Tyler Perry Accuser Breaks His Silence

Last month actor Derek Dixon filed a $260 million lawsuit against Tyler Perry accusing him of sexual harassment [click here if you missed that]. 

Dixon speaks out for the first time stating he couldn't let Perry get away with it...

From The Hollywood Reporter

Actor Derek Dixon says the process of bringing his recent bombshell lawsuit for sexual harassment and assault against Atlanta entertainment mogul Tyler Perry has been “terrifying.” But in his first interview since filing the $260 million claim against Perry in Los Angeles Superior Court on June 13, he says he felt compelled to speak out because, “I couldn’t just let him get away with this.”

“Everyone deserves to go to work and do their job without their boss trying to have sex with them,” Dixon says. “My goal is to help ensure that the next generation of actors and creatives don’t have to choose between their dreams and their dignity.”

Dixon, who answered The Hollywood Reporter’s questions by email, described first meeting Perry in Atlanta in September of 2019 when he was working as an event coordinator for a company, Legendary Events, that was organizing the opening party for Tyler Perry Studios. At the time, Dixon, who was sporadically acting and writing in theater in Atlanta, says he knew Perry only as the creator of the Madea movies. Dixon says that Perry singled him out in the crowd of event staff and asked him to get on stage so he could check the lighting and then asked Dixon if he was an actor. “I said, ‘Yes, but not really right now,'” Dixon says. “And he said, ‘Yes you are. I can tell.'” At the end of the event, Perry and Dixon exchanged numbers, and Perry began texting Dixon the next day, asking, “So who are you? What’s the dream? What do you want to do?”

Perry offered Dixon the opportunity to audition for the part of a character named Dale in his series Ruthless, a spinoff of the White House-set drama The Oval created under Perry’s overall deal with Viacom/CBS. Perry ultimately cast Dixon in the part, telling him it was a small role that could get a lot bigger.

At that point, Dixon, who is an out gay man, “did not know that Perry was interested in men or that he was looking for a sexual relationship,” Dixon’s complaint says. About a year after this, in December of 2020, Perry would announce on Instagram that he and his longtime girlfriend, Gelila Bekele, with whom he shares a now 10-year-old son, had broken up.

“I’m not going to speak for him on how he identifies sexually,” says Dixon. “Regardless of his sexual orientation or gender, he should not be speaking to any of his employees whether they be men or women, gay, straight or bisexual about their sexual preferences, how often they’re having sex and physically assaulting them.”

Go here to read the full piece.