Mo’Nique is revisiting her long-running dispute over Precious — and this time, she’s directing her message at Whoopi Goldberg.
In an open letter posted to Instagram this week, Mo’Nique called out Goldberg over their 2018 exchange on The View, where Goldberg challenged the Oscar winner’s decision not to do additional unpaid promotion for Precious beyond what she says her contract required. Entertainment Weekly first reported on the letter and its contents.
Mo’Nique wrote that seeing the old clip resurface pushed her to speak again, saying public reaction now feels different than it did eight years ago. “The tone of the comments today seems different from the energy eight years ago,” she wrote, adding that many people now appear to agree with her position about not continuing to work for people or entities she didn't owe.
The heart of the letter is Mo’Nique’s argument that Goldberg judged her harshly in 2018 while overlooking a key point: she says she fulfilled her contractual obligations to director Lee Daniels during the Precious campaign and should not have been expected to do more for free. That dispute has been central to Mo’Nique’s account for years. She has long said the fallout damaged both her career and her family.
Mo’Nique also raised a separate issue in the letter: Goldberg’s own legal history with the 1993 film Theodore Rex. In the post, Mo’Nique wrote that she was struck by the fact that Goldberg was once sued over an alleged verbal commitment to that film, while Mo’Nique’s explanation that her only binding commitment was to Daniels didn't soften Goldberg’s stance on The View.
Multiple outlets reported that Goldberg was sued by producer Richard Abramson over the project, and that Goldberg denied making a final commitment to star in it.
In the letter, Mo’Nique additionally questioned whether Goldberg’s position was shaped by professional ties to Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, or former View executive producer Candi Carter, who previously worked for Winfrey.
She didn't present evidence that those relationships directly influenced Goldberg’s comments, but she suggested that power and proximity may have played a role in how she was treated. Mo’Nique specifically asked whether Goldberg’s stance was really about standing up for what is right or “standing with the ‘right people.’”
The 2018 moment Mo’Nique is responding to remains a key part of the story. During that View appearance, Goldberg told her, “When you make a movie… your job is to go and promote said movie,” and said she could have “schooled” Mo’Nique on what was expected. In that same conversation, Mo’Nique replied that she had done all of her contractual obligations and that for years her family and career had suffered because she refused to let powerful people bully her.
Mo’Nique has since reconciled professionally with Daniels. The two worked together again on the 2024 Netflix film The Deliverance, marking a notable shift after years of public tension over Precious. Entertainment Weekly noted that reconciliation in its report on the open letter.
Goldberg has not publicly responded to the letter as of now.
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