Mo’Nique divided the Internet when she weighed in on the discourse about Black women wearing bonnets in public.
“All I’m saying is could you please comb your hair?,” Mo said in a now-viral clip. “I’m not saying you don’t have pride but the representation that you’re showing someone will have to ask you to know if you have it. It’s not to get a man … it is just your representation of you, my sweet babies.”
She also noted that “if you look like you don’t give a damn, how you gonna be treated?” and warned, “if I see you in the streets, in the airport, in the Walmart and you got a bonnet on, and you got slippers on and you looking like what the f—, auntie gon’ tap you and say ‘hey baby girl, show what you’re worth.’”
Mo’Nique caught wind of the comments and posted a follow-up video and the caption read, “UNAPOLOGETIC.”
“There were two people in my life that, had I taken a different attitude, I could have felt like they was rubbing me wrong, but I’m glad I took the attitude of appreciation and gratitude because they tapped me, and that was Patti LaBelle and Margaret Avery,” the legendary comedian began.
“Patti had to tap me one night when we were getting ready to do a show and I was in my feelings over some s— and that woman had to come tap me and tell me to get myself together. And she didn’t tell me with lollipop kisses and pancakes with syrup all over it. She told me what I really needed to hear. And I was grateful for that-that night because it impacted my life,” she continued.
Mo’Nique expressed how grateful she was for Avery’s words of encouragement.
“I’m glad those two women loved me enough that they would go out of their way to talk to me in a way that aunties, mamas, big sisters talk to their little sisters, nieces, grandbabies, daughters,” said Mo’Nique. “I was grateful for that because it allowed me to think about things differently. Never once did I think those women were trying to be offensive,” she added, referring to Patti and Margaret’s advice as “nothing but love.”
“So for you babies that have taken offsenie to what I said, I’m okay with that. I’m okay with ya’ll being in your feelings about it, ‘cause when you love somebody for real, I know y’all will get over that. And when y’all say, ‘we will cancel yo ass,’ well, they’ve tried that, and I’m still here.”
