Tyler Perry is currently promoting Precious, a film about an overweight, Black teenager unable to read or write who is subjected to abuse. He revealed on his blog last Saturday that he too was the victim of abuse and molestation as a child. Get more details below.
Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey serve as executive producers on the movie Precious, adapted by the novel Push by Sapphire. The critically acclaimed film has already received awards at the Sundance Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival.
On Perry’s blog (tylerperry.com/_messages), he spoke of how he was sent the movie Precious and was asked what he thought of it. The abuse that the character Precious suffered hit close to home, as he was also abused as a child. He revealed several instances of the abuse he received at the hand of his father, and it truly is heartbreaking to read. He described how his father took a vacuum cleaner cord and beat him with it until the skin on his back would come off or turn black and blue. Perry said:
“To this day, i don’t know what would make a person do something like that to a child.”
Shockingly, his own grandmother physically abused Perry as well. As a child, he would receive allergy shots every week to keep his allergies under control, and when his grandmother learned of the weekly shots, she claimed, “Ain’t nothing wrong with that damn boy…he just got germs on him. Stop wasting all that money.” She would occasionally give Perry baths in ammonia to “kill the germs”.
Perry and Winfrey are donating any earnings from the film to charity and feel the message is clear surrounding the movie. There is hope.
Watch the video trailer of Precious below.
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