I know who is the wind beneath Mo’Nique’s amazing wings

OPINION: I interviewed Mo’Nique earlier this year, and we talked about her empowering relationship with her husband and manager, Sidney Hicks.

Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.

Mo’Nique has long been one of the great stand-up comedians of her generation, and I think I know what the wind beneath her wings is. Where Katt Williams is very performative onstage — who he is onstage is not really who he is off — Mo’Nique onstage is the same person you get offstage. She’s authentic as hell. To see Mo’Nique onstage is to feel like you’re hanging out with the real Mo’Nique. I’ve interviewed her and talked with her backstage at comedy events, and I, too, feel like there’s very little difference between Mo on and offstage. That’s part of her appeal — “This is the real me.” And that real me is buttressed by a lot of self-confidence. 

Mo’Nique believes in herself and her worth, and she demands self-respect. That’s why you’ve seen her fight with Netflix and also why you’ve seen her slice down Charlamagne Tha God. She’s prepared to rip off her earrings and fight if you don’t give her all the respect she feels she deserves. And in a world where so many Black women have the same struggle, it makes Mo’Nique seem like one of them because she is, She makes them feel seen. But there’s something deeper that’s pushing her.

I interviewed Mo’Nique earlier this year, and we talked a lot about her empowering relationship with her husband and manager, Sidney Hicks. We talked about that because she kept bringing it up in different ways because he’s so important to her life. She told me, “That man is raising me. I been knowing that man since I was 14 years old. We’ve been best friends since we were 14. So the man I married was paying more attention to me as a child than I was paying to myself.”

Mo’Nique told me that Hicks not only stands by her, but he lifts her up. It’s inspiring to hear. She says he believed in her as a comedian and an entertainer before she believed in herself. He is part of what gives her this massive sense of confidence to go onstage and be Mo’Nique in all its badass splendor.

She calls him Daddy, and when she says that and things like “he’s raising me,” it may sound strange to some, but I don’t think she means anything unusual by it. She means he’s very wise and cares deeply about her; he’s teaching her and taking care of her and guiding her. I get the sense that he fills her with the depth and certainty of his love and that makes her feel safe to go into Hollywood and take creative leaps. Or start a fight with a streaming giant. No matter what happens, he will be there for her, with her, and right beside her. She calls him the love of her life, and I can feel that she means it by the way she talks about him. He protects her, he guides her and he helps her be the highest, fullest version of herself. Most people don’t know who Sidney Hicks is. He’s not out here trying to become famous like some husband-managers. He sets a vision for her, he uses his managerial skills to build a path for her and get problems out of the way, and then he steps aside and lets Mo’Nique shine in the most Mo’Nique way possible. It’s beautiful.

There’s been lots of talk in the past about their open relationship — they have a podcast called “Mo’Nique and Sidney’s Open Relationship” — but it seems like people misunderstood what she was really getting at by using that term. “We have an agreement that we’ll always be honest,” she told the New York Times in 2007. “And if sex happens with another person, that’s not a deal breaker for us, that’s not something where we’ll say, ‘Oh my God, we’ve got to go to divorce court, and you cheated on me.’ Because we don’t cheat.” 

What she meant was that they were completely transparent with each other. In 2008, she told Oprah, “When I said I had an open marriage, people automatically jumped to sex. They automatically went there,” she said. “But I’ve been best friends with my husband since we were 14 years old. When we say open, we’re very honest. There are no secrets. Oftentimes you have people that are married, but they’re strangers, and we refuse to be those people.” 

In recent years the whole thing seems to have cooled. In a March piece in the Hollywood Reporter, we learned that “both have calmed down with their extramarital activities.” Mo’Nique told THR, “Life began to happen. I began to see a strength I had never seen before. He loved me at my worst. I didn’t want to sacrifice that just for a lay. So I grew out of that.”

Mo’Nique and Sidney’s relationship seems like one of him empowering her and helping her fly. It’s a beautiful thing, and I feel it’s central to making Mo’Nique into the great performer she is. 

Touré is a host and Creative Director at theGrio. He is the host of the docuseries podcast “Being Black: The ’80s.” He is also the host of the podcast “Toure Show” and the podcast docuseries “Who Was Prince?” He is the author of eight books including the Prince biography Nothing Compares 2 U and the ebook The Ivy League Counterfeiter.

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