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Recently, actress and comedian Kym Whitley sat down with Comedy Hype to discuss a whole lot of things. How she’s adjusting to the life during the pandemic, given that her primary source of income has been removed.
She addressed stigmas against the gay community and her friends Niecy Nash’s recent nuptials. She spoke about her ups and downs with Mo’Nique but still missing her friendship and lastly, she explained why we didn’t see her reprise her hilarious role as Auntie Suga in Ice Cube’s Friday franchise.
See what she had to say about these topics and check out the full interview in the video below.
Niecy Nash
First of all, I don’t think she came out, this is my opinion. It’s my first time saying it and I’ll probably get some flack for it. I think when you say came out and Niecy, it’s when you know you’ve been gay all your life. Gay is a big term. I say she fell in love with a woman. I don’t feel like she’s been gay all her life. We use that term and there’s so many different facets of the lifestyle. I feel like she met a woman and she fell in love with her. And the woman happens to be gay, or a stud or whatever the case.
So I say she fell in love and I’m happy for her. I believe—I know it’s real. Her wife’s a great woman, a great person. 2020 has been a crazy year. So were we surprised? Really?
Monique
I listen to Mo’Nique. I think Mo’Nique got some sense, I’m sorry. We’ve got to push for what we are worth. White comics get paid more than us. White females get paid more than Black female comics. And if we don’t know this, we have nowhere to start from. And like Mo’Nique said, if we don’t demand it, if we don’t demand what we’re worth, what are we leaving for the people that come up behind us?
We have not spoken. But I will tell you that Mo’Nique is one of the friends that I do miss. I will say that. I am just picking the right time. I will reach out. People think that her rhetoric—but if you listen to her, Mo’Nique makes sense in a lot of things that she brings out. She’s always been very intelligent. Very insightful. She reads. And I think what really changed her life was she read this book called Black Hollywood and if you read that book, it talks about the people that came before us and what they had to go through. And I think that sparked something in her, like they went through that. You’ve got to understand the past so you know where you’re going. And I hope that one day you’ll see me and Mo’Nique laughing and joking again.
You know what I miss, when you see Mo’Nique she is who she is. We’ve gone through some ups and downs, this ain’t our first argument. You know that. But what I miss is her realness, her funny. Mo’Nique is somebody who wants you to win. She used to make me workout with her. We used to go up Runyon Canyon. I ain’t been up there since. It’s one of the hardest Canyon’s ever. And this is when I realized a friend. There was one part that used to make your heart burn. She would get to the top, see I’m struggling, she could come half way down, throw a towel, turn around and walk and pull me up the mountain. So therefore you know a person’s heart. Even though she’s younger than me, it’s like having a big sister. She talks and say the real. Sometimes the world don’t want to hear it. Do I agree with her on everything, absolutely not. And I would tell her that. But when you’re friends and when you’re women, you can agree to disagree.
Auntie Suga on Friday
I did Next Friday and I was Auntie Suga and then Friday After Next came around and Cube was writing it but he didn’t tell me he was writing it. And this was at the beginning of my career. And then the movie Deliver Us From Eva came around. And I got to play Ormandy. And I was like, ‘Oh good, I’ll take it.’ I signed the contract. Then Cube said, ‘Kym, we gon be doing Friday After Next…’ Hold up, now when you was writing that you could have called me. But you ain’t believe everybody was gon be working or doing something.
Well, this is the problem. You know how men have a pissing contest, right?
Right now, I’m stronger. I would have been like, ‘This is what we’re going to do.’ Or I would have quit one. I would have been like, ‘Forget y’all.’ And I didn’t have a strong management team, none of that. They scared. And Cube said, ‘This is the shooting schedule.’ There were two days that overlapped each other for the movie. And he pretty much told Gary Hardwick, she’s got to do this or I’m taking her off the movie.
And I didn’t have no number to Ice Cube. I would have been like, ‘No, please don’t, this is my part.’ I should have been like, ‘C’mon y’all. Y’all do stuff. Why can’t I do two movies at once? Are we serious?’ It was bad. The director for Friday After Next was mad at me. They brought in Sommore to take over my part. It was a bad time. I was happy for her but I was sad for me because it was a franchise. And Ice Cube didn’t speak to me for a very, very long time.
When you look at Hollywood and you’re like, ‘I’m young. Help me.’ That was the time, I should have called like Jenifer Lewis. You call somebody else in the game. That’s why you need mentors, people who came before you and say, ‘Hey, what do I do.’ It took a very long time for Cube to forgive me. I used to go to his concerts and try to get back stage and say, ‘I’m sorry.’ But then I was like, ‘What am I apologizing for? We could have made this work?’
How did we get past that? I guess me, I kept saying I’m sorry and please I don’t know what else to do. Then Ice Cube got older and he was like, ‘I don’t know why I’m trippin.’ Then, there was a movie called Fist Fight and it was with Ice Cube and I was up for a part. We agreed it was mine. I talked to him on the set of Fist Fight, and he was like, ‘Huh? What are you talking about?’ I said, ‘I just want to make sure we’re cool.’ We laughed together and had good times. So we got past that.”
You can listen to Kym Whitley’s full interview in the video below.
