Billionaire Tyler Perry Made His Family Members Get Jobs, Refused to Be Their ‘Welfare’

Tyler Perry is not giving handouts to people — including his family members.

The 55-year-old billionaire appeared as a guest on the Sunday, June 20 episode of the Den of Kings podcast and revealed he fired his aunt after she failed to show up to work.

“She said she wanted a job. She would always call asking for money — I would send her the money,” he recounted. “I said, ‘Listen, I want to help you. I want to help you build this thing, not be welfare to you. So, let me give you a job.’”

“She wasn’t coming in, calling in all the time,” he recalled. “I said, ‘OK, well, you got to go because you want me to hand you the money, but you don’t want to work for us.’ See, that doesn’t work for me.”

The filmmaker said that when it comes to his son, Aman, 10, whom he shares with ex-partner Gelila Bekele, he has similar expectations.

“There are certain things that he wants. He has to do chores and work for it,” he explained. “I don’t believe in giving us things that are just going to handicap us. That is the worst thing you can do.”

The Diary of a Mad Black Woman star shared that in the past, he would send money to family members because his mother asked him to, but after she passed away in 2009, he told them they needed to earn an income themselves.

“I sent all of them letters saying, ‘Listen, you got 60 days to become gainfully employed because I’m not going to keep supporting you like this,'” he admitted. “They all got jobs.”

“And it wasn’t even jobs where they’re making a lot of money, but it was a job,” he admitted. “It was something else for them to do to feel some pride in. That’s the same thing I would want somebody to do for me.”

The Don’t Look Up actor also shared that money has caused issues with certain family members.

“I have a family member that got mad at me because I wouldn’t give them a million dollars,” he revealed.

According to Forbes, Perry’s net worth is $1.4 billion — he’s self-made, and his source of wealth comes from his work in movies and television. The outlet reported that he has grossed over $660 million from his Madea franchise.

“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,” per Forbes.