Actress and comedian Mo’Nique filed a lawsuit against Paramount and CBS on Wednesday seeking unpaid royalties from her sitcom “The Parkers.”
The breach of contract lawsuit, filed in a Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges CBS and Paramount artificially depressed “The Parkers” profitability to “retain millions that would otherwise be contractually due” to Mo’Nique’s production company.
The suit states, “While the series has proven to be a major financial success for its producers and distributors, the series’ talent have not been permitted to share in the fruits of that success.”
Mo’Nique and her husband and business partner, Sidney Hicks, filed the lawsuit under their production company, Hicks Media. The lawsuit is seeking monetary damages which will be determined at a trial. They are suing both CBS and Paramount and the show’s production company Big Ticket Productions.
“Plaintiff only recently discovered the breaches and/or concealment of material facts described herein when it learned of details of the publicly-filed lawsuit by the writers and creators of the Series,” the suit says. “Before that, they had been lulled through the words and actions of the Defendants into believing that all moneys were properly paid.”
In a statement to the Associated Press, Mo’Nique said, “I just want the contractual compensation that I’ve earned.”
Mo’Nique’s hit show “The Parkers” was a spin-off of the sitcom “Moesha.” The show ran for five seasons and 110 episodes on now-defunct network UPN from 1999 to 2004. The Oscar-winning actress starred as Nikki Parker, a mother who returns to the same college her daughter is attending.
This isn’t the first time the actress has been involved in a lawsuit. Mo’Nique sued Netflix in 2019 for race and sex discrimination in its offer for a proposed comedy special. She accused the streamer of trying to lowball her and said it was part of a trend Netflix in which would actively underpay Black women. That lawsuit was settled last year and now Mo’Nique has a comedy special “My Name Is Mo’Nique” on the streamer.
“Mo’Nique is not shy about taking on these David vs. Goliath battles in Hollywood to challenge these questionable practices that are endemic to the industry,” David deRubertis, one of her attorneys in both lawsuits, said in a statement.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report