the triumphant life of T yler

HOW HEPerr SURVIVED A PAINFUL y CHILDHOOD TO BECOME AN ENTERTAINMENT Grateful Dad SUPERSTAR—AND DISCOVER “I have this beautiful son and this amazing life,” says THE LOVE THAT WOULD HEAL HIM Perry (at his studio on Aug. 27, 2019). “It’s By MARY GREEN more than I could have ever dreamed.” Photographs by SHAYAN ASGHARNIA

PEOPLE October 14, 2019 39 Difficult who made everything possible, his mother. “She’d Childhood Siblings (from left) be very, very proud,” he says. “She’d say, ‘Who’d Melva, Emmbre, have thunk it?’ That was her thing. ‘Who’d have Yulanda and Tyler thunk you could have made all of this?’” leaned on each other in trying times. Below: Perry around Surviving a Traumatic Childhood age 8. One of four children raised in New Orleans by Maxine, a preschool teacher, and her husband, Emmitt, a construction contractor, Perry says, “I don’t think I ever felt safe or protected as a child.” Perry says his father was an abusive alcoholic who once beat him so severely with a vacuum cord it ripped the skin off of his back. “The weekends were When Tyler Perry was a boy, whenever when the hell would start,” Perry recalls. “I nev­ things got really bad for him, he’d crawl er felt that I was loved by him. I don’t know if he under the front porch of his house and knows what love is. Never felt respected by him. let his imagination transport him to Never felt like a person to him.” His mother once another world­—a world without a vio­ tried to take the kids and leave, but Emmitt told lent father, predators and pain. “No matter what police she stole his car and tracked them down. was happening to me, be it sexual abuse, what­ ‘I don’t Most of her family “said, ‘Stay with that man,’” ever, I could escape and be somewhere else,” says think Perry says. “He had a job and was a provider. I knew Perry. “I could create these worlds and be there I ever felt she wanted to protect me, but there was always for hours. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that’s safe or hostility.” (Perry, who found out when he was 41 where my gift to write came from—the heart­ protected that Emmitt is not his biological father, now sup­ ache and the hell.” He used that gift to create his ports him financially but has no other relationship Next Up: the Wmost famous character, Madea—a sharp-tongued as a child’ with him. He says he eventually forgave Emmitt: White House Not politics but southern matriarch who, Perry says, is a mix of his “Holding on was hurting me more than him.”) the show Oval late mother, Maxine, and his aunt Mayola. Since Perry also says he was sexually abused by three for BET+. “This 2005’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Madea films different men and a woman—all family acquain­ isn’t a political have earned more than $500 million, and produc­ tances—by the time he was 10 years old. “It was show,” says Perry (on-set). “It’s the ing TV shows such as TBS’s House of Payne and rape,” he says. “I didn’t know what was going on or human interest— Tyler’s Dream Fulfilled OWN’s The Have and Have Nots has made Perry the far-reaching effects of it. I just moved through the First Family, one of the entertainment world’s most successful it. ‘Boys don’t cry, shut up and move on.’ Holding on the butler, the In 2015 Perry purchased 330 acres moguls. As he fulfills his dream of opening the 330- to all of that, not knowing what to do with it, there Secret Service.” of Atlanta’s former Army base acre Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, the star, 50, Madea & was a lot of anger in my teenage years, in my 20s.” More Scan this QR code Fort McPherson—including the reflects on his rise to success, how fatherhood has As an actor, To help her son face the brutality in his life, with your phone’s commander’s home, which once housed helped him heal and how he honors the woman Maxine shared her deep religious faith with him. camera to watch in addition to People Cover leaders like Franklin Delano Roosevelt playing his famous “My mother would wake me up and take me to Story: Tyler Perry and Colin Powell. Perry and his team character Madea church from the time I was a little boy,” he says. on PeopleTV. (along with her have transformed the property into a brothers Joe “I’m so grateful for that. If I wouldn’t have had vast, modern production studio for his and Heathrow that, I don’t know where I’d be. That was our shows and movies such as Black Panther. and nephew North Star, the Bible, faith, church.” The lot features 12 soundstages Brian), Perry also Still, there were times when Perry sunk into played a wealthy named after prominent African- businessman in deep despair. He even attempted suicide in his American stars like Oprah Winfrey, Good Deeds Good Deeds, a teens. “If any of it had worked, my attempts to kill The studio has a dozen world-class sound- Downtown Denzel Washington and Will Smith, 2012 police detective in myself. . . . I wouldn’t have gotten to the other stages with plans to add eight to 10 more. Atlanta is only 10 40 buildings on the National Historic Gone Girl and Colin minutes away. Powell in Vice. side of all the horror. I believe that to everything Registry and a fictional neighborhood there’s an opposite. So for all of that pain and hell called Maxineville, a tribute to his I was going through as a child, there had to be mom. For his new BET+ show The beauty. I tell anyone who is in pain, ‘Just keep Oval, Perry even built a replica of the going. One little step is a step.’” White House. After having worked on Hollywood movies “where I’m the only Making a Breakthrough black person on-set,” he hires diverse After high school Perry moved to Atlanta, The Mansion crews, including people who previously Madea’s Tough Love where he struggled for a time working as a is four homes 2015 “haven’t had a shot in this business,” he Gone Girl Vice bill collector. “I ended up being homeless,” in one—with says. “We rock it every day.” 2014 2018 different facades. 