By Tambay A.Obenson
shadow and act
In July, the rumor was that a new BET show had been offered, but that was never confirmed. Although maybe it wasn’t entirely a rumor after all, as it’s been formally announced today that Mo’Nique, is indeed in talks to host a new talk show, but not with BET.
Instead, the actress and comedienne is said to be working with ABC on a new talk show that could launch a year from now – September 2014.
What we now know is that it’ll be a daytime talk show – not primetime, as was the case when she previously hosted The Mo’Nique Show on BET a few years ago,
She’ll join an already very crowded daytime talk show circuit, with several new faces making their bids to be the next Oprah Winfrey (maybe not all of them).
Queen Latifah entered the daytime talk show space this season, although it’s still a bit too early to tell if they show has legs. I’ve watched a few episodes, and just wasn’t engaged enough to want to return. It may not necessarily be the host, but maybe the daytime talk show format has just become stale, and it’s time to rethink the idea.
Wendy Williams’ show on Fox, has been very successful for her and the network. Gossip is an easy sell, still, I suppose.
There’s also Steve Harvey (NBC), Trisha Goddard (also with NBC), Live on ABC, The Talk, The View, Dr Phil, and others. Even Naomi Campbell is rumored to be in talks to host her own daytime talk show.
Since BET cancelled her late night talk show, and four years since her Oscar-winning performance in Lee Daniels’ Precious, Mo’Nique’s been active in her private life primarily, losing a lot of weight, and occasionally sharing her struggles, and talking about her family on Twitter.
Her long-in-development Hattie McDaniel biopic, which she’s attached to star in, doesn’t seem to have made much progress since we first announced it three years ago. At the time, she said she wanted Lee Daniels to direct it.
And then there was the indie dramedy titled Bumped, which she was ‘in talks’ to co-star in two years ago, but that didn’t happen.
So this will be her re-entry, if you will, into the business of show. I’d actually say that, of all the current daytime talk show hosts, she might be the most interesting, and Oprah-like, given the personal life struggles they both share, from being sexually abused as children, to their public battles with weight, and a general willingness and fearlessness to share those struggles openly, which I think helps ground them, and make them seemingly accessible to audiences.
We’ll see where this goes…
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