Tyler Perry

Tyler Perry
Perry at the 82nd Academy Awards in 2010
Born	Emmitt Perry Jr. (1969-09-13) September 13, 1969 (age 47) New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
Nationality	American
Occupation	Actor, comedian, filmmaker, writer, songwriter
Years active	1992–present
Net worth	$450 million (2016)
Partner(s)	Gelila Bekele (2009–present)
Children	1
Website	Official website

Tyler Perry (born Emmitt Perry Jr.; September 13, 1969) is an American actor, comedian, filmmaker, writer, and songwriter, specializing in the gospel genre. Perry wrote and produced many stage plays during the 1990s and early 2000s. In 2011, Forbes named him the highest paid man in entertainment; he earned US$130 million between May 2010 and 2011.

Perry is known for both creating and performing as the Madea character, a tough elderly black woman. Perry also creates films, some produced as live recordings of stage plays, and others professionally filmed using full sets and locations with full editing. Perry is estimated to have earned around US$75 million by 2008. Many of Perry's stage-play films have been subsequently adapted as professional films.

Perry has also created several television shows, his most successful of which is Tyler Perry's House of Payne, a show that ran for eight seasons on TBS from June 21, 2006, to August 10, 2012. On October 2, 2012, Perry struck an exclusive multi-year partnership with Oprah Winfrey and her Oprah Winfrey Network. The partnership was largely for the purposes of bringing scripted television to the OWN network, Perry having had previous success in this department. Perry has created multiple scripted series for the network, the most successful being The Haves and the Have Nots. As of 2014, The Haves and the Have Nots has given OWN its highest ratings to date. The series has also been referred to as being "one of OWN's biggest success stories with its weekly dose of soapy fun, filled with the typical betrayals, affairs, manipulations and a bitch slap or two."

Perry's work has earned enough serious attention to lead to the publishing of a serious book about him and his work, Tyler Perry's America.

Perry was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, as Emmitt Perry Jr., the son of Willie Maxine Perry (née Campbell) and Emmitt Perry, Sr., a carpenter. He has three siblings. Perry once said his father's "answer to everything was to beat it out of you". As a child, Perry once went so far as to attempt suicide in an effort to escape his father's beatings. 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.