What a difference a year makes. In 2024, Mo’Nique and her son Shalon Jackson found themselves publicly at odds over the status of their relationship. Mo’Nique spoke about Shalon on her Club Shay Shay interview in February of that year and Shalon then took to social media shortly after to clear the air about his mother using some phrases that have lived rent free in many of our minds ever since: “I would like to free her of having to continue telling that lie. Faith without work is dead and neither one of us cares to put forth any effort to reconcile with the other,” he said.
And just so we were all clear, he added: “We are separate as she put it because she doesn’t care to be my mother any more than I care to be her son.” He said much more in a nearly 10 minute video posted to social media. Mo’Nique’s husband, Sidney Hicks, got involved and after a time things got quieter for the rest of us in terms of their lives.
But that was then.
According to both Mo’Nique and Shalon, things seem to be so, so much better now.
On Mo’Nique’s Instagram page, she posted pictures (presumably from over the Memorial Day Weekend) of her family together, sharing hugs and smiles. In one picture, she stands smiling with her husband and sons, Shalon, Jonathan and David with a caption that read: “GRATEFUL!!!! I LOVE US 4REAL!!!”
In another picture Shalon and Mo’Nique share an embrace that looks to be a long time coming. Shalon THEN took to social media to further explain, clear the air and take accountability for what happened a year ago in a set of videos posted across various social media pages.
Much like his several of his videos explaining his at-the-time estranged relationship with his mother, he appears to have written his thoughts down to clearly relay them to the public. Overlaid on top of the video were the words, “I apologize mommy.”
“Making those videos a year ago was a betrayal against our family and I have to take full accountability for it. Why I made the videos and how I was feeling at the time when I made them is irrelevant. I made them and I shouldn’t have. My family did not deserve the backlash that they received from what I said,” he started.
“My mother and Sydney were very justified to address my mental health condition at the time; I just simply didn’t like it. Taking accountability can be hard if I allow it to be. Bottom line, I was wrong and I shouldn’t have said any of what I said. I should have just kept my mouth shut and called my mother,” said Jackson…saying words that many of us should probably live by.
He went on to speak about his conversations with his family, including his brothers who were extremely upset with him but suggested they all speak in person to address their family issues, but noted that when it was all said and done, they hugged and laughed and spent real time together, with his mother getting a chance to enjoy her grandbabies. He also spoke highly of Sydney as a husband and a father, another change from his last set of videos in 2024.
“For those who have used my words that my mother is difficult to work with, that her husband is controlling or that she is anything like the character she portrayed in ‘Precious,’ I also apologize to my mother for the things that you said about her. If it wasn’t for me running my mouth, y’all wouldn’t have ran yours. I owe it to my family to make this apology public due to the fact that I made our family business public, though the road to family redemption is hard, I’m looking forward to it.”