40 October 14, 2019 PEOPLE October 14, 2019 PEOPLE 41 he says. “But I knew if I worked really hard, things everything. Watching him learn and discover is TYLER frey, Denzel Washington, Will Smith and Halle would come together.” One day he was watching wonderful.” Perry says fatherhood “has mellowed PERRY’S Berry. (As for Madea, he retired the character after The Oprah Winfrey Show when he was struck with me out. I’m a pretty intense person.” EMPIRE last March’s A Madea Family Funeral. “I stayed inspiration. On the episode, Winfrey talked about ‘All the It’s also helped him come to terms with his past. BY THE that course bringing joy and laughter and lifting the healing power of writing. Perry sunk his ener­ gratitude that Perry recalls having to discipline Aman for giving NUMBERS people,” he says. “It had its purpose and its power. gy into scripts, which turned out to be therapeutic. I have inside his nanny a hard time. “I had her leave the room, For right now I’m done. We’ll see.”) “As I dug into writing and started understanding the me—it’s just and I sat him down. I got down to his level, eye to A priority for Perry is using his success to help motivations of characters, that helped me under­ eye, and was saying how disappointed I was, how $500 others. Many staffers at his studio are “former stand my own behaviors,” he says. “I could untie overwhelming’ he shouldn’t behave that way. I watched this child, inmates and drug addicts,” he says. “We’re side by some of those strings and get to full healing.” In 1998 who’s very smart, get it. He apologized to his nan­ MILLION side.” He supports causes such as education and Perry staged his first play, I Know I’ve Been Changed, ny, to his mom, to me. I had to rush out of the room Box office revenue women’s rights through his Tyler Perry Founda­ from the Madea about two brothers who survived child abuse. In because I lost it. Gelila comes in and she asks, ‘Are movies tion, and he plans “to build a compound for traf­ 2000 Perry introduced his famous alter ego, Madea you okay?’ I’m in tears because nobody had ever ficked children and LGBTQ youth who have been (a southern term for “mother dear”), in the play I spoken to me that way as a child, as if I was a per­ put out of homes and battered women,” he says. Can Do Bad All by Myself, which was a runaway hit. son.” Aman, he adds, “has been my healer through OVER “I’ve done a lot of work with them through Cove­ By 2005 Perry had turned his theater success into all of this. When I think of my father, I think, ‘How nant House. I want this amazing compound where movie box office gold. He cobbled together $5.5 mil­ could you be so cruel to something this pure?’” 500,000 everyone is trained in different fields of work lion to make Diary, which grossed over $50 million. Acutely conscious of raising his son amid wealth, People who worked where they feel like they are okay and protected.” at Tyler Perry In 2007 Perry was invited to Winfrey’s Leg­ Perry says he and Bekele “are very careful about Studios in the Perry also responds to local news stories, such as ends Ball. “Nobody really knew who I was,” Perry how much we give him.” Aman hasn’t watched TV, past year the time he bought a home for 88-year-old Rosa recalls. “I’m looking around, and there’s Barbra doesn’t know what his dad does for a living and has Ransby and her 4-year-old great-great-grand­ Streisand, Tom Cruise, Diana Ross, Tina Turner. yet to meet a certain foul-mouthed grandmother $1 BILLION daughter after their house burned down. “It’s a cli­ I’m like, ‘What am I doing here in this room?’ At who says “hellur.” “He has not seen Madea yet,” says Perry’s estimated ché, but it’s true—to whom much is given, much is the end of the weekend, I said, ‘I’m going to leave Perry, laughing. “I can’t wait for that conversation. net worth required,” he says. “I remember when $20 would here dreaming bigger.’” Now worth more than I’m sure some ratty-ass kid in school is going to tell have made the difference for me.” $1 billion, his entertainment empire includes him, ‘Your dad is Madea,’ so we’ll see what happens.” He sometimes drives by “the pay-by-the-week His Inspiration movie, TV and theater production. “I finally got hotel” on the outskirts of Atlanta where he lived Perry tried often my shot,” he says. “I was running from poverty, Building a Legacy to spoil his mom when he was struggling. “To be sitting in my office, and I didn’t want to be homeless again.” In 2015 the mogul purchased more than 300 Maxine (in 2008), looking out onto downtown Atlanta, that’s pretty acres of historic Fort McPherson with the vision who rebuffed him, powerful,” he says. “I can’t even begin to put it into never believing she Losing His Mom—and Becoming a Dad of building a studio rivaling any in Hollywood. He deserved it. “I think words other than to say, ‘Thank you God.’” After Throughout his life his biggest fan was his mother. now has nine shows in production, including The she would be alive all he has overcome, he says, “I feel whole. I don’t “Every time I wrote a movie and one of the charac­ Oval (a White House drama starring Perry as the today had she felt at need to push any further to have anything more. ters was a black woman who’s in a bad situation or presidential butler) and Sistas, about a group of any point that she This is beyond what I ever dreamed.” was worthy of good • she’s been hurt or abused, it was all subconscious single black women, both for his partnership with things,” he says. for my mother,” he says. “I wanted her to under­ the new streaming service BET+. The property stand that she was worthy of more than what she has also hosted productions from Black Panther was living in.” Even when her son was making mil­ to the upcoming movie Just Mercy. On Oct. 5 Per­ lions, Maxine stayed determinedly frugal. With ry will celebrate the grand opening by hosting a a laugh, Perry recalls one Mother’s Day when he glitzy gala, with guests expected to include Win­ had several dresses delivered to her home. When she saw a $600 price tag on one of them, she sent His Partner in Life

