Tyler Perry is officially a billionaire! The self-made actor and businessman join Oprah Winfrey, Jay-Z, and Michael Jordan as a member of the billionaire club.
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In a report by Forbes, Tyler Perry, 51, earns all of his creative works which include more than 1,200 television episodes, 22 feature films, and two dozen stage plays. Perry also owns his Atlanta studio where his movies and television shows are filmed for ViacomCBS. The media conglomerate pays Perry $150 million a year along with an equity stake in BET+ based on their contract.
He also owns several homes in Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and two planes. The report states Perry has earned an estimate of more than $1.4 billion in pretax income since 2005.
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Before reaching massive success, Perry worked as a playwright and was homeless in New Orleans. He said in a statement to Forbes that his “humble beginnings” make success much better.
“I love when people say you come from ‘humble beginnings,’ ” [It] means you were poor as hell.” It also makes success sweeter. “Ownership,” he adds, “changes everything.”
He also mentioned he didn’t have any mentors growing up so he had to learn about being an entrepreneur as his success grew.
“You got to understand, I had no mentors. My father doesn’t know anything about business, and my uncles and mother, they know nothing about this. I didn’t go to business school. Everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned in progress.”