Mo’Nique isn’t letting Tyler Perry off the hook following the Madea star’s impassioned eulogy at Angie Stone’s funeral, where he decried the music industry’s mistreatment of the late singer.
The comedian and actress fired back with an open letter and resurfaced audio, accusing Perry of subjecting her to the same injustices he condemned.
Perry’s remarks came during Stone’s memorial, where he expressed outrage over the industry’s failure to fairly compensate the R&B icon for her decades of work.
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“Y’all got to forgive me because I’m angry at the way she was treated,” Perry said, referencing recently resurfaced claims that Stone was owed millions in unpaid royalties before her passing.
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“All of those years, all of those songs, all of that money that was owed to her—where is it? It’s wrong, and I’m tired of seeing us struggle and not reap the benefits of what we were supposed to reap.”
But Mo’Nique, who has long accused Perry, Oprah Winfrey, and Lee Daniels of “blackballing” her from Hollywood, saw hypocrisy in his words.
Taking to Instagram, she posted a scathing open letter, backed by a leaked phone call from 2020, to call out Perry’s alleged double standards.
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“You condemned Angie’s mistreatment but labeled me ‘difficult to work with’—despite never actually working with me,” she wrote. “How can you advocate for fairness while perpetuating the same treatment? We have audio of you admitting you were wrong.”
In her letter, Mo’Nique posed pointed questions: Where’s the public apology Perry allegedly promised her in 2016? Why did he ask her to promote Precious for free, without a contract or pay, while now preaching about artists getting their due?
“You spoke about being ‘tired’ of Black artists not getting what they deserve,” she wrote. “Yet, you assured me of an apology years ago, yet it has never come.” Quoting scripture—Mark 8:36, “What will it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?”—she urged Perry to “right the wrongs” done to her and her family.
The accompanying audio, previously leaked in 2020 amid Will Smith’s apology to Janet Hubert, captures Perry expressing regret to Mo’Nique.
“It’s heartbreaking,” he says, acknowledging her pain after watching her podcast. He admits to writing something for her but hesitating to send it due to pressure from Lionsgate, the studio behind Precious, which Mo’Nique claims tried to exploit her labor without compensation.
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Mo’Nique’s clash with Perry is part of a broader saga. She has claimed for years that Perry, Winfrey, and Daniels sabotaged her career after she refused to promote Precious without pay, costing her tens of millions. While she reconciled with Daniels in 2022—marked by a public apology and a role in his 2024 Netflix thriller Deliverance—her rift with Perry and Winfrey remains unresolved.
