Tyler Perry once fired his aunt, the entertainment mogul disclosed on the July 20 episode of Den of Kings, hosted by gospel icon Kirk Franklin.
Perry was a guest alongside Jeezy and Derrick Haynes on the show, and just 17 minutes into the episode, Perry revealed that he once fired his aunt because she wanted to take advantage of him financially.
“She said she wanted a job. She would always call asking for money. I said, ‘Okay,’ I would send her the money,” Perry said. “I [was] like, ‘Listen, I want to help you. I want to help you build this thing, not be welfare to you. So, let me give you a job.'”
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But Perry’s aunt did not take the opportunity given to her seriously, and according to Perry, she often wouldn’t come to work. “‘Okay, well you gotta go,'” Perry recounted of firing her. “You want me to hand you the money but you don’t want to work for it. See, that doesn’t work for me.”
Perry keeps those same standards at home, where his 10-year-old son, Aman, has to “do chores” and “work” for what he wants.
Last December, the Straw director told Sherri host Sherri Shepherd that he doesn’t spoil his son with luxury gifts but gets him books and Legos, and he even travels coach.
“I don’t believe in giving us things that are just going to handicap us,” Perry said. “That is the worst thing you can do.”
Perry went on to share that after the death of his mother, Willie Maxine Perry, in 2009, he gave his family members “60 days to be gainfully employed.”
“‘Because I’m not going to keep supporting you like this,'” Perry said, adding that they “all got jobs.”
“And it wasn’t even jobs where they’re making a lot of money, but it was a job. It was something else for them to do to feel some pride in. That’s the same thing I would want somebody to do for me,” he continued, adding that he also turned down a $1 million request from some of his family members.
The following video has more.
