Tyler Perry On Oprah

Tyler Perry on Oprah: I was severely abused

Tyler Perry opens up to Oprah about painful childhood memories of physical and sexual abuse and a choice that almost took his life as a teen.

Tyler Perry went on Oprah Wed afternoon to share the heartbreaking details of his childhood.

The How Did I Get Married Too? actor and director spared no detail on his horrible past -- he talked about everything from past sexual abuse to violent beatings from his father. Perry's most upsetting revelation? He attempted suicide as a depressed and broken young man.

Perry told Oprah that he was sexually molested by 4 separate adults in his life -- the 1st when he was just 5 or 6 years old. He went on to say that his 1st sexual experience came at the age of 10 when a friend's mother locked him in a room and pulled him on top of her.

Perry's father seemingly directed all of his anger toward his young son, beating him on a near-daily basis. He recalled one instance when his father savagely beat him for improperly changing a flat tire -- an event he cites as the end of his childhood.



He said he daydreamed to keep the pain away, telling Oprah that he imagined running away into a field of grass. "I could not get the little boy to come back to me. I think I died that day."

And in a way, he did die. Perry changed his name from Emmitt Perry Jr to Tyler Perry to avoid carrying on his father's name.

He eventually forgave his father in his twenties, though his father never apologized.

Anger is good," Perry told Oprah. "Bitterness isn't."

The most shocking of Perry revelations was that he attempted suicide as a teen by slitting his wrist. Fighting tears, Perry said his mother was the person who ultimately kept him alive.

"My mother was truly my saving grace, because she would take me to church with her. I would see my mother smiling in the choir, and I wanted to know this God that made her so happy," he said. "If I hadn't had that faith in my life, I do not know where I would be right now."

Perry's intimate Oprah interview had a purpose, he said. He wants to help open the eyes of other men affected by abuse -- and his tell-all interview with Oprah was just the start of his work, he said.