Tyler Perry Says He Would’ve “Never Left” First Post-Homeless Apartment If He Wasn’t Evicted

Prior to Tyler Perry becoming a billionaire entertainment mogul, he just was a man with a dream trying to survive and make a name for himself in Atlanta.

The Divorce in the Black writer-director-producer recently visited the first apartment he got — and subsequently was evicted from — after being homeless and reflected on his journey from then to now.

Perry revealed what prompted his visit was that he was told 10 years ago that the building was being demolished. Since it’s still up, he went back in a moment of introspection.

“This was my first apartment after being homeless,” he wrote on Instagram. “I was so happy to have this place. I remember being so happy to have a roof over my head, but also being so anxious and scared that I wasn’t going to be able to pay the $425 rent every month.”

Perry recalled how he’d “lay so still” on his twin-sized bed as he heard the landlord collect rent on the first of the month. “He would knock on the door and I’d just freeze and pray that he went away,” the father of one continued. “I was late on the rent every month, man this makes me tear up.”

Back then, the Madea franchise creator was “depressed,” while juggling his job at UPS and working to get his plays “off the ground.”

He added, “I was praying and praying for my change to come, but here’s the part that I want you to catch, I had started doing the play and started to make a little money and as soon as I got the money I paid all the back rent.” Perry was “happy” to do so, but his landlord still chose to evict him.

“He said I was late too many times and I had been there too long and it was time for me to go,” Perry noted, but took this as a lesson on comfort.

Over a photo of him standing in front of his old apartment, which was unit No. 8, the 54-year-old wrote, “8 in biblical terms means a new beginning. I now know that I was at my new beginning. I now know that if he had let me stay there I would have never left, because I had gotten comfortable.”

Perry continued, “I now know that nothing huge comes from staying comfortable” and urged readers to remember: “Looking back it’s easy to see the blessing in it, but going through it feels like you’re at the end. But I choose to believe that you are at a new beginning.”

This isn’t the first time Perry has opened up about his rags-to-riches journey. He spoke on it in his documentary, Maxine’s Baby, and last March detailed how he occasionally drives the Geo Metro he slept in during his period of homelessness.