this is just a moment in time.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
It's a moment in time. And I'll say this to
the mothers out there or the father's out there that
feel like, what can I do? There's nothing you can do.
If you've apologized for your missteps, if you've asked for
forgiveness and forgiveness was given, there's nothing you can do.
So now, my son is a thirty four year old man.
(15:42):
Whenever he's ready, guess where I am. Guess where my
husband is.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
And you love him, you feel connected to him like
he's your son.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Feel I carried that baby. I laid down for that
one baby. Okay, for that one.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Of course, Yes, well I hope that gets resolved because
it's time goes by so quickly and then something happens,
someone gets sick, and then everyone wants to like make
up for it, and it just it's like it's hard
for people to see the forest from the trees in
the moment, you know, myself included, like and not everyone connects.
You can have a blood family member that you don't
(16:17):
necessarily connect with and you can have guilt about that.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I've had that myself, and.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I just think it's important to communicate on some level,
even the way you're saying it right now, like to
try to be vulnerable vulnerable about it because, like you said,
everybody comes from their own story and it is a
moment in time, you know, I, for the first time ever,
I forgive my mother and also mourned her terrible childhood.
Like thinking about why people aren't just the way they are.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
For no reason.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
People don't abuse for no reason, people don't drink for
no reason. People have something going on behind, and if
you can look at the origin of that, it makes
it more palatable to understand, which is what you said
earlier about where your parents came from. Why they kind of,
you know, marginalize what.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
You were doing.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
So and but you have a you feel like you've
gotten a second chance, and you have a great relationship
with your son.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
With my sons.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Sons. You have two sons, so you've been all three boys.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
I have five all total.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Oh okay, wow, okay, and go ahead, so.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
With the one. And and here's also what I say
to people. My story is not unique. It's Monique story
because it's Monique, this unique story, but it's not unique.
It's not a story of Oh, I can't believe that.
That's why I say to women, especially black men, because
(17:41):
because that journey can be different from anyone else's. If
you know what you're walking in, be unafraid to walk
in it. They'll make us fearful. You'll begin to backtrack
on what you know to be true. Yes, be right,
and you'll start backtracking and then you am I crazy. Yeah,
(18:03):
Well twenty of them did it, But why am I
the only one that's not doing it? Because they know better.
You gotta be so okay and you're staying as you
have been. You gotta be so okay when the rest
of the party say we don't want to play with
you no more. Okay, Well, let me get my toys
and take my ass over here with the people that
want to play with me. You've got to be okay
(18:23):
with that. And I think another thing that we do,
we lose. I'm sure you've told your babies, don't you
let nobody bully you.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I'm sure you've told you Oh my god, yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
You're better tell the truth. But we go up and
we drop that off, and you see people get bullied.
You see people and you're like, well, what happened to
the principles that we were given as children? So I
just chose not to change the principles that I was getting.
I'm not gonna do it.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
I mean, you're saying basically what I say to my
daughter in relationships, in school and in my life. Never
accept less than what you deserve, and you know what
you deserve. Hopefully that starts with having self worth. And
sometimes you have like you flounder because you don't have
self worth, and that's when you're willing to accept less
and you're afraid and making decisions out of fear. You
have to have a little bit of success sometimes to
(19:15):
get to the point where you can stand up for yourself,
you know, like that you got to get to that point,
and it's very It does feel like standing at the
top of a mountain and you're pretty much alone when
you're being courageous and speaking up about things that most
people won't and they won't go the whole distance. They'll
go three miles, five miles, they won't go the whole marathon.
So then you're alone running the rest. But I get that,
like I really do, gets.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
You take when you know what you're standing at.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, but it's very liberate. It's like telling the truth
is very free because you just know you don't have
to hide anywhere. There's nothing to do. It's what it is,
and people are scared of it. It's very scary for people.
So I get it.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
People have been in a position where they didn't have freedom.
So yeah, damn if I'm gonna let you take mine
from me, yep, going to hold on to it, beath
and until they say, Monique is your turn. And then
when I get to the next place, I'm gonna walk
through the door and say, yeah, I know I'm free, right,
So what Hey, long as y'all know what y'all get.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Well, you are an open book. And I never want
to bring up something and someone doesn't want to talk
about So if you don't want to talk about anything,
you just tell me this is not a gotcha show.
