Mo'Nique, Academy Award winner, on her open marriage

Earlier this evening the rising black actress Mo'Nique, who has lately been sweeping up film awards, won the Academy Award for best supporting actress, with her husband Sidney Hicks by her side. (Video of her speech.)

Fearlessness and outspokenness have been keys to her success, and these qualities extend to talking about her personal life. A week earlier she made news discussing her open marriage on a Barbara Walters Special:

"Could Sid have sex outside of his marriage with me? Yes. That's not a deal-breaker," she says. "That's not something that would make us say, 'Pack your things and let's end the marriage.'"

And she says she wouldn't call it quits even if he had numerous flings.

"What if it's 20 times?" she asks. "So what? We've been best friends for over 25 years, and we truly know who we are. Oftentimes, people get into marriages and they don't know who they're laying next to. I'm very comfortable and secure with my husband."

(Quoted from a brief article in Us magazine, March 4, 2010.)

This news wasn't new. She said much the same to the New York Times for an article published August 5, 2007:

...She and her husband, Sidney Hicks, have what she calls an open marriage.

"We have an agreement that we'll always be honest," Mo'Nique said of the year-old marriage. "And if sex happens with another person, that's not a deal breaker for us, that's not something where we'll say, 'Oh my God, we've got to go to divorce court, and you cheated on me.' Because we don't cheat."

And she elaborated on that a few months later on The Oprah Winfrey Show for January 28, 2008:

"When I said I had an open marriage, people automatically jumped to sex. They automatically went there," she says. "But I've been best friends with my husband since we were 14 years old. When we say open, we're very honest. There are no secrets. Oftentimes you have people that are married, but they're strangers, and we refuse to be those people."

Mo'Nique admits, though, that her and Sidney's definition of an open marriage does include sex with other people. "It's not a deal breaker... we're very real people and we understand what's for us. It doesn't work for everybody," she says. "I've had to sneak and I've had to lie, and I don't want to do that any more."

Portrait of her and Sidney on the cover of Jet.

She began her own talk show on BET last October. Earlier she filled in several times for Michael Baisden on his black-oriented talk show. Baisden is very friendly toward polyamory and has brought Loving More director Robyn Trask onto his radio show many times.

Update: In Dallas/ Fort Worth, this news prompted KDAF-TV 33 to do a 2½-minute report about open marriage, centering on an interview with Open author Jenny Block, who lives in Dallas. See transcript and video (March 8, 2010).

[Permalink]