Tyler Perry accuser Derek Dixon doubles down on claims—here's what to know

Who is Tyler Perry accuser Derek Dixon?

Derek Dixon is an out gay actor who appeared in 85 episodes across five seasons of Tyler Perry's The Oval, which all aired between 2021 and 2025 on BET (cable) and are also available on BET+ (streaming).

Dixon played Dale on the show — a character described by Complex as a "gay store clerk who's desperate to sleep with other characters." Otherwise, Dixon was featured in two episodes of BET's Ruthless, and had started working on a new project, Losing It, as a writer.

How significant is Tyler Perry's impact on TV and film?

Tyler Perry is far from his early-days success being completely associated with playing the character of Madea. As of 2025, Perry has created 24 feature films, 17 TV shows, 20 stage plays, and two New York Times bestselling books.

In 2019, he opened the Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, Georgia and boosted the city as a new hub for the entertainment industry beyond Los Angeles. Perry's endeavors have been mostly celebrated given how many showbiz jobs he's created in Atlanta, as well as how many talented Black actors he's cast in projects after those individuals were ignored and dismissed for many years by bigger Hollywood studios.

Alas, Perry's commitment to employing actors isn't extended to writers, directors, and producers — famously boasting that he has "no writers room. Nobody writes any of my work. I write it all."

Perry has been heavily criticized for not supporting other writers and directors in a similar manner that he does with actors, and even fans of his work have noted that Perry's projects could be better if he was open to collaborating with other creatives.

What is Tyler Perry accused of?

Dixon has accused Perry of sexual harassment and assault during his time starring in The Oval. This legal case was published first on TMZ in June, and was subsequently reported on The Hollywood Reporter in July.

Now, Dixon has done an on-camera interview with ABC News Live to reiterate his claims and add more details about his experiences working with Perry for a few years.

When and how did Derek Dixon and Tyler Perry meet?

Dixon met Perry for the first time during the grand opening event of Tyler Perry Studios in 2019, as reported by Vibe.

"I was working for an events company, and we met," Dixon told ABC News Live. "He said to me, you know, 'Are you an actor?' And I said, 'Well, not right now. I was — or I'm working on it — but not right now.' And he said, 'Yeah, you are. We need to talk. You should get my number, and we'll talk about this.'"

When asked if any of those initial interactions made Dixon hesitate about staying in touch with Perry, the actor said that "a few of them…did give me pause, but they weren't bad enough to think like this was a dangerous situation in the beginning."

Dixon's lawsuit highlights that, at one point, Perry allegedly bought him a car despite not knowing him for very long. "He'd seen my Jeep around the studio that I was driving," Dixon explained. "And he said, 'You know, that's not a great car.'"

Derek Dixon shared alleged text messages between him and Tyler Perry from after they had just met.

Davis of ABC News Live asked Dixon if the role of Dale on The Oval, which opened up for casting in 2020, felt like a dream job for him. "Yeah, it was," Dixon said. "To be a series regular on a show was something I always dreamed about."

Dixon presented screenshots of alleged text messages between him and Perry around the time when the show was casting for the role of Dale. In one of those exchanges, Perry seemingly teased Dixon into calling him a "stud" after sending a picture of himself on a jet ski.

Moving forward, the conversation in these alleged text messages kept escalating. The person presented in these files as Perry wrote things like, "What's it gonna take for you to have guiltless sex? Have y'all found that in therapy yet?" and "I would hope that you would let someone hold you and make love to you."

How did things become physical between Tyler Perry and Derek Dixon?

Dixon told ABC News Live that the dynamics between them escalated from text messages to physical touch during one particular evening while the actor was visiting Perry's house.

"We were having some drinks in his guest house, and it was late at night," Dixon claimed. "He has a guest quarter and said, 'You can sleep there instead of, you know, not driving.' His house is far from Atlanta, where I was living. I got into bed, and then I noticed that he climbed into bed with me as well, and started rubbing my leg."

Dixon went on, "I jumped up, out of bed, and he said, you know, 'Turn around so I can look at you,' and just commented on how I looked. And then he got up and left, so I thought, after that instance, it was pretty clear that I was not interested in that type of a relationship."

"It was very, very strange," Dixon observed. "I think it's OK that people try to make a move, or shoot their shot. But if they get rejected, I think that they should stop. So I thought it would stop after that. And it didn't."

Derek Dixon accused Tyler Perry of changing 'The Oval' storylines to exert his power over the actor.

After recalling that Dixon's character, Dale, got shot in the chest four times at the end of The Oval season 2, Davis asked the actor why storylines like that concerned him so much.

"What it meant to me was: If I don't make him happy, I could stay dead on the show," Dixon noted. "For me, that was his way of showing his power over us and our careers, and that he doesn't have a problem with just killing one of us off."

During another alleged incident with Tyler Perry, Derek Dixon locked himself in a bathroom to escape.

Another alleged incident cited in the lawsuit took place in June 2021, as Dixon found himself at Perry's house once again.

"We started out having drinks in the living room like we had done before, and it got to a point in the night where we were both kind of feeling drunk," Dixon claimed. "I remember we were walking back to the guest area, where I've stayed before, and there was this health monitor scale on the way. And I was like, 'What is that?'"

Perry allegedly told Dixon that people had to be in their underwear to measure themselves on the machine, urging the actor to do it. "He reached down, and pulled my underwear down, and grabbed my ass," Dixon told ABC News Live. "I tried to stop him and pulled back my underwear up. And he kind of grabbed my arms and said 'No, no, no. It's OK, just go with it.' And I said, 'Stop. I don't want to be naked. I don't want this.'"

Dixon alleged that Perry insisted on the idea and promised that he wasn't going to hurt the actor. Nonetheless, Dixon explained that "unless someone's been through something where they have their control over their bodies taken away, you don't really understand." After de-escalating the situation, Dixon claimed that he distracted Perry and ran into the guest house bathroom, locking himself in.

Did Tyler Perry address things with Derek Dixon in between these alleged incidents and the current lawsuit?

​One day after that latter incident, Dixon claimed that Perry apologized for the events that had transpired. "That's when he said [that] he was sorry for what happened. He doesn't know why he did that, and that maybe he was self-sabotaging or something."

Dixon also recalled that, on the same phone call, Perry allegedly promised to work on a show that Dixon had been developing.

When was the last time that Derek Dixon and Tyler Perry spoke to each other?

Dixon claimed that he last spoke with Perry in the spring of 2024. Just a few months later, in September, Dixon left The Oval. The actor then filed an EEOC complaint in January 2025, but a representative for Perry issued a response that read:

"Mr. Dixon's initial letter to TPS [Tyler Perry Studios] about this matter demanded $42.5 million to buy his silence." In other words, Perry's legal reps implied that this was extortion.

"Were you looking for money to buy your silence?" Davis asked.

Dixon replied, "No, I think I was looking for accountability on to what he did. I think what he did was wrong, and it needed to be something that would deter him from doing this to somebody else."

Why did Derek Dixon ask for $260 million from Tyler Perry in this lawsuit?

Davis underscored the $260 million that Dixon is asking for in the lawsuit, asking: "How did you arrive at that number?"

"Part of that number is my lost job, my lost income, the loss of the show," Dixon replied. "The other part of that is, a deterrent for, you know, how do you stop a billionaire who won't stop themselves from doing this?"

What is Tyler Perry's net worth?

Perry was first acknowledged as a billionaire in an article from Forbes in 2020. As of this writing, Forbes estimates that Tyler Perry's net worth has reached $1.4 billion.

"Perry's wealth comes both from his cut as a producer and from a library dating back to the early 1990s: He owns 100 percent of the content he's created," Perry's Forbes profile reads. "After seven years creating content for Oprah Winfrey's OWN, Perry struck a similar deal with Viacom in 2019, getting 25 percent of streaming service BET+."

The publication also credits Tyler Perry Studios for contributing to that wealth, noting that this is a "330-acre property in Atlanta with 12 sound stages and custom sets that include a to-scale White House."

What has Tyler Perry said about Derek Dixon since this case was exposed to the public?

Perry hasn't said anything about the case thus far. However, Perry's lawyer did respond to a request for comment by ABC News, writing:

"This is an individual who got close to Tyler Perry for what now appears to be nothing more than setting up a scam. But Tyler will not be shaken down and we are confident these fabricated claims of harassment will fail."