Tyler Perry dismissed the “highbrow” critics of his work this week, saying his films are meant to help his own community.
“A large portion of my fans are disenfranchised, who cannot get in the Volvo and go to therapy on the weekend,” Perry said during an appearance on the Baby, This Is Keke Palmer podcast. “You’ve got this highbrow negro who is all up in the air with his nose up looking at everything. Then, you got people like where I come from, and me, who are grinders, who really know what it’s like, whose mothers were caregivers for white kids and were maids, housekeepers, beauticians. Don’t discount these people and say their stories don’t matter. Who are you to be able to say which Black story is important, or should be told? Get out of here with that bullshit.”
Perry said he has honed his ability to drown out criticism over the years. “If you let somebody talk you out of a place that God has put you in, you are going to find yourself in hell,” he said. “I know for a fact that what I’m doing is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing, because for everyone who is a critic, I have thousands of — what used to be — emails from people saying, ‘This changed my life. Oh my God, you know me. Oh my God, you saw me. How did you know this about my life and my family?’ That is what is important to me.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Perry spoke about what got him involved with film originally.
“I had one goal,” he said. “I needed to make money to take care of my mother. Because she was ill, I wanted to retire her. She was working with a bunch of kids, and kids are little petri dishes for germs. She was always constantly sick, and she had diabetes. So, all my entire focus was: Let me just make enough money to take care of her.”
He continued, “That’s where the grind started … It was all about, ‘Can I take care of her?’”
The media mogul’s mother died in 2009, following an illness, but Perry said his success allowed him to give his mother a life “that she never imagined.”
He added: “That’s all I need to be grateful for.”