Days ago, a tweet that Tyler Perry sent out went viral for its mixed reactions. The uber-talented playwright and producer revealed that his movie studio doesn’t feature a writers’ room because he writes all his content.

While some applauded the work ethic of the actor, others found it to be a negative thing.

Tyler is the creator of the only black owned-studio of its size. Many people felt that he could make way for an underrepresented community by hiring black writers who can’t find work in the white male-dominated industry.

Additionally, there were viewers of his work who feel as though if he had more voices in the room — he would be able to produce higher quality content.

In a recent interview, Tyler opened up about why he doesn’t need the help of anyone else to come up with storylines or dialogue.

‘So, when I first started my career, I got a deal with TBS. When it was time to staff, I went to DGA, SAG, and IATSE (all unions representing directors, actors, and stagehands) and I told them, ‘TBS isn’t paying me the money upfront — I’m financing these shows myself. I’m not Sony, I’m not Disney; I need to work out a deal for pay rates.’ They worked out great deals for me. At the time, I had a bunch of writers who were nonunion, and I was unhappy with every single script they wrote. They were not speaking to the voice. They just didn’t get it.’

WORK ETHIC!! Come on. Let’s go get 2020!!!

— Tyler Perry (@tylerperry) January 6, 2020

He went on to say that writers even caused his ratings to plummet at one point.

‘Later on, my mom got sick. So I put a writers’ room in place for one of my shows. Now we’re a WGA show and I’m paying WGA rates. Scripts they’re turning in? Ratings are going down. So now I have to go in and give notes on how to rewrite them. And if I still don’t like it, I have to pay them again for another rewrite. At one point, I thought they were submitting scripts that would need rewrites in order to get paid multiple times. And these are Black people.’

Advertisement

What do you think of Perry’s explanation?