Tyler Perry is the creator and performer of Mabel "Madea" Simmons, a tough elderly woman, and portrays her brother Joe Simmons and her nephew Brian Simmons.
50 Facts About Tyler Perry
2.
Tyler Perry wrote and produced many stage plays during the 1990s and early 2000s.
3.
Tyler Perry developed several television series, most notably Tyler Perry's House of Payne, which ran for eight seasons on TBS from 2006 to 2012.
4.
In 2012, Tyler Perry struck an exclusive multi-year partnership with Oprah Winfrey and her Oprah Winfrey Network.
5.
Tyler Perry has created multiple scripted series for the network, The Haves and the Have Nots crime drama being its most successful.
6.
Tyler Perry has acted in films not directed, written or produced by himself, including as Admiral Barnett in Star Trek, the titular character in Alex Cross, Tanner Bolt in Gone Girl, Baxter Stockman in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, Colin Powell in Vice, Arthur in Those Who Wish Me Dead, and Jack Bremmer in Don't Look Up.
7.
Tyler Perry has done voice acting for animated films such as The Star and PAW Patrol: The Movie.
8.
Tyler Perry was included in Time's list of the 100 most influential people of 2020.
9.
Tyler Perry's childhood was described in retrospect as a "living hell".
10.
Many years later, after seeing the film Precious, Tyler Perry was moved to reveal for the first time that he had been molested by a friend's mother at age 10; he was molested by three men prior to this and later learned his own father had molested his friend.
11.
Tyler Perry soon started writing a series of letters to himself, which became the basis for the musical I Know I've Been Changed.
12.
Around 1990, Tyler Perry moved to Atlanta, where two years later I Know I've Been Changed was first performed at a community theater, financed by the 22-year-old Tyler Perry's $12,000 life savings.
13.
Tyler Perry persisted, and over the next six years he rewrote the musical repeatedly, though lackluster reviews continued.
14.
Tyler Perry continued to create new stage productions, touring with them on the so-called "Chitlin' Circuit" and developing a large, devoted following among African-American audiences.
15.
Tyler Perry made his directorial debut on his next film, an adaptation of Madea's Family Reunion, and has directed all of his subsequent Madea films.
16.
At the request of director JJ Abrams, in 2009, Tyler Perry had a small role as the Starfleet Academy commandant Admiral Barnett in Star Trek, which opened on May 8.
17.
Tyler Perry next wrote, directed, and starred in I Can Do Bad All By Myself, a film structured around his Madea character.
18.
In 2009, Tyler Perry teamed with Oprah Winfrey to present Precious, a film based on the novel Push by Sapphire.
19.
Tyler Perry directed a film adaptation of Ntozake Shange's 1975 choreopoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, which was released in theaters November 5,2010.
20.
Tyler Perry appeared in the stage show Madea's Big Happy Family, which toured the US as a stage play and was released as a movie in 2011, written, directed by and starring Perry.
21.
Tyler Perry took over the role of James Patterson's Alex Cross from Morgan Freeman for a new film in the series, titled Alex Cross.
22.
Tyler Perry's performance gained the attention of director David Fincher, who subsequently cast Perry in his 2014 thriller Gone Girl, co-starring with Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, and Neil Patrick Harris.
23.
Tyler Perry released his thirteenth film, Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor on March 29,2013.
24.
Tyler Perry produced Tyler Perry Presents Peeples, released on May 10,2013.
25.
Tyler Perry returned to the big screen with A Madea Christmas, released on December 13,2013.
26.
Tyler Perry directed the film The Single Moms Club, which opened on March 14,2014.
27.
In 2016, Tyler Perry played scientist Baxter Stockman in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.
28.
Tyler Perry's movies have seen very limited release outside North America, but in May 2010, Lionsgate announced plans to begin releasing his films in the United Kingdom.
29.
Tyler Perry wrote, directed and produced the sitcom Meet the Browns, which premiered on TBS on January 7,2009 and ended on November 18,2011.
30.
On October 2,2012, Tyler Perry struck an exclusive multi-year partnership with Oprah Winfrey and her Oprah Winfrey Network.
31.
The partnership was largely for the purposes of bringing scripted television to OWN, Tyler Perry having had previous success in this department.
32.
On January 9,2014, as part of Tyler Perry's continued partnership with OWN, the network ordered its fourth scripted series based on the feature film, The Single Moms Club, called If Loving You Is Wrong.
33.
In 2015, Tyler Perry acquired the 330-acre former military base Fort McPherson located in Atlanta, which he converted to studios.
34.
Tyler Perry Studios is one of the largest film studios in the nation and established Perry as the second African-American to outright own a major film studio, after Tim and Daphne Reid.
35.
The dispute was settled a month later, when Tyler Perry Studios agreed to be a WGA signatory.
36.
In early 2009, Tyler Perry threatened legal action against Mo' Money Taxes, a tax preparation company based in Memphis, Tennessee, for running a TV spot that he felt offensively parodied his work, in particular Madea Goes to Jail.
37.
On January 6,2020, Tyler Perry posted a video on Instagram in which he revealed that he doesn't use a writers room for his films and TV shows and prefers to write his work himself.
38.
Tyler Perry received criticism from several outlets and figures in entertainment for denying opportunities to up-and-coming black writers.
39.
Later that month, Tyler Perry responded in an interview by stating that he had experienced issues when working with both WGA writers and nonunion writers.
40.
Tyler Perry's work has been praised by Oprah Winfrey, who joined Tyler Perry in promoting Lee Daniels' film Precious.
41.
Tyler Perry is good friends with Janet Jackson, Will Smith, and Oprah Winfrey.
42.
In 2007, Tyler Perry bought a 17-acre estate in the Paces neighborhood of Buckhead, Atlanta.
43.
On July 20,2009, Tyler Perry sponsored 65 children from a Philadelphia day camp to visit Walt Disney World, after reading that a suburban swim club, the Valley Swim Club in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, had shunned them.
44.
Tyler Perry tore down the existing 32,000-square-foot mansion and planned, but never built, a new, environmentally-friendly home on the property.
45.
In December 2020, Tyler Perry announced that he was a single bachelor.
46.
In September 2017, Tyler Perry purchased a house in Mulholland Estates, a gated community in Los Angeles.
47.
Nine months after buying the estate, Tyler Perry sold the property for $15.6 million.
48.
Tyler Perry owns vacation properties in both Wyoming and the Bahamas.
49.
On March 7,2021, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex publicly revealed in the television interview Oprah with Meghan and Harry that Tyler Perry provided initial security and housing for three months that allowed the couple to safely relocate from Canada to California in March 2020, following the withdrawal of their British royal protection.
50.
Tyler Perry is godfather to their daughter, Princess Lilibet of Sussex.