But you're it's like almost like I didn't read it,
and you're saying that your story is not that unique.
I mean, I your brother abusing you sexually is is
it's it's it's chilling to me. I mean it's it's
(20:28):
it's real, but not unique. I know it's I know,
I know. So how have you dealt with that? How
have you liberated yourself from that? The fact that he
went on Oprah and admitted it had to be validating
and and sometimes you want that public validation because people
never believe women no matter what. It always and you
(20:50):
never believe yourself. Half the time, we think we're imagining things.
Did you ever think something? Has something ever happened to
you that you like, no happened, But then you're sort
of imagining it because your your mind's playing tricks on you.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
My crown wouldn't let me do that, Bethany. It'd be like, no,
that shit happened, Monique, And we're not going to make
pretend it didn't. Like you ever heard Dick Gregory, and
Dick Gregory said, when the universe puts the magic glasses
on you, you cannot take them off.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
And you have to see things for what they are,
not what you want them to be. So I believe
I got those glasses as a very young girl, and
I had to see things for what they were. Did
I want them to be different? Did I want my
parents to be more involved? Did I want that not
to happen from my brother? Yes, but it did. So
(21:40):
I have to see it for what it is and
to say how did I cope? How did I get
through it? I'll tell you for a long time, Bethanie,
I didn't because I got to me address it. And
when I got married to my best friend from tenth grade,
he said to me, listen, I'm going to need you
to stop using your bad behavior. You got to stop
using your brother molesting you as a crutch, because now
(22:03):
you've gotten used to not taking accountability for your shit,
and you've gotten used to saying, well, I did that
because of what my brother did to me. He said,
you are a grown woman right now.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I call that wearing your story?
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Oh baby? What you Every time it was my brother's fault,
and he said, I need you to grow up and
take accountability for your decisions and your choices. Right now.
When you were a little girl, there was nothing you
can do. Now you're a grown woman, you were fully
responsible for your choices, your decisions, and your thoughts. That's
(22:37):
when I was able to drop it off.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
So you intervened in your own behavior. Do you forgive him? Yes,
because he's a product of his environment and his generational trauma.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
As I said to my children, that is my brother's
burden to charactery. It's long on my burden. My brother
actually went to jail from molesting his stepdaughter. So when
you've done nothing wrong, and it can be hard to
walk in it when you got people saying you crazy,
(23:08):
just shut up. Just because my mother said to me
when I did the article in essence, she said, well,
don't tell him it's Gerald, Just tell him it was
a family member.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
And I said, my, if I do that, that puts
everybody on trial.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Right, it puts everybody on try.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
And by the way, also like now you're protecting now
you have you're the hostage, holding a hostage secret like
somebody else's secret. Like, now that's on your it's your problem.
I mean yeah, I mean right now, you're protecting this
person and not protecting yourself. I mean you had to
be liberated from it. Do you did you did you feel?
(23:46):
Did you know instinctively as a kid that it was wrong?
Because I've had that experience as well with a brother.
But I didn't. I don't think I even knew it
was wrong. Like I play the movie back later and
go back to it and didn't.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I didn't know it was wrong. I just it was
just what happened.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
I knew it was wrong from jump because the moment
you go, sh, this is wrong because you're telling me
to be quiet.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Oh okay, the moment you go.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Sh, this is wrong. And I think with molestation for me,
here's where me and Oprah Winfrey have a problem too.
We spoke about that, Bethany, and we spoke about that
offline when she called me up and asked me, can
your brother come on the show? He's called me, I said,
(24:37):
of course. She said, he wants to talk about him
molesting you, and he wants to apologize to you. I said, Oprah,
the man I know is he's up to something, but
I don't like his blessing he could be in a
different place. I just don't want anything to do with him. Now,
what Oprah Winfrey did not tell me was that my
mother was going to be there. What Oprah Winfrey did
(24:59):
not tell I mean, is that my father was going
to be there. See that's and when you say unique,
that's the uniqueness of this situation when you have two
black women on the phone talking when no one can
hear this conversation. And I'm telling this woman what I'm
dealing with with my mother, Wow, with my mother, and
she told me about hers too, which I will never repeat. However,
(25:23):
when I kick it on, you have my mother and
your audience, because she said to me, if you want
me not to do the show, I won't do the show.
