Mo'Nique

Mo'nique is an award-winning comedienne whose career began 16 years ago in her hometown of baltimore, maryland when she took to the stage for the first time on a dare from her brother and received a standing ovation. Encouraged by the overwhelming response, she began pursuing comedy professionally. From there, she gained visibility and immense popularity with performances on "showtime at the apollo," hbo's "def comedy jam," "apollo comedy hour," hbo's "snaps," bet's "comic view," the montreal comedy festival and uptown comedy club. Mo'nique credits her big break as the day she quit her job at the phone company in baltimore to pursue her comedy dream wholeheartedly. Another pivotal career break came in 1999 when she landed a starring role as nikki parker on the hit upn television series "the parkers." during the shows five year run, in which mo'nique and her co-star countess vaughn-james played a mother/daughter duo attending college and living together, mo'nique earned numerous awards. Among them include winning naacp image awards for outstanding actress in a comedy series in 2001, 2002 and 2004 and receiving nominations all five years of the show's existence. Her film credits include mgm's comedy "soul plane," the showtime tele-film "good fences" opposite whoopi goldberg and danny glover, "3 strikes," with david alan grier and george wallace ii, john singleton's "baby boy," and a role opposite vivica a. Fox in the screen gems production "two can play that game," which earned her an naacp image award nomination for outstanding supporting actress in a motion picture. Mo'nique's bold and sarcastic stand-up routine also landed her a starring role in the hit stand-up comedy film "the queens of comedy," which was released in 2002 by paramount home entertainment and aired on the showtime network. "the queens of comedy" also toured the country as a live comedy concert, which was released as an album, of the same title, and went on to earn a grammy nomination for best spoken comedy album. In 2003, "the queens of comedy" toured the country again, this time in a talent search for the next king or queen of comedy. Mo'nique, joined by the original "queens," hosted the nationwide event and participated as a judge. For the second consecutive year, mo'nique is host of the nationally televised program "showtime at the apollo." she made history as the first female comedienne to serve in that coveted capacity. Mo'nique has become a role model for voluptuous women everywhere, proving that you don?t have to be a size 0 to be sexy and fabulous. Her musings on life are featured in her best-selling book entitled skinny women are evil published by atria books, a division of simon & schuster. Released in april 2003, her book became a new york times bestseller.