There’s been so much conversation surrounding the controversy between D.L. Hughley and Mo’Nique after an incident at a comedy show in Detroit. The “Queen of Comedy,” went on to rant about Hughley over who was to headline the show. While there was back and forth over contracts and billing that went viral, D.L. went on to explain his side of what happened on this shocking night.
I work very hard to control the environment I work in comedically, I only work where I want to work, and who I want to work for, I want to work with, I don’t work, because that is a very precious place to me. I’ve been offered a gig, a couple of gigs, three or four gigs, to work with Mo’nique in LA, in Brooklyn, in Houston. And I turned them down because I just I didn’t think it would work. So after talking to a lot of people, and one of the very people in this room about how things are different, to have the very people in this room as a matter of fact, and how things are different and look at things that come around, I decided it would be wrong for me not to give somebody a chance based on things that they’d never done to me. That would have been wrong to me. And when she talks if she goes on a diatribe, and she talks about me having my feet under her table that was at her invitation. I was doing a gig in Greenbelt, Maryland. She lived in Baltimore, she was having a fight party. It was I think Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson. And sure enough, I came to our table at her invitation. And it was a wonderful time, as matter of fact based on that interaction. Along with talking to people, I decided that I would do these gigs. I decided I would do it.
And now I know what Tyler Perry knows. I know Lee Daniels knows, I know what Oprah knows. I know Steve Harvey knows I know what Charlamagne tha God knows. I know what necklace knows. Saying yes to Mo’nique is an occupational hazard. Now, we go to we’re playing a gig in Detroit this weekend. I know I’m going on at 9:45 I leave the hotel. I get there around nine. Mo’nique had just gotten there. She’s supposed to be there at 840. She had just gotten there gone at 840. She got there at 8:38. With Monique was trying to do was to slow-walk the show she didn’t get end up getting on for 30 minutes. The oldest trick in the world is if I want to change the order, and I don’t have merit. I’ll try to make people wait so long that everybody gets nervous to go please just go on until we can avoid a conflict. That didn’t happen. Mo’nique got on stage, Mo’nique actually felt like she had merit, she would have done one of three things. Either she would have took it up with the promoter as she did in the promoter said we’re going on and whether you go on or not, that’s a different thing. You would have not done it but she knew she had to get on stage or she would be in breach of contract, or she would have come to talk to me. She didn’t ever and I emphatically emphasize this. She never once talked to me. I haven’t seen Monique in years. I didn’t see her at the venue before, after or during. I haven’t spoken or seen Mo’nique. So if you really thought that you had a legitimate contract dispute, you would have come to me and said hey, I have this contract you had discovered notice not one thing on that contract, not one person she has on that contract. Not one thing happened. Do you know why? Because it wasn’t legitimate. And she goes on stage. And she proceeds to eviscerate me not just me. But Steve Harvey. The sexual, my wife, my dog later on in the subsequent conversation. Let me ask you something. What did any of that have to do with an alleged contract dispute? What does Steve Harvey have to do with your contract? What did I have to do with your contract? What did my dog have to do with your contract? What does my wife have to do with your contract?
You wrote your contract you and your daddy, you proceeded to say things that was so patently insulting, that it was galling. It was galling, you asked in subsequent conversations, why I have a dog a support dog, what kind of person has a support dog, I have that dog because my father died, and my children and family decided they would get a dog from where he was from. And I named the dog after my father. I don’t have a dog to keep people away from me. I have a dog so I have my father with me all the time. That is an act of love, which you know very little about. You proceeded to assault my sexuality. You have the temerity to assault someone’s sexuality, a man sexuality given who you lay next to. None of that had anything to do with the alleged content dispute, you could have taken that out with a lawyer you would have gotten out you could have not gotten going on stage. But you knew you didn’t have a valid contract. And you do what you always have done. You try to weaponize black femininity. You tried to turn that audience against me. You tried to burn everything down. Like you do all the time. Who calls Netflix and thinks I can get $10 million because I did the Queens of Comedy? Who thinks you can get on stage and still live off that? I was the King of Comedy you never hear me talking about it. Because in this business like any other it isn’t what you have done is what you do. That show was what I signed on to do. I made the quintessential mistake the horrible mistake that like Tyler Perry like Lee Daniels, like Oprah, like all these people have saying yes to you and it is an occupational hazard. It is my fault. I have learned my lesson. I don’t blame you.
I wish you well. But when you do the things you do when everything’s about you when you’re vitriolic when you have all these fights with all of these entities, it is you. Precious was not a movie, Precious was an autobiography. That is who you are, literally. Let’s be clear, I am not angry with you. I’m angry with me. I did what I knew not to be true. But I’m going to tell you something. When you burn and you destroy and you wreck, you are not a queen of comedy, you are a Queen of ashes. Now I’m gonna go back to work, and you get back to your kingdom of smoke. That’s a little note from the GED section. (D.L Hughley Transcript Courtesy of www.blackamericaweb.com)
