LOS ANGELES — Tyler Perry is opening up about his horrific past, revealing that he was sexually and physically abused as a child.
In an emotional open letter posted on his Web site, Perry confesses that “as I child I always thought I would die before I grew up.” The New Orleans native tells his fans that many of his childhood emotions recently came out after watching a screening of “Precious,” a movie that he executive produced with Oprah Winfrey. In the midst of seeing the film, which centers around a 16-year-old girl who is physically and emotionally abused, Perry says he realized “a large part of my childhood had just played out before my eyes.”
“It took me through some raw emotions and brought me to some things and places in my life that I needed to deal with but had long forgotten,” writes the Hollywood star, who turned 40 in September. “It brought back memories so strong that I can smell and taste them.”
Perry then recalls several painful memories from his childhood, including a night when his father came home drunk.
“He got the vacuum cleaner extension cord and trapped me in a room and beat me until the skin was coming off my back,” he writes. “To this day, I don’t know what would make a person do something like that to a child.”
Perry also recalls a time when he was about 10 and his friend’s mother sexually abused him.
“She told her son to take a bath and she locked him in the bathroom,” he remembers. “I was at the front door trying to get out, when she came in and laid on the sofa and asked me if I wanted the key. I told her I had to go home as it was getting dark. She put the key inside of herself and told me to come get it, pulling me on top of her.”
In another painful memory, Perry recalls a time when his father’s adoptive mother became upset that he was going to the doctor’s every week for shots to control his asthma. He says she gave him “a bath in ammonia,” telling him “she was going to kill these germs on me once and for all.”
“I was asked recently how I made it through all of this, (half has not even been told) and my answer to that is…I know for a fact that there is a GOD,” Perry writes. “When my father would say or do those things to me, I would hear this voice inside of me say, ‘That’s not true’ or, ‘Don’t believe that’ or, ‘You’re going to make it through this.’ I didn’t know at the time what ‘it’ was, but today I surely have no doubt that ‘it’ was GOD. That voice always gave me comfort. It allowed me to hold on. It kept me from being strung out on drugs, from dying when I wanted to commit suicide. It kept me from being a gang banger or drug dealer. Worse than all of those things put together, it kept me from being him. It brought angels to comfort me after every foul, harsh word or every welt on my legs or back GOD, only GOD.”
Perry ends by urging others who have faced similar hurdles to forgive those who have hurt them, saying “forgiveness has been my weapon of choice. It has helped to free me.”
“If you’re having a hard time getting over something in your life, maybe you can try forgiveness too,” he says. “It’s not easy, but it does bring forth healing. I know that there are a lot of people out there with stories far worse than mine but you, too, can make it. To those of you who have, welcome to life. I celebrate you. We’re all PRECIOUS in His sight.”
