10 Controversies Netflix Wants You To Forget
4. Mo’Nique’s Boycott
On January 29th 2018, Mo'nique posted the following video to her Instagram account that called for a boycott of Netflix over claimed gender and colour bias issues.
Already an Oscar-winning actress, Mo'nique slammed the service when she learned that fellow comedians like Amy Schumer were being offered a lot more money than her for their comedy specials. In this particular case, Schumer was offered $11 million while Monique was only offered $500,000.
When Schumer learned that a male comedian (Dave Chappelle) was being paid $20 million, she managed to negotiate for another $2 million for her comedy special. When Mo'nique asked about the same thing during negotiations, she was denied any extra money.
While this could well be a case of big names getting paid more, the post received a lot of attention from other comedians. Wanda Sykes, another black female, claimed that she had also been underpaid by the service, receiving less than half of the $500,000 that Mo'nique was offered.
Sparking fresh rumours that black comedians aren't valued as much as their white counterparts, the negative controversy can't have done Netflix any favours. However, the service refused to comment on contract negotiations whenever contacted by the media, and the boycott seems to have died down.