That's just when she told me it was my brother.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Hell and if you knew it was your pet, you
felt like you were exploited for ratings.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
And if you knew, you didn't know the whole story exactly.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
It's like, how do you do that when I'm telling
you what I'm dealing with? And that really put the
nail in the coffin for my mother and I we
oh wow, we never spoke again.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Oh my God, So you're saying, Oprah Winfrey is the
reason that you have not ever spoken to your mother again.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
I won't do that to her. I won't put it
all on her because I'm right. It was what it
was before she came. What I will say is she
wasn't an honest enough, an honest enough woman to say, listen,
we have your mother too. Because had I known my
mother was going to be their destiny, I would have
said immediately shut it down, because I did not need
(26:17):
the world seeing how greedy.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Well, because also your parents are trying to protect themselves
and that they were around for that experience, and that's
one of your issues. They didn't protect you from it.
So now there they're all trying to create their own
narrative and you're like left out. It's like one voice
against three and whatever they're spinning.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Had Oprah Winfrey said, Monique, your mother's gonna be here,
I would have said, hey, baby, shut it down. Because
what Oprah Winfrey doesn't care about because I've said it repeatedly.
See Oprah Winfrey didn't walk through the walmart and have
women coming up to her saying, you know what, Monique,
your mother wasn't shit for that, because it's still my mother, right,
she didn't have that. I had to deal with that repeatedly.
(26:57):
Now they felt like they were protecting me, and I
appreciate it, but it's still my mother that you tell
me she ain't right.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
You had to live it more than you had to
keep living feeling that your mom is a bad mother.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Like it was like it was doubling accountability for that.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
You have had some life you feel you've definitely you
must have. Do you have trust issues? No, you're trusting.
You're still trusting.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
I have. I'm married to a man. By the way,
we just celebrated eighteen years, made fenty.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Congratulations, thank you.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
I'm married to a man that I had been best
friends with since I was fourteen years old, and he
is exactly who he said he was. Wow, from fourteen
to now fifty six. How could I have trust issues
when the union has allowed me to see what true
unconditional love really is. Because I don't know about you,
(27:51):
but I know with my traumas and my yesterdays, it
was hard for me to love.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Oh my god, you don't know about I mean, yeah, no, yes,
you're very You've got the big foundation. You've got the trust,
you've got, the life partner, you've got your foxhole.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
And oftentimes it's not the other person's fault, as much
as we want to make it they fault. We couldn't
get out of.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Our own way, my story of my life.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
You couldn't get out your own way, so you could
have lost somebody that was the greatest thing for you.
But because of your yesterday, you couldn't close the book
on it. So everything that you thought was related to yesterday,
it's easy to blame it on today. It's easy.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yeah, if you are not a full person, if you're
not a person that you would want to be in
a relationship with, and if you haven't resolved your stuff,
you're just dumping it.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
One, and not everyone has to want it, you know.
Not everyone has to want that, And it all comes
in many shapes and sizes.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
But I agree with you like you have.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
We have to face these traumas, we have to go
through them like a storm you cannot avoid. That's why
it's funny. I we would have had a different We
could have had this talk and that talk, and it
would been very different, but interesting. I had a gut
instinct about you because I would have just been telling
you that I was living for the first time to
your point about being abused. I put it in a
box and I did not revisit it until fifty three
(29:11):
years old, for two weeks, like a dog in this house,
just wandering crying and like reading let I did not
visit my childhood for probably with like almost forty years.
It was like a movie that I was living through
that time. But I went. I chose to go through
the storm. I didn't choose to go be with other
people to grieve and mourn and you know, drink and
(29:32):
look at pictures and laugh. I chose to just like
be a dog, and it were I wanna say it worked.
I like had a profound experience because I moved through
it the hardest thing I ever did. It was one
of the hardest things I've ever done. So yes, like
it's hard to be in relationship when there are so
many relationships and traumas that aren't resolved or addressed or acknowledged.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
You know, sis, I think about I was just talking
about this this morning. I think about the bones I'll
never get a chance to me that is a part
of me. And when they look at my picture, what
do I want them to see what Usians do I
want them to have about their great great great grandmother,
about what do I want them to say? So I
(30:15):
have to live in what I want them to say.
You know, I have to live that. I have to
live that that my children see, we didn't see our
mother broken, we didn't see our mother defeated, we didn't
see our mother damn. So that way their story to
their children and their children to their children. So that
(30:36):
is what allows me to make sure I'm going every
day saying, let me enjoy this moment.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
That's the generational healing that you're that is, that is
the breaking the chain, like because you're healing for future generations.
