Tyler Perry (born Emmitt Perry Jr., September 13, 1969) is an American actor, filmmaker, playwright, and entrepreneur. He is the creator and performer of the Madea character, a tough elderly woman. Perry's films vary in style from orthodox filmmaking techniques to filmed productions of live stage plays. Many of his stage-play films have been subsequently adapted as feature films.
Perry wrote and produced many stage plays during the 1990s and early 2000s. He also developed several television series, most notably Tyler Perry's House of Payne, which ran for eight seasons on TBS from 2006 to 2012. In 2011, Forbes listed him as the highest-paid man in entertainment, earning US$130 million between May 2010 and May 2011. In 2012, Perry struck an exclusive multi-year partnership with Oprah Winfrey and her Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). The partnership was largely for the sake of bringing scripted television to OWN, based on Perry's previous success in this area. Perry has created multiple scripted series for the network, The Haves and the Have Nots crime drama being its most successful. The Haves and the Have Nots gave OWN some of its highest ratings during its 8-year series run, the program hailed as "one of OWN's biggest success stories with its weekly dose of soapy fun, filled with the typical betrayals, affairs and manipulations."
Perry has also acted in films not directed, written or produced by himself, including as Admiral Barnett in Star Trek (2009), the titular character in Alex Cross (2012), Tanner Bolt in Gone Girl (2014), Baxter Stockman in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016), Colin Powell in Vice (2018), Arthur in Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021), and Jack Bremmer in Don't Look Up (2021). Perry has also done voice acting for animated films such as The Star (2017) and PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021).
Perry was included in Time's list of the 100 most influential people of 2020. In 2020, he was awarded the Governors Award from the Primetime Emmy Awards and the following year, he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy Awards. In 2022, he was inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame.
Early life
Tyler Perry was born Emmitt Perry Jr. in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Willie Maxine Perry (née Campbell) and Emmitt Perry Sr., a carpenter. He has three siblings. Perry's childhood was described in retrospect as a "living hell". In contrast to his father, his mother took him to church each week, where he sensed a certain refuge and contentment. At age 16, he had his first name legally changed from Emmitt to Tyler in an effort to distance himself from his father.
Many years later, after seeing the film Precious, Perry was moved to reveal for the first time that he had been molested by a friend's mother at age 10; he was also molested by three men prior to this and later learned his own father had molested his friend. A DNA test taken by Perry indicated that Emmitt Sr. was not Perry's biological father.
While Perry did not complete high school, he earned a General Educational Development (GED). In his early 20s, watching an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, he heard someone describe the sometimes therapeutic effect the act of writing can have, enabling the author to work out his or her own problems. This comment inspired him to apply himself to a career in writing. He soon started writing a series of letters to himself, which became the basis for the musical I Know I've Been Changed.
