Tyler Perry Reveals Childhood Abuse, Molestation
By "HOUSE OF PAYNE and " "MADEA" ACTOR REVEALS BRUTAL ABUSE
Updated 4:45 PM EST, Mon, Oct 5, 2009
Hollywood producer Tyler Perry revealed his brutal childhood past on his Web site Monday, writing on the site about his history with physical and emotional abuse, constant threats on his life and molestation at the hands of a family friend.
Perry, whose film "Precious" follows a teenager struggling to deal with sexual abuse, recounted how his father beat him regularly -- and how even his grandmother joined in on the physical abuse.
"She gave me a bath in ammonia," Perry said in the chilling post on his site.
Perry's father would beat him, he wrote, with household objects like vacuum cleaner extension cords that cut him until his "skin was coming off" his back or he turned "black and blue."
"To this day, i don't know what would make a person do something like that to a child," Perry revealed. He also wrote that his father had molested a 12-year-old girlfriend of his as he slept next to her in the bed.
Perry, the star of "Tyler Perry's House of Payne," "Madea's Family Reunion" and the producer behind "Diary of a Mad Black Woman," also wrote that he himself had been molested by a man he went to church with, a man whose funeral he was asked to speak at years later.
"I quickly said no, but I wish I would've said yes" to burying the man, Perry said. "There is something so powerful to me in burying the man that molested me. I wish I would have dug the grave myself."
"Precious" is co-produced by Oprah Winfrey and is set to be released Nov. 6.
First Published: Oct 5, 2009 3:40 PM EST
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