(31:04):
I read that you're in an open marriage, which is
so fascinating because you're talking about your soulmate and it's
not a one size fits all. It's the way that
you are living your life that you and your husband
as partners, have decided to live your life.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
So what does that mean?
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Because it comes in many shapes and forms, and I've
heard I'm so with sixty percent of marriages ending in divorce.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
I'm very open minded and I.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Always say, like whatever works for a couple like we
can No one can walk in people's shoes, and everyone
wants to assign their own beliefs or values or failures
or fears on other couples. So my question is, what
is open marriage when yours is described as such?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
What is that? What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Oh, let me tell you what it mean, because it
has different meanings. Okay, when Sydney and I first got together,
it was my best friend. We were like brother and
sister from tenth grade. He came to the first two
marriages he was into as my brother. Okay, So when
I was in my other marriages, I didn't know how
(32:06):
to be nobody's wife, definite. I didn't know what the
commitment really meant because I was gonna do what I
wanted to do anyway. So who did I call when
I was doing what I wanted to do anyway? My
best friend to say this is what I'm doing? Right?
And then when we first got together, I said, hey,
you know who you're getting involved with. Right when we
(32:29):
first got together, I was married to my best friend.
He had not yet become my husband.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I was married to this my sibling almost like they
say yes yes.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
So when we first got together, it meant that if
we wanted to have other partners, we could.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
That is exactly what it meant, because you were just
marrying a partner you wanted a life partner didn't have
to mean that every single need gets to filled by
the other person at the time.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
At that time, he was not yet my husband. What
was I his wife? Though we were married. We were
best friends that got married. And as time started moving on,
I started looking at my best friend as my king
because I started seeing things that I had never seen
in a man before, not my father, not my brothers,
(33:20):
not my uncles. I had never seen that kind of
strength in a man. And I remember when I first
told him I wanted to still see other people. He said, Monique,
we've been loving each other since tenth grade. Do you
think that would stop me from loving you?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
So, he said, I've been loving you for this many years?
Is that going to really you know, is that going
to make a difference? Which is very evolved, very like
that's like elevated, so evolved beyond. So now, okay, so
now you how many years were you together then when
you were saying I still want to see other people,
I'm gonna.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Say it may have been five to seven.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Years okay, and then had so then he had it shift.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
It just shifted. It was one day everything felt different
and I didn't want to be with anybody but my husband.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
I didn't want And also look at your life.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Who knows what voids you were trying to fill through
other things like we have a thousand reasons for doing
things like maybe I.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Tell women my husband loved me like I was at
my best when I was at my worst, because most
men wouldn't have been able to deal with that. Most
men wouldn't have been able to deal with Now I'm
a public figure, I'm a celebrity, I'm famous. There's a
little bit of money in the bank, and now I'm
(34:39):
making all the rules. Most men, the egos wouldn't have
let them. Yeah, of course, But when you're dealing with
somebody that is a king, Oh, that man is a king.
And he was able to have conversations with me, Bethany,
that no one when I went to the side pychiatrist,
(35:00):
and I went to a psychiatrist for years. Everything that
the psychiatrist said to me, he would say to me
before I went there. He said, but I need you
to go talk to somebody who has no dog in
the front because when I talk to you, you think
I'm judging right, But when they talk to you, and
I would come home and say everything you said to me,
(35:22):
Doctor Wanzo said to me, I saw this man Bethany
love on our children in a way that I've never
seen a man do that I've never seen. My husband
is the greatest human being I've ever met in my life.
Let me just say that.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
So you fell in love with him within the marriage,
and then in lust with him, and like you've had
a layered cake, the cake has many layers, so you've
had many different experiences within the relationship.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
I think that's a message to people to be open
minded about relationship and the journey that it takes. And
everybody thinks it's supposed to be a one size fits
all and it has to be this. And I think
that marriage is marketed to twenty year olds about the
white dress and the big ring everything, but not the marriage,
not like the commitment and not what it really takes
and just like being on the journey, and I think
that's something has to be thought of more so, I
(36:13):
think it's inspiring to be honest about what you both
want in your relationship and that that can change and
evolves amazing.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
And I watched my parents being a marriage for over
fifty years, but neither one of them evolved. What she
married is what she got till she died. He was
what he got to lead doctors. Right, So write these
two people be in a relationship, but not like one another.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Right.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
And that's all the marriages that I saw my uncle.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Yeah, exactly. It's like a burden.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yeah, you check the box to get married, but then
when you're in it, you got to just be the
two people that are complaining and surviving instead of thriving.
