An actor who labored on the Tyler Perry-created TV drama “The Oval” has filed a lawsuit alleging Perry leveraged his business energy to repeatedly sexually assault and harass him whereas holding him quiet.
The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court docket by actor Derek Dixon, who appeared on 85 episodes of the BET sequence, seeks a minimum of $260 million in damages.
“Mr. Perry took his success and energy and used his appreciable affect within the leisure business to create a coercive, sexually exploitative dynamic with Mr. Dixon — initially promising him profession development and artistic alternatives, corresponding to producing his pilot and casting him in his present, solely to topic him to escalating sexual harassment, assault and battery, {and professional} retaliation,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit was filed Friday and first reported Tuesday by TMZ.
Perry’s legal professional, Matthew Boyd, stated its allegations are false.
“That is a person who obtained near Tyler Perry for what now seems to be nothing greater than organising a rip-off,” Boyd stated in an announcement Tuesday. “However Tyler is not going to be shaken down, and we’re assured these fabricated claims of harassment will fail.”
The lawsuit says that Perry first observed Dixon in 2019 when Dixon was a part of the occasion employees at a Perry social gathering, and later supplied an audition.
Dixon would first seem in a small function on the Perry sequence “Ruthless” earlier than getting the larger 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 of them.
“What’s it going to take so that you can have guiltless intercourse?” one of many messages says.
The lawsuit says Perry supplied Dixon an more and more outstanding function on the present as his sexual advances turned extra aggressive.
The actor says he tried to stay pleasant whereas sustaining boundaries.
“Dixon did his finest to tiptoe round Mr. Perry’s sexual aggression whereas holding on Mr. Perry’s good aspect,” the lawsuit says. “Mr. Perry made it clear to Dixon that if Dixon ignored Perry or failed to interact with the sexual innuendoes, Dixon’s character would ‘die.’”
The lawsuit says Perry finally 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 drive himself on Dixon.”
Dixon clearly advised Perry “No,” however was initially ignored till he was in a position to de-escalate the state of affairs and alter the topic, based on the lawsuit.
The next day, Perry apologized, and advised Dixon he would work with Dixon on a TV pilot Dixon was searching for to supply.
Dixon later obtained a increase that the lawsuit suggests was a part of an try and preserve him quiet.
He stated the worry of his character dying saved him quiet as supposed.
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.
The lawsuit describes a number of different assaults, together with one the place Dixon was staying in a visitor room of Perry’s home when Perry climbed into mattress with him uninvited and started groping him, the lawsuit alleges.
Dixon would finally transfer from Atlanta, residence to Perry’s manufacturing studio, to Los Angeles to place distance between the 2 of them.
Dixon in 2024 filed a criticism with the Equal Employment Alternative Fee, and when that didn’t end in any motion from the present’s producers, he give up.
The Related Press doesn’t sometimes title individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused until they arrive ahead publicly as Dixon has.
“The Oval” is one in all many tv sequence govt produced by, written by and directed by the 55-year-old Perry, who first turned referred to as creator and star of the “Madea” movies and has since constructed a significant manufacturing empire in TV and films. As an actor he has additionally appeared within the movies “Gone Woman” and “Don’t Look Up.”