had fallen offstage during a taping of her show due to alleged drug use. <\/a><\/p>\n\u201cHow do you speak about someone that can\u2019t defend it?,\u201d said Mo\u2019Nique. \u201cThat, in my humble opinion, makes it different because that woman can\u2019t say \u2018yes\u2019 or \u2018no\u2019 and now you just want everybody to take your word. That, I believe, is unfair.\u201d<\/p>\n
She continued,<\/p>\n
\u201cI still love my sister, Oprah Winfrey, let me be clear about that. People think in correction that means you don\u2019t love. It\u2019s simply just correction.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the first time Mo\u2019Nique has mentioned Oprah in the name of \u201ccorrection.\u201d <\/p>\n
Many may recall that the two, along with Tyler Perry and Lee Daniels, have had a longstanding and public feud since they collaborated on the 2009 film, Precious. Daniels and Mo\u2019Nique have since made amends and worked together on the Netflix film The Deliverance (2024); however, the comedian and actress have held on to their assessment that Oprah wronged them during the promotion of Precious and have refused to allow her to be properly compensated. <\/p>\n
Oprah\u2019s remarks on the beloved Nippy have been met with pushback, as many people shared the same sentiments as Mo\u2019Nique. Comedian and radio host Rickey Smiley, whose own son struggled with drug use before his untimely passing in 2023 by accidental overdose, spoke out against Oprah\u2019s decision to share the alleged incident and called her bestie and fellow journalist Gayle King to the carpet as well. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care if she was high,\u201d Smiley said in a livestream. \u201cWhitney Houston is gone and she meant a lot to us. Whitney Houston was a big sister to a lot of us and she is , pretty much, Black America\u2019s auntie. And everybody got a Whitney Houston in their family; somebody that they love, that\u2019s talented. It\u2019s something about Whitney Houston\u2019s death, we took her death personally. We don\u2019t care about none that [the alleged incident], that was something we didn\u2019t need to know. Whitney Houston is someone you just don\u2019t talk about in the Black community, if you\u2019re in touch.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued, <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s Black royalty that you just don\u2019t talk about. We don\u2019t play about Whitney Houston. I don\u2019t care what her downfalls were, we all have downfalls. We all have have had people we know or family members struggle with addiction. Why would you bring that stuff up? Why is it when it comes to you and Gayle\u2014I remember when Kobe Bryant died she interviewed Lisa Leslie and asked her about a sexual assault charge he was found innocent of\u2014why do y\u2019all like to bring this stuff up? You asked the audience not to take pictures of it only for you to bring it up? Y\u2019all are so out of touch with the Black community.\u201d<\/p>\n
The story got even more eyebrow-raising when Houston\u2019s estate, led by her sister-in-law Pat Houston, released a statement refuting the claims made by Oprah. According to Houston, Whitney\u2019s fall was due to an improperly lit stage, not to her drug use. <\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the 2009 interview on the Oprah Winfrey show, Whitney absolutely fell off stage, but it was during a sound check and it was due to the darkness of the area and her unfamiliarity with the stage,\u201d the statement reads per the Hollywood Reporter<\/a>. \u201cShe was absolutely not high.\u00a0This story was picked up by several media outlets. Like many people, she faced personal battles, but it is inaccurate and unfair to attach that struggle to every performance or every chapter of her life.\u201d<\/p>\nShe continued, <\/p>\n
\u201cWhitney\u2019s humanity included triumphs and struggles, but on that day, she showed up as the professional and gifted artist she always worked to be. We owe her the dignity of telling the truth, not repeating myths.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither Oprah nor her team has commented on the statement from Whitney\u2019s estate nor issued a retraction. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mo’Nique criticizes Oprah for speaking about Houston’s alleged drug use when she can’t defend herself. Rickey Smiley condemns…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-353976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Three](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-collage-70.jpg\")
Source: Steve Granitz\/ Vince Bucci\/ Michael Loccisano<\/p>\n