And you sound like you're thriving. You talk about I
(37:06):
read about the Melissa McCarthy thing that I referenced earlier,
and is that is the difference in your career from
someone like hers who has had a similar trajectory. Is
the difference the color of your skin?
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (37:20):
So I was in Chicago two days ago and I
was just walking. I came off the plane and I
was sweaty, and I had a T shirt on and
like just a ratty cart again and cargo jeans. And
I'm not vain, I don't really care what I look like.
And I just was walking with a like mom big
oversized water bottle and a bag of cheesy popcorn, and
(37:41):
I just was a little bit of a wreck. I
was like sweating. I literally just wanted to take a
hot It was eighty degrees. So I passed by Chanel
and I wanted to just walk in and look just
I saw something in the window. I just wanted to
walk in and look. And the man at the door
opened the door. There was no security outside at this time,
and he opened the door halfway and he said, do
you have an appointment? And I said no, and he said,
I'm sorry, you have to have an appointment. It was
(38:02):
really brief and it was dismissive and I felt slighted.
And I posted about this and it became this viral thing,
like the sociological Experiment, and I went back the next
day dressed to the nines looking like a Chanel model
because I had an appearance. It wasn't like I was
doing it for this. I happened to bring my alpha
for the next day. I had hair makeup looked like
Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl, Like it looked like I
(38:24):
was wearing head head to toe Chanelle. I wasn't but
it was that vibe coincidentally, and I said into the video, like,
if I walk in here looking different than I did
yesterday and I'm treated differently, Christmas is canceled, so lo
and behold. I walked up to Chanelle this day. There
were three guards because I had seen my video I
think from the day before, and people were saying it
wasn't because of the way I looked, but that it
(38:45):
was because it's not safe in Chicago, and it's a
whole discussion that's not that important. But what is important
is that the next day I looked different and they
let me in right away. And many people have come
into my comments saying and nicely, really nicely, like not
coming at me, saying you were able to change your
clothes and look different the next day. I'm a black
woman and I can't change the color of my skin,
(39:07):
and that's how we get treated.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
And it really did it.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Just the way that this was said on this particular
issue wouldn't have been something I would have thought would
be brought up, and it was actually really profound.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
It just made me.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Feel a little small, you know, and I really thought,
oh my God, for people to feel every day just
like it doesn't always have to be overt, but there'd
be a nuance of like, you're just not at the
same level. And I just I just spelt differently about
reading those comments. It was just something, It was just
something different about it.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Sometimes when you get a little a little bit to
walk in it, you understand it differently. And that was
just a little taste. And you were able to put
up a post and the next day they start switching
shit around to make sure we accommodate if this woman
comes back. Well, you're right. All you had to do
(40:04):
was go get yourself pretty up and now you go.
So you got a little, not even a taste, you
got a little drip on your tongue. I saw a
clip of the Roast with Kevin Hart, and I saw
my comedic sister, Chelsea Handler, and she was saying, you know,
(40:25):
Kevin made me these promises and he said he got
me and he didn't have me. And it was a joke, right.
I'm saying, oh, well, he lied to you too well,
Only to come to find out the joke was on
me because I did a thing on that what Kevin
Hart told me something and he didn't follow through with it,
and I had a conversation about that well to find
(40:47):
out that supposedly the joke was on me, and I said,
you know, it's a roast. I get it, But however,
do you mock fun and make a joke out of
somebody else's I won't say a pain somebody else's concerned.
It's even to do that. I'm a white woman. I
(41:07):
can do that. I can make fun of this black woman.
And guess what, the black people are gonna laugh with me.
