Mo Nique

You would think that Mo'Nique, triple-threat entertainer that she is, would get enormous fulfillment out of hosting a late-night talk show on BET, or nailing the role that won her an Academy Award, or empowering full-figured women by producing FAT (fabulous and thick) reality-TV shows, or even being the mother of 4-year-old twin boys at age 42. But no. What really makes Mo'Nique happy - besides polishing off a cupcake every now and then - is cursing. "Deliver yourself!"

You would think that Mo'Nique, triple-threat entertainer that she is, would get enormous fulfillment out of hosting a late-night talk show on BET, or nailing the role that won her an Academy Award, or empowering full-figured women by producing FAT (fabulous and thick) reality-TV shows, or even being the mother of 4-year-old twin boys at age 42. But no. What really makes Mo'Nique happy - besides polishing off a cupcake every now and then - is cursing. "Deliver yourself!"

WAS Mo'Nique a victim of Flying While Black? The friendly skies were not too friendly for the "Showtime at the Apollo" host, who got booted from a United Airlines flight Sunday at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, according to a story in the New York Daily News. She says her ouster was due to racism. "I felt like I was being treated like an animal," she said. "This happens to black people all the time, and they don't have a voice. I have a voice. " The altercation started, reports the News, over a hair dryer.

"Having a TV show is a comedian's dream," says Mo'Nique. "You can play the street corner and pack 'em in. " Mo'Nique isn't playing street corners, but she packed 'em in at the shopping malls on a recent whirlwind five-city tour. In Memphis, they had to call the cops to maintain order. At her old high school in Baltimore, they rolled out a brass band. "It blew me away. " And she wasn't even telling jokes. Her sitcom, The Parkers, has found unheard-of success in its first year - ranking No. 1 with African American viewers among all TV shows.

It was a straight-up skinny-girl move for Mo'Nique to pass up a real woman's breakfast (pancakes! omelettes! sausage!) in favor of a cup of Earl Grey with honey. Enough to even consider having her big-girl card revoked. But she is easily forgiven. It would take more than turning down breakfast for Mo'Nique - former star of UPN's The Parkers, a Queen of Comedy, host of Showtime at the Apollo, and creator of the Oxygen network beauty pageant Mo'Nique's F.A.T. (fabulous and thick)

MO'NIQUE IS BEST known as a comedian, but her story in the October Essence magazine is anything but funny. "I was molested by my older brother," she says, saying it happened four times. "And even when I confronted him and told my parents, he said I was lying, and nothing was really done. "My father was very upset, but it never got mentioned again," Mo'Nique added. "I'll never forget my mother saying, 'If it's true, it will surface again,' and I remember thinking, 'Why would I lie?

"They sang their butts off. " A friend of mine hollered that out only minutes into last night's BET Awards. And while my girl's characterization was crude, she was right. If you saw the show, you know exactly what she meant. The show opened with Jennifer Hudson in a white cocktail dress standing alone onstage bellowing out those trademark lyrics, "And I'm telling you . . . " Then, she graciously turned the stage over to "my dream girl, the true dream girl, Miss Jennifer Holliday," a classy move considering how irked Holliday was about not having a role in the film version of "Dreamgirls.

So much for the law of supply and demand. The last thing we need is more late-night talk shows, right? There are already more of them than gas stations on Admiral Wilson Boulevard. Well, shove over, Jay, Dave, Conan, Jimmy, and the rest of you pasty-faced hosts. Guess who's coming to dinner? George Lopez, Wanda Sykes, and Mo'Nique are here, hoping to add some spice to the chat cuisine. Lopez Tonight (TBS, 11 p.m. Monday to Thursday) wears its Latino flavor on its sleeve.

She had to kill off Precious. That was what Sapphire, the 60-year-old author of the 1996 underground classic Push, the novel that was the basis for the unflinching movie Precious, concluded. The California-born literacy teacher, poet, and author had no choice, given her commitment to social realism: An HIV-infected black woman in the 1980s would not have lived long enough to make it past the first page of her sequel, The Kid (Penguin Press). So, the new book, to be published Tuesday, begins with Precious' funeral.

I'll never forget 1995. Finally, I had my own crib and was making enough bank to afford HBO. Life was good. So, while I was catching up on Def Comedy Jam and Taxicab Confessions episodes, HBO slipped in another show that year that kept me in stitches: Snaps. Now, I thought I could hold my own schoolyard turf with "Yo' Mama" jokes, but Snaps made me stop talking about other folks' families. I just couldn't hang. The Snaps DVD is just now coming out. Granted, it's only two episodes (I could have sworn there were more)

She had to kill off Precious. That was what Sapphire, the 60-year-old author of the 1996 underground classic Push, the novel that was the basis for the unflinching movie Precious, concluded. The California-born literacy teacher, poet, and author had no choice, given her commitment to social realism: An HIV-infected black woman in the 1980s would not have lived long enough to make it past the first page of her sequel, The Kid (Penguin Press). So, the new book, to be published Tuesday, begins with Precious' funeral.

