Step aside, haters. Mo’Nique defended her open marriage with husband Sidney Hicks during a Thursday, November 3, appearance on Watch What Happens Live.
The Oscar-winning actress, 48 — who revealed nearly a decade ago that she and her longtime hubby have an open marriage — candidly answered show host Andy Cohen’s questions about her unconventional romance.
Pressed about the couple’s “rules” in the bedroom, Mo’Nique replied, “The rule is simply honesty.”
The Precious actress continued: “When you start asking people about relationships … What about this one? What about that one? Often times with people we can’t say, ‘This is how I’m feeling.’ You find out, it’s so not about sex. It’s so not about, ‘Can you be with other people?'”
Mo’Nique, who began dating Hicks as a teen and married him in May 2006, went on to say that the secret to their longevity is the fact that they have no secrets.
“It’s simply about I won’t take any secrets to my grave nor will he take any to his,” she explained. “We’ve been married for a decade now.”
The Baltimore native, who launched the Mo’Nique & Sidney’s Open Relationship podcast back in January, insisted that the open marriage was her idea, contrary to what others might say.
“Now the world took and said, ‘Oh, my God, Mo’Nique will let that man sleep with anybody, because she’s a fat girl and he’s a beautiful man,’” she told Cohen. “I’m like, ‘OK, world. It wasn’t his idea. It was mine.'”
The Parkers alum added: “[The open marriage] was my idea. When we first had the conversation, it was because I was still in the mindset of ‘I’m an entertainer; I’m a performer and I want to have it all.’ So I said, ‘I want to have an open marriage.’ … It was just being able to sit down and have that dialogue to say, ‘Hey, let’s always make sure we’re open and honest.’”
As for those who are skeptical of saying goodbye to monogamy, Mo’Nique believes that everyone should at least “try it for [themselves] and find out” if it works for them. “Now almost 11 years later, of course it’s evolved,” she shared, “and it’s evolved into this beautiful space of no secrets.”
Watch the video above.