Kevin Hart's gonna look at me and we're all gonna
have a blast. That's what we walk in every single day,
every day. So for me, Bethany, as a big black woman,
I will never be quiet, never, because there's a little
(41:28):
girl coming behind me who's not here, who's depending on
my big ass mouth. She's depending on it because I
depended on somebody's I depended on Haddie McDaniel, I depended
on iuld be Wells. I depended on those black women
before me that can have that door kicked open a
little further. So it is our job to kick it
(41:49):
open even more. And now you, as a white woman
experiencing a taste of that didn't feel good. Now your
opinions and you're appro which may be different and your
understanding of what a black woman is saying because you
felt just a mosquito bite of it.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Yeah, and it just there's something about those comments and
I was like wow, and it was just very it
was it was stated very in a way that I
really really just felt their pain, you know what I mean,
this person's pain.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
It was a few people.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
I'm glad you dealt with that because your conversations with
your daughter now may be different. Because if you're ignorant
to something, I can only tell you my ignorance. I
can't tell you anything else right, and can only tell
you was to share with me what I thought. But
now that you've walked in that, now your conversation with
your baby girl not maybe it better be different.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
And the truth is I this is besides the point,
I think, but like to that issue. Obviously, I've bought
so many things that you know, I could call ahead.
I don't want to be the person has to call
ahead and like get special. So I be a person
walking down a street, sweating and opening a door and
going into a store like.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
Obviously I'm gonna say this. What I used to work
at a boutique years ago when I was seventeen years old, right,
and it was beautiful things in that store, and you
had to be buzzed in, and there were some people
that could not be buzzed in. That's just how if
you look like you were on drugs, if you look like.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
I didn't look like I was.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
No, I didn't look at I'm saying, But it was
the way I was spoken to. It was there are
two ways to say something, and it was dismissive. Yeah,
you could say, if you have an appointment, that'd be lovely,
call Jane between these hours, and no problem, Like there's
two ways. But it was just like starting from no.
The no was before the conversation. The no was the
first glance was no. And that's so yeah exactly to.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
Some people when I was working at that boutique. Baby
not right now. Of course.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Obviously I've been a hostess at restaurants, I've been everything.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yeah, of course. And by the way, I'm not always pleasant.
I can be bitchy sometimes I'm not. Also, the first
experience you're having in a retail experience representing a brand,
the first experience of persons coming off the streets, sorry,
that's an aggressive now, you know, like so, And it
wasn't yeah anyway, who cares, it's it's it's we enough
to go on forever.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
But the comment was what was compelling. I wanted to know.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Because you've you've been vocal about Kevin and Tyler and Oprah,
and do you feel that they're.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Bad people? Do you feel that they're not good people?
Speaker 3 (44:29):
I've always said my husband and I both always said
we don't think they're bad people. We've always said and
as a matter of fact, let me be clear on
your show right now, Kevin Hart has always been my baby,
Kevin Hart said, I was like his mother, his aunt,
his sister. Do I love Kevin Hart? Yes. When Kevin
Hart got in an accident, I didn't want to hear
(44:50):
from nobody. I found my way to Kevin Hart. I said,
let me hear your voice, baby, let me hear you talking.
That's the relationship that I believe we had. So when
something happens and you don't keep your word with no accountability,
is that how you would treat somebody like your mother?
These are your words, not mine. So I still love
(45:11):
Kevin Hart, and I still believe the day is gonna
come around when Kevin Hart is gonna call me and say, hey, mo,
I played that one wrong, because I'm never gonna be
as anybody. Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey. I think that
they are people that got caught in their power.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
You think it's part of the machine. You think some
people are good people, but the machine is so big,
and it's bigger than the people.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
I think they got caught in their power. I think
they got caught in I am the mighty, and no
one can say anything they are the wiz. I am
the wiz, and but if you really come back here
and you really see the Wiz, you'll find out just
who they are. That's why they never want to sit
down publicly and speak to my husband and I because
within seconds, Bethany, within seconds, not minutes, seconds, the community
(46:02):
of people that stand for right wouldn't know just what
they were looking at. And I believe they're gonna find
it in their heart because I'm not the only one.
People just don't do things the one person don't work
like that. I think that, and this is my humble opinion.
I think that there are people to say I don't
want to ruffle no feathers, so I'm gonna just stay quiet. Well,
(46:22):
that's that's their right.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
I'm not I've never met either of them.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
I've met so many people in this industry, but I
just never met either of them, So I don't know
any I literally don't know them. Kat Williams is intriguing
to me. Did you guys have a great rapport? Do
you have a good relationship? Was it a good experience?
Speaker 3 (46:38):
Have you ever met someone, Bethany that you heard all
the rumors, you heard all of what they not and
they do this and they do that, and then you
meet them and you see pureness all over them. M hmm.
