American multi-talented artist Tyler Perry, according to Forbes, has joined the growing list of Hollywood billionaires.
According to Forbes, Tyler Perry has earned more than $1.4 billion in pretax income since 2005, the American business magazine claims he has a net worth of $1 billion.
Forbes also reported that the filmmaker owns the entirety of his creative output, which includes more than 1,200 television episodes, 22 films, at least two dozen plays and a 330-acre studio lot in Atlanta.
The filmmaker told Forbes that he learnt the value of ownership at a young age.
He said:
“My father was a subcontractor, and he would get paid on Fridays and be so happy that he had made $800,” he recalled to Forbes. “But I would watch the man that owned the house sell it and make $80,000. So I always knew that there was more power in the man that owned the house rather than the man that actually was working on it and building it. So I always wanted to be the guy that owned the house.
“Ownership for me was easy because I was underestimated. They said, ‘Sure, you can own it.’ They didn’t think it’d be worth anything.”
The mogul joins a group of Black billionaires that includes Robert F. Smith, Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, David Stewart, Jay-Z and perhaps Kanye West. It was also reported that his movies alone have grossed nearly $1 billion to date, and he owns the rights to all of them.
Forbes reported that Perry used his ownership of all his creative output to broker a deal with ViacomCBS that pays him $150 million a year for new content and gives him an equity stake in BET+, the streaming service it debuted last September. He has homes in Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, as well as two private jets.
