Monique Imes (a.k.a. Mo’Nique) is fat – and that’s not bad. Mo’Nique, a size 20 and loving it, says she sees herself more like, “Fabulous and thick. Full and tasty. Fluffy and tender. When you say fat, you have to smile.”
Not only that, Mo’Nique, 39, is out to prove big girls have more fun – and her success would seem to prove her point.
She hosts a plus-size beauty pageant called Mo’Nique’s F.A.T. Chance, whose third season premiers July 28 on Oxygen, and taught etiquette on VH1’s recent Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School.
Mo’Nique takes fitness seriously After her husband said, “Baby, I want us to have a lifetime together,” Mo’Nique, who says she weighs more than 200 lbs., started working out. “I don’t want to be so selfish that when I’m 45, I’ve got diabetes or high blood pressure,” she says.
She hired trainer Erica Sammy -“she understands a big woman’s body” – and does cardio, stretching and weight training. They’re taping a fitness DVD for larger women who, says Mo’Nique, “aren’t trying to become a size 5. We’re just trying to get healthy.”
Nude body painting made anything possible Mo’Nique has rarely been self-conscious about her size, even growing up: “My dad told me I was the prettiest girl in the world,” she says.
But she got the chance to push her boundaries when she taped the new season of F.A.T. Chance in Paris – she and the contestants did a photo shoot wearing nothing but body paint. The experience “made me take the word ‘impossible’ out of my vocabulary,” she says. “I’m like, ‘Okay, we gonna need some more paint.’
When we had to drop our towels, it was incredible.” Even Mo’Nique still manages to surprise herself. “Somebody once said to me, ‘You’ll never be the sex symbol. You’ll never be the star,’” she recalls. “But one night I went to the Eiffel Tower at 2 in the morning, and I thought, ‘Wow, the little fat girl is in Paris!’” [via]