Tyler Perry was born Emmitt R. Perry, Jr. in New Orleans, Louisiana (he now lives in Atlanta, Georgia). His father, Emmitt, Sr., was a carpenter and construction worker, and his mother, Maxine, was a pre-school teacher who worked at the New Orleans Jewish Community Center for most of her life. The younger Perry changed his first name to Tyler because of his troubled relationship with his father. Tyler Perry has said that his father was physically and verbally abusive to him during his childhood, and that this contributed to his attempting suicide as a teenager. A 2004 New York Times article referred to Perry's relationship with his father as "now mended". However, in a 2009 interview, Perry expressed disdain for his father and spoke in the present tense of his father being abusive to his mother.
Perry dropped out of school when he was 16, but later went back to obtain his GED. He is good friends with Oprah Winfrey, rapper/actor Will Smith and Bishop T.D. Jakes. In 2008 Perry earned around $75 million, placing him just outside the top five highest paid men in Hollywood.
Perry has written and toured with eleven stage plays:
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I Know I've Been Changed (1998)
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I Can Do Bad All By Myself (1999)
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Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2001)
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Madea's Family Reunion (2002)
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Madea's Class Reunion (2003)
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Meet the Browns (2004)
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Why Did I Get Married? (2006)
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Madea Goes to Jail (2006)
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What's Done in the Dark (2007)
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The Family That Preys (2008)
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The Marriage Counselor (2009)
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Laugh to Keep from Crying (2009-2010)
Some of Perry's plays have been adapted into films, usually with different actors. The stage plays feature more singing than the movies and are sometimes classed as musicals. Except for "I Know I've Been Changed," they are all available on DVDs in their own right.
