Mo’Nique and Netflix have officially settled their lawsuit. Per The Hollywood Reported, Mo’Nique and Netflix moved to dismissed the lawsuit in court. However, the details of the settlement haven’t been disclosed to the public. The comedian’s attorney Michael Park said the matter was “amicably resolved.”
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Mo’Nique took on Netflix in 2019 in a gender discrimination and retaliation lawsuit. After she met with officials at Netflix, she says that she was only offered $500K for a stand-up special. She claimed that she was being lowballed by the streamer due to gender and color bias, citing other comedians like Amy Schumer and Chris Rock who received upwards of 40x more than she did for a one-hour special.
“Netflix reportedly offered or paid Rock, [Dave] Chappelle, [Ellen] Degeneres, and [Ricky] Gervais forty (40) times more per show than it offered Mo’Nique, and it offered Schumer twenty-six (26) times more per show than Mo’Nique. In short, Netflix’s offer to Mo’Nique perpetuates the drastic wage gap forced upon Black women in America’s workforce,” the lawsuit said.
Mo’Nique said she refused their initial offer and Netflix didn’t bother to further negotiate, which she said was a violation of California’s fair employment and civil rights laws meant to address pay inequity in employment for Black women.
“I had a choice to make,” Mo’Nique said in an Instagram post after filing the lawsuit against Netflix. “I could accept what I felt was pay discrimination or I could stand up for those who came before me and those who will come after me. I chose to stand up.”