Shalon Jackson, the eldest son of actress and comedian Mo’Nique, has gone public to address statements his mother made about their relationship during her viral interview on “Club Shay Shay.”
When Mo’Nique appeared on the Feb. 7 episode of the podcast, she told host Shannon Sharpe she was an absentee mother to her oldest child because she was busy pursuing her career and fame.
The Queens of Comedy star said she has a great relationship with her three younger sons with husband, Sidney Hicks, and suggested that she wants to reconcile with Jackson.
“We’re still very much separated. It’s one of those things where you have to pray to the universe and say let time do the healing,” Mo’Nique said. “That’s something that we as parents have to say, ‘I’ve done what I can do. I’ve taken accountability, now it’s up to you.'”
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In a nearly 10-minute TikTok video posted on Feb. 12, Jackson responded to his mother’s comments and accused her of spreading a “false narrative” about wanting to repair their relationship.
“I guess I felt the need to make this video to provide some context into this false narrative about her ‘praying to the universe’ to reconcile our relationship — or whatever the hell it is,” he began. “I would like to free her from having to continue telling that lie. Faith without work is dead, and neither one of us cares to put forth any effort to reconcile with the other. We are separate, as she put it, because she doesn’t care to be my mother any more than I care to be her son.”
Jackson, who is also a stand-up comedian, read from a prepared statement, saying he didn’t want to get emotional or lose track of his thoughts.
“Neither one of us has had the desire to reach out to the other in a very long time, and I don’t think that either one of us anticipates that feeling ever returning,” he stated. “I’m tired of hearing my mother’s ‘truths.’ Newsflash, standing in your truth doesn’t make you noble.”
Jackson said he was speaking out as a form of therapy and noted that as a child, his mom was rarely around.
“To inform a child that you are not interested in being a mother at a time when that kid is [your] only kid — that has the potential to lead a child to believe that you are not interested in them specifically,” Jackson said.
He then accused Mo’Nique of refusing to take accountability.
“My mother does a fantastic job of acknowledging a lot of things, but she doesn’t take accountability very well, and anything that she may take true accountability for is only at her convenience, in my experience,” he said.
Jackson said he was raised by other women, including Mo’Nique’s assistant, who is his cousin.
He explained that once Mo’Nique married Hicks, who is her third husband, she became a doting mom to their three children together, but continued to “neglect” her oldest son.
Jackson added that he felt unwanted as a child.
“To this very day, my mother has never expressed to me, when, if, or ever she became interested in me as her son,” he said. “That did lead me down a path of questioning my self-worth and struggling to understand the value of a mother in a child’s life.”
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Jackson said there was a time when he loved his mom.
“A mother is supposed to be the first woman that a boy falls in love with. I loved my mother very much, but my mother loved things more than she loved me,” he said. “She would validate her love for me by giving me things and would proceed to call me ‘ungrateful’ or ‘inconsiderate’ if said things did not have the desired effect.”
Mo’Nique and her husband responded to Jackson with a video on Instagram Tuesday afternoon.
Hicks did most of the talking and said, “Those who are parents that have raised their children into adulthood know that there comes a time and a place in which they determine their own decisions, their own path.”
He mentioned airing out family business in public to please “white people” and having a “slave’s mentality.”
Way to play the race card there Mr. Hicks…
Mo’Nique is a real piece of work. But we all know this.
Crazy b****. And I do mean b****.
Basically calling the young man a house boy or uncle tom for daring to question an absentee mothers narrative.