Why This Black Filmmaker Is Squashing His Tyler Perry Beef
Director Justin Simien tried his best to squash any remaining bad blood between himself and Tyler Perry last week with a TikTok aimed directly at the industry mogul. “I just feel like there’s still heat there and I really want to clear it up,” he says in the video. “And Tyler is really hard to reach!”
“I haven't heard from him,” Simien tells The Daily Beast. “I don't know if he's seen it. And I'm not even really sure what exactly happened there.”
Wrapped up in Simien’s desire to set the record straight with Perry is his promotion of his new docuseries Hollywood Black, which premieres Sunday on MGM+, and takes viewers through the fascinating timeline of Black people in cinema from the 1930s to today. The series also tackles some of the same questions about Black representation Simien posed in his feature film debut Dear White People.