Tyler Perry is officially America’s newest billionaire

Once Tyler Perry struggled to make enough off of his shows to keep a roof over his head. Now, they’ve made him a billionaire.

Perry is an Atlanta-based writer, producer, and actor behind comic productions that tell the often-overlooked stories of Black America on national stage tours, BET, and the silver screen. He’s perhaps best known for the 11 Madea films, based on the character of a tough elderly woman he created and portrays.

Forbes now estimates that Perry has a net worth of $1 billion and noted that the producer has “a clear path to future membership in the Forbes 400,” the magazine’s exclusive list of the richest people in America. In 2019, the threshold for membership in the Forbes 400 was $2.1 billion.

From his 330-acre Tyler Perry Studios, Perry controls every aspect of his projects’ production. The strategy, which Perry told Forbes he picked up from Oprah Winfrey, allowed him to generate a pretax income of $1.4 billion since 2005, Forbes reported.

Tyler Perry built a billion-dollar fortune writing, producing, and starring in films, television shows, and plays for Black audiences overlooked by mainstream Hollywood.
Forbes attributed Perry’s financial success to the fact that he owns his own production studio, a strategy Perry said he adopted on the advice of Oprah Winfrey.
Perry spends his riches on homes in Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in addition to two private planes.

Perry, 50, joins the ranks of only a handful of people in the entertainment industry to join the three comma club. Remarkably, few of those stars actually built their fortunes in entertainment like Perry has. For example, rapper Kanye West’s $1.3 billion net worth comes not from his chart-topping albums, but from his best-selling Yeezy streetwear line with Adidas.

According to Forbes, Perry spends his riches on homes in Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in addition to two private planes.

ETI