Mo’Nique Shows Emails That Prove She Was Offered Role Of Cookie On ‘Empire’

Empire is proving to have just as much behind the scenes drama as it did during its first season.

For those of you not up on the backstory, Mo’Nique has stated that the show’s creator, Lee Daniels, offered her the role of Cookie Lyon when the casting process first began for the show. The part of Cookie eventually went to Taraji P. Henson, and the rest, as they say, is television history. However, Empire’s co-creator Danny Strong didn’t exactly agree with Mo’Nique’s version of events.

Mo'Nique was never offered roles in Empire or The Butler. #SettingRecordStraight @leedanielsent

— Danny Strong (@Dannystrong) February 28, 2015

Well Mo’Nique has insisted that she has the emails that corroborate she was Daniels’ first choice for Cookie, and earlier this week she paid a visit to Sway’s Universe on SiriusXM with the print outs of those messages. Check out the video below:

So there you have it. Mo’Nique seems fine with the way things turned out. She just wants to protect her integrity and set the record straight. And honestly, it’s kind of hard to imagine anyone other than Taraji playing the part of Cookie.