Mo’Nique, American comedienne and actress has just filed a suit against Netflix. She is accusing the company of race and sex discrimination, by allegedly low balling her an offer of $500,000 to produce a comedy special.
In 2018, she had called for a boycott of Netflix accusing them of gender and colour bias. She claimed that the money offered her was smaller than the sum it offered other comedians like Amy Schumer, Chris Rock, and Dave Chappelle.
Netflix has however responded to the suit saying in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter:
We care deeply about inclusion, equity, and diversity and take any accusations of discrimination very seriously. We believe our opening offer to Mo’Nique was fair which is why we will be fighting this lawsuit.
In her suit, Mo’Nique claimed that “The offer Netflix made her “wreaked of discrimination; it perpetuated the pay gap suffered by black women”. She’s suing Netflix for unspecified damages, and for an injunction forcing the company to change its discriminatory policies.
The suit states,
Mo’Nique objected to Netflix’s discriminatory pay offer, pointed out how it was discriminatory and asked Netflix to do the right thing by negotiating fair pay with her. In response, Netflix did the opposite. It dug its heels in the ground, refused to negotiate fairly and stood behind its discriminatory offer.”
Unfortunately for Mo’Nique and many other women of color, their challenges when speaking up about pay gap inequality are all the greater because they are met with skepticism, not empathy when they ask for more money.
We celebrated victories of many talented actresses like Emmy Rossum, Jennifer Lawrence, and Ellen Pompeo publicly aired their financial grievances against networks and studios who paid their male colleagues more money than them. This has not been the case for Mo’Nique who to this day has not been made a fair and non-discriminatory offer by Netflix.
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