US film and TV giant Tyler Perry has been sued for $260m (£194m) by an actor who has accused the mogul of sexually assaulting him while working on his TV shows.
Derek Dixon has filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles accusing Perry of using his influence in the entertainment industry to create a “coercive, sexually exploitative dynamic” while he was acting on The Oval and Ruthless.
He alleges Perry promised him a successful acting career but then subjected him to “escalating sexual harassment, assault and battery, and professional retaliation” when he didn’t reciprocate Perry’s “unwanted advances”.
Perry’s lawyer denied the allegations and called the lawsuit a “scam” to make money.
“This is an individual who got close to Tyler Perry for what now appears to be nothing more than setting up a scam,” his attorney Matthew Boyd told the BBC. “But Tyler will not be shaken down and we are confident these fabricated claims of harassment will fail.”
Dixon said he met Perry in 2019 at a work event for Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, and the pair talked over several months about an acting career. The lawsuit states Perry also allegedly made numerous sexual comments and remarks about wanting a sexual relationship, and made several advances on Dixon – which he rejected.
Perry offered Dixon a role in his show Ruthless then later in The Oval. But the lawsuit said: “Mr Perry made it clear to Dixon that if Dixon ignored Perry or failed to engage with the sexual innuendos, Dixon’s character would ‘die’ in the next season.”
The case claims Perry “always held this over Mr Dixon’s head, implying that [his character] ‘Dale’ would survive if Dixon kept Perry ‘happy'”.
The lawsuit cites several incidents where Perry allegedly sexually assaulted Dixon. The actor accused Perry of interrogating him over his sexual interests in a trailer on the set of The Oval, before pinning him to a wall and fondling him. Dixon said he refused the advance and left the trailer.
Dixon said to stop continued harassment, he elected to leave his role on The Oval and declined a job from Perry to work as a writer.
