Photo Credit: Mariah Huq/Instagram
Married to Medicine star Mariah Huq has for a few seasons had a certain level of conflict on the show that seemed to be about more than what we were able to see. This was confirmed in an interview she gave with The Jasmine Brand where she spoke about the process of creating the show, only to subsequently be pushed out of the decision making process and the attempts at discrediting her character to take over her work.
“From the beginning it’s always been, since the inception of the show, took me years to pitch the show get it picked up by multiple networks. I partnered with Purveyors of Pop, and I’ve always given them my ideas. I’ve always been a part of everything in front of the camera and behind the camera. But I will say, a lot of my ideas they use but they do limit my role in the actual boardroom. They’ve never limited my ideas so I’ve always been involved in a sense of trying to help the show go in the direction that we wanted it to go.”
She continued, speaking about turning down a role on The Real Housewives of Atlanta saying, “I was approached about being on ‘Real Housewives of Atlanta’, love the show, I am a huge fan of Nene [Leakes], I love Porsha [Williams] and my husband was like my background is journalism, I was a producer in my hometown, I had my own show in my hometown so my husband said you need to just get back to what you love and that’s writing. So I wrote ‘Married to Medicine’, a show about the medical field, a show about people living, working, and playing with doctors in our community and the sacrifices that a lot of the spouses make so that their husbands or wives can go and save lives.”
She has thus far served as creator, who went the process of creating the show, pitching, having it picked up by a major network and been in the role of executive producer and cast member yet has not received a contract offer for season 8.
“I was really perplexed and taken aback that I haven’t been a part of some of the boardroom conversations and the fact that I hadn’t received a contract or be involved in the direction of where the franchise is going. I think that it’s important to understand that this is my story like I am married to medicine. We’re in the midst of a pandemic right now, this is my life and I just wanted to share our story with the world.”
She’s also pointed out the different treatment she’s received than her white counterparts, saying “I am a little taken aback. I do believe that I have not been treated the way my counterparts have and all I wanted is just to be treated equally and I just want equal rights as my white male counterparts. Hell, I just want to be respected and treated decently as a cast member I don’t even get that. I’m treated worse and they did it in front of the world.”
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Then there’s the drug rumors that her castmate Quad Lunceford made against her where she said, “I thought that was horrible and that’s one of my complaints about the network. I feel like the entire pretense of the show is to diminish me as an executive producer, to denounce me, and to make sure they don’t include me. I thought that the drug allegations was just a little too far, that’s when I knew they were really trying to not only were they trying to push me out, they were trying to tarnish and ruin my reputation and make sure that I could not work in Hollywood. It’s already hard as a black woman in this business I’ve never done drugs before in my life, and the fact that they would allow someone to make those allegations and do it on air, make those allegations, follow that storyline, when they knew they were false, I just thought it was horrible and that just gives credence to what I’m saying. Why would they allow that and now not getting a contract I believe they knew that they were trying to push me out all along, I just didn’t get the memo.”
She added, “I’m a mother before anything I’m a woman but I’m a mother and I’m a mother of teenage kids and that’s not my life. It affected me because I believe wholeheartedly and being authentically me and I’ve always been that so to even dilute that I was drunk off camera or I have this other lifestyle, that’s not who I am. It’s like they try to throw these stereotypes out about successful black women I’ve never done drugs It’s not my life so yeah it broke me down as a woman. I go against that, that’s not who I am and it did.”
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She’s spoken about being a practicing Muslim on the show but it’s easy to forget considering how few times it comes up as a topic on the show or where she’s seen exercising her religion. There’s a reason for this, she says.
“It brings me back to the place of why people that look like us have to be in the boardroom when we are telling our stories. Who can tell our stories better than us. That is because they are so disconnected in some areas and you don’t even realize it and I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way that’s the sad part. My counterparts are white you know, white males, and they have an image a notion of what black women are but they should allow us to tell our own stories, and they’ve allowed some of the women to do that, they’ve just always been afraid for me to do that and I don’t understand why….”
“They have treated me horribly so to the extent that they would not even allow me to wear a hijab when I wanted to do my confessionals. When we go on trips and when I went to Savannah I was upset, not because of any of the women initially, they only had pork to eat, so for me its more about creating change for the next people and letting them know you’re not going to just hijack my show and not give me anything and not allow me to be a part of the growth…it just happened once or twice my counterpart just said that he would gag I was gonna do it [wear the hijab] in confessional I said I wanted to show people the other side that it can exist it’s hard as hell. If you go back and look at ‘Married to Medicine’ I’ve always been covered for the most part. You go back and look at it I didn’t cover my head but they even put me in situations. I’m gonna give you an example he told me no I couldn’t wear it he would gag and faint and I would never be on TV again.”
Here’s the full interview from The Jasmine Brand with Mariah Huq below:
