Tyler Perry Becomes Seventh Black American Billionaire

Tyler Perry has official become a billionaire, according to Forbes. Recently Forbes announced that the Hollywood movie mogul is now the seventh Black American billionaire. Making the list with tech investor Robert F. Smith, NBA Legend Michael Jordan, Queen of media herself Oprah Winfrey, tech founder David Stewart, plus Hip-Hop legends and business moguls Jay-Z and Kanye West.

Forbes estimates that Perry earned more than $1.4 billion in pretax income since 2005. Within this he has homes in New York, Los Angeles, Jackson Hole, Wyoming and his new house in metro Atlanta that is 35,000 sq ft and is on 1200 acres. Recently it was reported by TMZ that the 51 year old entertainment mogul is planning to even build a landing strip on his property, so no Hartsfield-Jackson airport for him.

Included in his catalog of investments, Perry has a catalog of content of more than 1200 episodes of television, 22 featured films and a couple dozen stages plays. To take his stakes even further in the future, he has a 330 acre studio in Atlanta that is built on a old Confederate military army base.

On the property that has already made a legacy within itself as each sound studio is named after a movie mogul, Tyler Perry looks to create the success of Disney and Universal as he looks to build restaurants, shops and entertainment, a theater and a theme park within the property. This doesn’t even include the he looks to make it a safe space and housing for sex-trafficked women and LGBTQ youth.

“I can go outside and take this dirt and put it on my hands and know that there were Confederate soldiers here walking this land, plotting and planning everything they could to keep us Negroes in place,” Perry told Forbes about the land on which his studio was built. “The very fact that I am here on this land, the very fact that hundreds of people—Black and brown people—come here to make a living, that is effecting change.”