Kat Williams is one of the purest people I've ever
met in the game called entertainment. I've ever met, and
(47:04):
he's brilliantly funny. But for as funny as he is,
his heart is far bigger like that. That's what I
have to say about.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
How did you come together? Did you come together because
you've had these similar experiences with some of the same people,
or it was coincidental?
Speaker 2 (47:21):
I saw him on club Okay.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
I then called Rodney Perry because Rodney Perry knows everybody's number,
including Jesus you need it, I said, Rodney Perry. I
need to get in contact with Kat Williams. I need
to tell that brother. I'm so proud of him. He said,
I don't have Cat's number, but I got a person's
number that will have Cat's number, and that was Red Grant.
Red Grant called me back in about twenty minutes and said, hey, mo,
(47:46):
let me give Cat a call. Let him know you're
trying to find them. Well, in about thirty minutes, my
phone rings, Hello, Monique, this is Kat Williams. That was good,
I said, Cat, I'm so proud of you. I'm so
proud of you because I've never seen anybody be so
feerce and fearless and unwavering. I'm so proud of you, brother,
(48:07):
and I would love to play with you one day.
What that means on the stage together, yeah, oh, he said, Well,
I got a few dates that you can fill in.
I said, Kat, I'm not a feller, but whenever you've
got time for us to play, let's play at. Williams
and my husband got on the phone together. When they
got finished, I had thirty cities.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Wow. And it was an amazing experience.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
When you walk out into a crowd of front of
between ten thousand and sixteen thousand people and they're standing
on their feet and they're shouting your name in every
city you go to.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
I was so grateful. Yeah, so grateful, so amazing.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Especially at your I mean we're a similar age at
our Age, like everything we get.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Is like gravy.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
You're like, wait, this is still the tables are still
hotay you know what I mean? Yes, I always say
like when thea go cold, I'll walk out, but when
they're hot, I'm up there, I'm out, I'm doing it.
So that's why I feel like at our Age, you're like, wait,
this is like gravy.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
This is amazing.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
That's our Age. We just getting started.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
I kind of feel that, I mean I do. It's
just different. It's like really the Juicy Center, it's very good.
And how's your health because I've read that your fans
kind of helped you with your thyroid situation.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
They noticed something you didn't even see in yourself.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
Okay, Bethany, So for some years now, right, I was
getting comments like mo, go get your throat checked out.
It looked like you're thigroid. I was like, Okay, I've
just got a fat neck. I'm good I'm good, because
that's all I've ever been told.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
Oh, you got a fat neck.
Speaker 3 (49:40):
So I had a thyroid storm and it's shut me
completely down.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
Wow, I was hype or hypo or it's the other
one lower high.
Speaker 3 (49:52):
I'm hyper.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (49:54):
So I was on stage in New Orleans kat Williams
Dark Matter tour and when I tell you, everything went cloudy.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
Ey, oh this was recent.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
It was recent. Was Oh, everything went cloudy and I
couldn't see anything in front of me. So I'm on
stage and I'm saying, please let me get through it.
Please let me get through it, and knock on wood.
I got through it, and I got it. You know.
The people were very, very beautiful to me. And the
next weekend I was in the hospital.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Oh my god, that's.
Speaker 3 (50:26):
How bad it had gotten. It had got I mean it,
it was. I couldn't walk like, I couldn't stand straight up.
It was really bad.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
You're feeling good, You're feeling better around the men.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
I feel incredible and please excuse me for fan and baby,
but you understand. Yeah, okay. I started doing the nad
drips and the Meyers cocktail. Oh okay, I feel absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
And where do you live in Georgia.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
In the country.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
Oh okay, I mean well, I have to thank you
so much for being so open for coming on.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
I was, I was. I asked to have you on.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
I was super excited, and I was worried that something
would go wrong because I cancel for my mother passing.
So I'm just grateful for the conversation. I'd love to
meet you one day and I think it's a really
interesting and really talented and I was just excited for
you to be so open about your life.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
Thank you, and thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
So nice to meet you.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Say about you, I'm so grateful. Well, say hello to
your husband and all your kids, and.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
Just thank you. Have a wonderful, wonderful day.
Speaker 1 (51:31):
Honestly, you too, baby,
Host
Bethenny Frankel
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