Mo'Nique calls for Netflix boycott alleging race and gender pay disparity

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Academy Award winning-actor and comedian Mo'Nique has lambasted Netflix over allegations of race and gender pay disparity.

In an Instagram video, Mo'Nique addressed fans with: "I am asking that you stand with me and boycott Netflix for gender bias and colour bias. I was offered a $500,000 deal last week to do a comedy special. However, Amy Schumer was offered $11 million, Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle $20 million."

She then recounted how Schumer had managed to renegotiate $2 million more dollars, perceiving that she didn't deserve as much as Rock and Chappelle, who she deemed legends, but arguing that her own deal was not fair.

Mo'Nique then explained that she asked Netflix to account for the pay disparity between her and Schumer, considering her résumé; Netflix apparently told her they did not make decisions based off résumés, but that Schumer's deal was based off the fact she sold out Madison Square Garden and had a huge summer movie.

"Is that not Amy Schumer’s résumé?” she questioned. She added that the streaming service told her that she was a legend, adding: "Why shouldn’t I get what the legends are getting?"

Shortly after, fellow comedian Wanda Sykes tweeted that she had been offered even less by Netflix. “Thank you for speaking out, [Netflix] offered me less than half of your $500k. I was offended but found another home," she wrote.

​Mo'Nique released a second Instagram video in which she asked: "How is that Wanda Sykes and Mo’Nique together, these two black women who have 50-plus years in the comedy game, be offered $750,000 between the both of us and Amy Schumer get $13 million?”

She clarified that her comments were in no way intended to deride Schumer, because "if she was able to get that, then she was supposed to." Her issue, she stressed, is only with the vast difference between what Schumer was offered and what both Sykes and herself were offered.

​Mo'Nique's voice joins the growing conversation about pay disparities within the entertainment industry, with the production for All the Money in the World recently hitting headlines over the massive alleged pay disparity between Michelle Williams and Mark Wahlberg, who both returned to reshoot scenes from the film after Christopher Plummer was enlisted to replace Kevin Spacey.

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