An actor and screenwriter is suing Tyler Perry for US$260 million in a lawsuit alleging that the media mogul leveraged his trade energy to repeatedly sexually assault and harass him whereas holding him quiet.
Derek Dixon, who performed the character Dale on Perry’s The Oval for 85 episodes, claims that Perry subjected him “to escalating sexual harassment, assault and battery, {and professional} retaliation when Mr. Dixon didn’t reciprocate Mr. Perry’s undesirable advances.”
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Courtroom on June 13, alleges that “Mr. Perry took his success and energy and used his appreciable affect within the leisure trade to create a coercive, sexually exploitative dynamic with Mr. Dixon — initially promising him profession development and artistic alternatives, comparable to producing his pilot and casting him in his present.”
Perry’s lawyer, Matthew Boyd, mentioned the lawsuit’s allegations are false.
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“That is a person who acquired near Tyler Perry for what now seems to be nothing greater than establishing a rip-off,” Boyd mentioned in a press release on Tuesday. “However Tyler is not going to be shaken down, and we’re assured these fabricated claims of harassment will fail.”
The lawsuit, seen by the New York Instances, mentioned Perry first observed Dixon in 2019 when he was a part of the occasion workers at a celebration Perry was throwing and he provided Dixon an audition.
Dixon would first seem in a small function on the Perry sequence Ruthless earlier than getting a bigger function on the political drama The Oval.
Perry quickly started sending undesirable sexual textual content messages to Dixon, based on the lawsuit, which incorporates screenshots of a number of conversations between the 2.
“What’s it going to take so that you can have guiltless intercourse?” one of many messages learn.
In a single occasion talked about within the swimsuit, Perry allegedly invited Dixon to his residence in Douglasville, close to Atlanta, in 2020, the place the 2 had just a few drinks and Dixon spent the evening in a visitor room.
Dixon alleges within the lawsuit that throughout the evening, Perry acquired into mattress with him and commenced “rubbing Dixon’s physique round his internal thigh in a extremely sexual and suggestive method.” Dixon claims that he jumped out of the mattress and informed Perry that he “wasn’t that sexual.”
The lawsuit says Perry provided Dixon an more and more distinguished function on The Oval following the interplay and that’s when he claims his sexual advances grew to become extra aggressive.
The actor mentioned he tried to stay pleasant whereas sustaining boundaries.
“Dixon did his greatest to tiptoe round Mr. Perry’s sexual aggression whereas holding on Mr. Perry’s good aspect,” the lawsuit alleged. “Mr. Perry made it clear to Dixon that if Dixon ignored Perry or failed to have interaction with the sexual innuendoes, Dixon’s character would ‘die.’”
The lawsuit additionally alleges that Perry ultimately sexually assaulted Dixon on “a number of events,” together with an occasion the place he “forcibly pulled off Mr. Dixon’s clothes, groped his buttocks, and tried to power himself on Dixon.”
Dixon mentioned he informed Perry “no,” however was initially ignored till he was in a position to de-escalate the scenario and alter the topic, based on the swimsuit.
The next day, Perry allegedly apologized and informed Dixon he would work with him on a TV pilot Dixon was searching for to provide.
Dixon claims that he acquired a elevate that he believes was a part of an try to hold him quiet, based on the lawsuit.
He additionally mentioned the concern of his character dying on The Oval saved him from talking out about his allegations in opposition to Perry.
Perry additionally produced and acquired the rights to the pilot, known as Shedding It, however the lawsuit alleges Perry had no intention of promoting the present and was utilizing it just for leverage over Dixon.
Dixon mentioned he moved from Atlanta, the place Perry’s manufacturing studio is positioned, to Los Angeles to place distance between the 2 of them.
In 2024, Dixon filed a criticism with the Equal Employment Alternative Fee, and when that didn’t end in any motion from the present’s producers, he stop.
Dixon is requesting a jury trial and searching for damages of $260 million.
— With information from The Related Press
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