You would think that Mo'Nique, triple-threat entertainer that she is, would get enormous fulfillment out of hosting a late-night talk show on BET, or nailing the role that won her an Academy Award, or empowering full-figured women by producing FAT (fabulous and thick) reality-TV shows, or even being the mother of 4-year-old twin boys at age 42. But no. What really makes Mo'Nique happy - besides polishing off a cupcake every now and then - is cursing. "Deliver yourself!"

You would think that Mo'Nique, triple-threat entertainer that she is, would get enormous fulfillment out of hosting a late-night talk show on BET, or nailing the role that won her an Academy Award, or empowering full-figured women by producing FAT (fabulous and thick) reality-TV shows, or even being the mother of 4-year-old twin boys at age 42. But no. What really makes Mo'Nique happy - besides polishing off a cupcake every now and then - is cursing. "Deliver yourself!"

Tonight at the Academy Awards it's a safe bet that Mo'Nique, the comedian and host of a BET talk show, will collect a supporting-actress statuette for her role in Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire. In Mary Jones, an abused and criminally abusive mother visiting the humiliations she has endured upon her own child, Mo'Nique creates perhaps the most frightening screen monster since Hannibal Lecter. While almost everyone agrees that a prize for Mo'Nique is richly deserved, her prospective triumph does not represent a feel-good win for many African Americans.

Sunday night's Golden Globes, with big wins for Avatar, Up, The Hangover, Mad Men and Glee, is a case study in the convergent media universe where big business, show business and benevolence supercollide into advertainment-a-thon. Celebs promoted fashion, and the fashionable promoted shows broadcast on host network NBC. Host Ricky Gervais promoted DVD boxed sets, during commercial breaks Chrysler promoted the Globes awards show, and in-between, comics denigrated troubled NBC, the stars celebrated director Martin Scorsese and almost everybody promoted Friday's MTV telethon, Hope for Haiti, to raise money for the island's earthquake victims.

Admit it. At least once on the bus, you've recoiled from another passenger. Maybe it was the waxy skin or the vacant expression or the inarticulate voice. You just didn't want to know from her. Or maybe you thought you knew all there was to know. Precious is such a girl. She is 16, morbidly obese, and illiterate. She won't look you in the eyes because she can't bear to see you avert them. She doesn't have the words to communicate that how she looks isn't who she is. And even if she did, she would be unintelligible.

So much for the law of supply and demand. The last thing we need is more late-night talk shows, right? There are already more of them than gas stations on Admiral Wilson Boulevard. Well, shove over, Jay, Dave, Conan, Jimmy, and the rest of you pasty-faced hosts. Guess who's coming to dinner? George Lopez, Wanda Sykes, and Mo'Nique are here, hoping to add some spice to the chat cuisine. Lopez Tonight (TBS, 11 p.m. Monday to Thursday) wears its Latino flavor on its sleeve.

PHILADELPHIA'S Lee Daniels isn't just the producer and director of "Precious," he's its Capt. Chesley Sullenberger. As a movie, "Precious" is a perilous ride, one that often feels ready to nosedive, but never does. Against long odds, Daniels brings it to a safe and improbable landing, an outcome that under the circumstances feels like a triumph. It's hard to believe the movie got off the ground at all - its title character is a poor, illiterate, unglamorous 300-pound African-American girl, both an unwed mother and abused daughter.

MO'NIQUE IS BEST known as a comedian, but her story in the October Essence magazine is anything but funny. "I was molested by my older brother," she says, saying it happened four times. "And even when I confronted him and told my parents, he said I was lying, and nothing was really done. "My father was very upset, but it never got mentioned again," Mo'Nique added. "I'll never forget my mother saying, 'If it's true, it will surface again,' and I remember thinking, 'Why would I lie?

Charlie Mack is back this summer, celebrities in tow, with his fourth annual Charlie Mack Party 4 Peace Celebrity Weekend tomorrow and Sunday. Charles "Charlie Mack" Alston, a native Philadelphian and longtime aide and friend to Philly-born actor Will Smith, produces the series of charity events. Invited stars this year include Chris Tucker, Mo'Nique, Terrence Howard (also a local) and Queen Latifah. Initially a celebrity basketball game started in 1990, Party 4 Peace evolved into a two-day charity event to raise money and awareness about violent crime in Philadelphia.