Tyler Perry's Real Name: Emmitt Perry Jr.

Quick answer: Tyler Perry's original name is Emmitt Perry Jr. He was born on September 13, 1969, in New Orleans. Biography.com says he legally changed his first name to Tyler at 16. He is a writer, actor, producer, and director, best known for the character Madea and for a long run of plays, films, and television series (Biography.com).

Real name and early life

He was born Emmitt Perry Jr. on September 13, 1969, in New Orleans, and named after his father, Emmitt Perry Sr., a carpenter. His mother, Willie Maxine Perry, worked at a daycare and went by Maxine. He later said he changed his first name to distance himself from his father. As an adult he also learned that Emmitt Sr. was not his biological father, a point he discussed in the 2023 documentary Maxine's Baby: The Tyler Perry Story.

He has described a difficult childhood. After watching an episode of Oprah Winfrey's talk show about writing as a way through hard experience, he began a series of letters to himself that became the musical I Know I've Been Changed. The 1992 production initially failed to find an audience. He kept reworking the show while living, for a time, out of his car, and later found an audience after several more years.

Career highlights

In 2000 his play I Can Do Bad All by Myself introduced Mabel "Madea" Simmons, a sharp-tongued grandmother he based on his mother and other older women in his life and played himself. Madea returned in later plays, including Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2001) and Madea's Family Reunion (2002). Biography.com says that at one point in the early 2000s an estimated 35,000 people a week attended his productions.

The 2005 film Diary of a Mad Black Woman made him a box-office force; Biography.com says it grossed more than $50 million. Madea's Family Reunion followed in 2006, the year he established a studio in Atlanta and launched the TBS sitcom House of Payne. Later films included Daddy's Little Girls (2007), his first screenplay not based on a play, Madea Goes to Jail (2009), and further Madea titles through A Madea Homecoming (2022). He also had a small role as Admiral Barnett in Star Trek (2009).

Name notes for searchers

Emmitt Perry Jr. was his birth name; Tyler Perry is the name he has used in public life since he was 16. Searchers looking for Emmitt Perry and Tyler Perry are usually aiming at the same person.