After being approached by Dame Dash at a Diana Ross concert last week over an alleged $2 million loan, director Lee Daniels appeared on TMZ’s Raq Rants on June 29, where he discussed the public confrontation and how it is much different than his issue with Mo’Nique.
Host Raquel Harper asked Daniels about the public confrontation with Dash and why it occurred. The Empire creator said his encounter with Dash was a “wake up call,” and revealed that the money was an investment that went bad and not, in fact, a loan.
“It was an investment, but I looked him in the eyes, and I told him that you would get your investment back,” Daniels said. “This Black man gave me money when nobody [would], not Disney, not Sony, not TriStar, not Paramount, not Warner Bros.”
He went on to say that he would pay Dash back the investment because the $2 million helped to kickstart his career. “I don’t know if I would be successful if it weren’t for him,” the director said. The Roc-A-Fella co-founder loaned Daniels the money to fund the 2004 film, The Woodsman, starring Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick.
After the rap mogul posted the incident to his Instagram page, several fans began to equate the situation with Mo’Nique’s claims against Daniels over her Oscar-winning role in Precious. Unlike the praises he gave to Dash the director was adamant that the comedian “blackballed herself,” and asserted that “she needs to shut up.”
“People are confusing the Damon Dash [situation], with the Mo’Nique [situation],” he said.
According to Daniels, Mo’Nique was paid what she was owed based on the budget for the film. “No one blackballed her. Mo’nique blackballed [herself] and for her to continue to talk about Oprah and myself and Tyler [Perry] is disrespectful.”
Watch the interview above.
