Mo'Nique, Please Take Us Out The Group Chat
I normally don’t speak on celebrity stuff, especially public feuds, but this past Tuesday, I found myself being sucked in, and then triggered, by the unfolding of the family drama between comedian, Mo’Nique, and her oldest son, Shalon Watkins. If you haven’t been keeping up with the 2009 Precious star, for the past 15 years she has been speaking out against film producers, Tyler Perry, Lee Daniels, and Oprah. From Perry and Daniels underpaying her to star in Precious and their alleged demands for her to do free publicity for the movie, to Oprah having Mo’Nique’s entire family on her talk show to speak about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her brother, it has been a lot to digest and hard to overlook as a fan over the years. Now, I just want her to take us out of the group chat.
So what happened this time…
Recently, Mo’Nique did an interview with Shannon Sharper were she reminded us yet once again how Tyler Perry, Lee Daniels, and Oprah did her wrong, But this time she decided to not only including her beef with comedian and radio host, D.L. Hughley, somehow she also dragged her oldest son, Shalon into her web of ‘people who have hurt me and need to apologize.’ I knew about her feud with Hughley regarding who was supposed to headline a comedy show, but I found myself confused about her mentioning this son. Why? Because of ages, Mo’Nique has openly talked the twins that she shares with her current husband, Sidney Hicks, aka Daddy. But here she was on Sharper’s show talking about she has four sons and how she didn’t have a relationship with the oldest one. Girl…where did these extra kids come from?
When you go to her Wikipedia page, it states that Mo’Nique has three children, not four. Okay, so where did the fourth child come from?!
Shalon Watkins is Mo’Niques’s oldest son, and it appears he disappeared from the public eye after she married Hicks, and had the twins. You will only find pictures of Shalon with Mo’Nique during the early years of her career. Mo’Nique has admitted that she did not want to be a mother during his childhood. Instead, she wanted to focus on her career. She wanted to be a superstar; walking red carpets, and be on our television screens. It appears that somewhere along the way, she checked out and stopped being a mother to her oldest son, and emotionally abandoned him.
What is emotional abandonment
According to Janice Webb, Ph.D., childhood emotional abandonment happens when a parent fails to respond enough to their child’s emotional needs. Emotional connection is a basic human need that we all require to eventually thrive as adults. Children need emotional validation, and emotional education to grow into fulfilled adults. And although we often think one parent is enough, for some people they need to have an emotional connection with both parents.
During her interview with Sharper, Mo’Nique led us to believe that she and Shalon were working on their relationship. Well, it’s safe to say that all of this wishful thinking on her part, because on Tuesday all hell broke loose when Shalon released a video on TikTok that has since gone viral. During his video, a soft spoken, articulate, young man eloquently shared about the non-existent relationship he now has with his mother, how her husband has shut him down repeatedly when he has tried to talk to Mo’Nique in the past, and at this point in his life he wishes her peace and happiness, but has no desire to have a relationship with her, and that honestly, neither has tried for YEARS. He went public to relieve her of that lie and to clarify what was really going on between them - nothing, not a thing.
Mo’Nique, who likes to call her followers, My Sweet Babies, quickly took to Instagram with her husband, whom she calls Daddy, and for however longed they talked, Sidney- her husband, addressed Shalon, as Mo’Nique- his mother, sat there and chimed in from time to time, smiling from ear to ear. It became crystal clear to me at this point that this woman is emotionally detached from her son (and probably a lot of other things too).
I stopped listening to Mo’Nique and Daddy’s live when they stated that Shalon couldn’t call Sidney daddy because he had always known him as Uncle Sid. Wait…what?! Come to find out, Sidney had been a good friend of Shalon’s dad, Calvin Watkins. They stated that Shalon calling him dad would be weird. Like Mo’Nique marrying her ex-husband’s, former best friend wasn’t weird enough? I later heard that they tried to say Shalon has mental issues.
Well, if that wasn’t enough, Mo’Nique dug in her heels and decided to post private text messages between she and her son from THREE YEARS ago. I guess this was her trying to prove her point. The only thing I saw was a mother trashing her son on social media for clicks and likes. I was beyond disgusted and really wanted out of the group chat at this point.
Why I was triggered
My late son Taye had an estranged relationship with his father, and as I listened to Shalon, I recognized the hurt and pain that I often heard in my own child’s voice. I could hear the familiar sound of the pain of wanting a parent to be present that outright refused, because they selfishly placed themselves before anyone else. I heard the hurt of self doubt, believing you aren’t good enough, or feeling that you don’t deserve to be loved.
As I listened to Mo’Nique try to public humiliate her oldest son, I thought about my narcissistic ex-husband who would also do public stunts to embarrass Taye. He would call him names in front of customers at his barber shop, until I finally convinced Taye to stop allowing his dad to use him as an emotional punching bag and assured him it was okay to set up healthy boundaries.
As I scrolled through the comment on social media and saw people who agreed with Mo’Nique and called her son entitled or weak because he had expressed himself, I was reminded of the Black men who sat in my ex-husbandsbarbershop and never said a word as he berated his son with insults. From telling Taye that his dream of becoming a cartoonist was dumb, and real niggas got practical jobs, to calling him a faggot and gay whenever he tried to show any type of emotions, and constantly telling him that he paid me child support so don’t ask him for anything.
As I continued to watch how Mo’Nique handled this situation that she initiated, I heard a parent who refused to take accountability for their actions, and tried to place the responsibility of healing a fractured relationship on their child. My son’s father would often say it was Taye’s responsibility to reach out to him and work on their relationship, only to dig in his heels and emotionally abused him even more whenever he tried.
What I also heard in Shalon’s voice that my late son never experienced was peace. Shalon wished his mother well and intends to continue living his life absent of her. My late son never reached this point, as he continued to hope for a positive relationship with his father, while also struggling to accept that he was a young adult on the Autism spectrum, in addition to the horrible mixture of self-doubt, intensified hatred of self, and often feeling alone and abandoned, all which can stem from a childhood emotional abandonment.
I commend Shalon for standing in his truth, finding his peace, and not allowing his mother to control the narrative. Moving forward, it is my hope that Mo’Nique takes us out of the family group chat, and either does the work to mend her relationship with her own sweet baby, Shalon, or leave his name out of her mouth and off of social media, like she’s successfully done all of these years.
What are your thoughts about this recent Mo’Nique fiasco? Would you share private texts between you and your child on social media, without their consent, to prove a point? Comment below.
NO. Many of us have strained relationships with our family. It took me 30 years to write publicly about my deceased child's father's abuse, and I grappled a lot with the decision; ultimately made it because I thought it was important and instructive to other abuse victims, especially those who are too young to understand what's happening. This is absolutely straight narcissism, and I'm seeing more and more narcissistic behavior from people on social media (not celebrities, though they think they are). It's troubling.
I would never share private texts between my child and I. Even the good ones, unless I had their consent. Mo’ proved the point that she’s a narcissist and seemingly married a man that feeds into that for his own personal gain. Whatever hurt she has, she’s inflicting it upon her son and it seems that he’s been trying to move past that and heal. I believe she spoke on him in order to make her interview seem more interesting. We all know about the old beef she’s been having, but we never heard about her son. She bought him up in order to make herself seem more relevant, not considering the further damage she was visiting upon him. I hope this young man heals from her.