In September 2023, Oscar winner Mo’Nique took to Instagram to make a public plea to CBS and Big Ticket Productions, the production company behind her hit show “The Parkers,” to fairly compensate her and her co-star Countess Vaughn for their work on the hit UPN sitcom in the 1990s.
Why Mo’Nique Claims She’s Owed Money
In a video released five months after she initiated legal action against the companies for breach of contract in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Mo’Nique claimed that she and Countess Vaughn had not received their rightful share of profits from the spinoff from another popular series, “Moesha,” starring Vaughn and singer Brandy Norwood.
Now, five months later, Paramount, CBS, and Big Ticket Productions have filed a request with the court to dismiss several of the claims made in the comedian’s lawsuit, according to court documents seen by Radar Online.
The lawsuit claimed the show-makers “unfairly structured the show’s profitability” preventing her company Hicks Media from retaining “millions that would otherwise be contractually due.”
Sources state that the complaint alleges from its inception, the show was packaged for cable distribution at below-market rates, a move designed to depress its profitability.
“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,” the suit says, according to AP News.
To the public, Mo’Nique and her husband claimed that she and Vaughn had made “absolutely no money” from the show and that the series had already made $70 million after the original network run of the show that lasted over five years.
Lawyers for Mo’Nique say their client expected to “enjoy significant contingent compensation from the series’ revenues” generated from the show’s 110 episodes currently in syndication but has not.
With the lawsuit, Hicks Media, a company owned by Mo’Nique and her husband, seeks monetary damages to be determined at trial.
CBS and Big Ticket Productions are asking to have two of Mo’Nique’s claims in the petition to be dismissed.
“It is abundantly clear that [Mo’Nique] is not actually aware of any basis for any of the claims brought in this action,” the counter request for dismal says. “[Mo’Nique] makes it clear that its allegations are premised on ‘information and belief’ based on an audit performed on behalf of the writers and creators of ‘The Parkers’ (the ‘Series’) and subsequent litigation filed by those writers/creators.”
The producers additionally stated that they had extended an invitation to Mo’Nique and her company, Hicks Media, to take part in the audit alongside the series creators and writers, who had also filed a lawsuit citing breach of contract.
According to the defendants, Mo’Nique, who has previously been in the spotlight for issues regarding compensation, is mistaken in believing that the audit, which she acknowledges declining to join when invited, implies they have been cheated.
“In other words, [Mo’Nique’s] lawsuit is based on the allegations of an unverified complaint in a different lawsuit filed by third parties (and that was resolved and dismissed shortly after filing),” the studio and production company’s attorneys write in their petition.
Adding, “And that lawsuit, in turn, was based on an audit that [Mo’Nique] was not a part of and that produced a report [Mo’Nique] does not allege to have even seen.”
“[Mo’Nique] does not actually know what occurred during the course of that audit, what information was provided, what ultimate conclusion the auditor reached, or how the audit was resolved. Nevertheless, [Mo’Nique] has elected not to perform her own audit to determine what facts (if any) might support her claims, but rather to merely copy allegations from the separate lawsuit where [Mo’Nique] had no role to make baseless and inflammatory public statements,” the counter continued.
Moreover, the defendants allege that they have always treated the comedian well in their working relationship, noting she never made a claim that she was not compensated on time as per her contract and that they have never stopped her and her husband from conducting their own audit, financed by Hicks Media.
The Queen of Comedy has not responded to the dismissal request.