all of them back. “My mother called me up, ‘A HAYLETT; PREVIOUS SPREAD, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COURTESY TYLER PERRY(2); COURTESY TYLER PERRY STUDIOS; EVERETT(4); THIS SPREAD: BOB $600 dress? Get this s--- out of here!’ She went HAIR: BRYON JOHNSON; MAKEUP: SYRETTA BELL; STYLIST: CRYSTAL RENEE Perry and model Gelila Bekele, 36 (in 2011), have been together to Ross and bought a bunch of dresses for less.” more than a decade. “I’m not When Maxine died in 2009 at age 64 due to com­ much of a relationship person

plications from diabetes, Perry was devastated. “I DAVIS/GEORGE BURNS/LA ST; D. DIPASUPIL/FILMMAGIC because of the work and the still grieve for her,” he says. “Sometimes I wake up business,” he admits. “It takes a special person to from crying, because I miss her so much.” tolerate 18-hour days. My Perry is grateful his mother got to see his family holds me up, they success—but wishes even more that she had been call me on it, they let me able to meet his son Aman, 4, whom he welcomed know when I’m working too hard, they make me with his girlfriend of almost a decade, Gelila take care of myself.” Bekele, 36, a model and documentary filmmaker. “He’s my greatest joy,” Perry says with a wide grin. “He’s at that age where he’s very curious about

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