Actor Derek Dixon has finally broken his silence after accusing Hollywood mogul Tyler Perry of s£xually harassing and ass@ulting him.
He had made the claim in a bombshell $260million lawsuit.
Dixon said in legal docs last month that Perry, 55, aggressively tried to establish a s3xual dynamic between them when he appeared on two of Perry’s programs on BET: Ruthless and The Oval.
“Perry ‘will not be shaken down and we are confident these fabricated claims of harassment will fail,’ his lawyer Matthew Boyd hit back at Dixon in a statement denying the claims.
Boyd said of Dixon: ‘This is an individual who got close to Tyler Perry for what now appears to be nothing more than setting up a scam.’
Dixon, who is in his late 30s, has now spoken out about why he took legal action, saying: ‘I couldn’t just let him get away with this.’
He told THR: ‘Everyone deserves to go to work and do their job without their boss trying to have s3x with them. My goal is to help ensure that the next generation of actors and creatives don’t have to choose between their dreams and their dignity.’
In the legal complaint, Dixon said that Perry looked to establish ‘a coercive, s3xually exploitative dynamic’ between them when he worked on the set of The Oval and Ruthless, portraying a character by the name of Dale.
He claims Perry pinned him against a wall and groped him, and snuck into his bed in another alleged incident.
Dixon says he first met Perry in Atlanta in September 2019 while working as an event coordinator for Legendary Events, that was organizing the opening party for Tyler Perry Studios.
Dixon claims Perry ‘singled him out’ and asked him ‘to get on stage so he could check the lighting and then asked Dixon if he was an actor.’
He says then they exchanged numbers and Perry ‘began texting him the next day’ asking ‘So who are you? What’s the dream? What do you want to do?’
Perry then gave Dixon the chance to audition for Dale in Ruthless, a spin-off of The Oval, and Dixon was cast.
Dixon, who is an out gay man, says in his complaint at that time he ‘did not know that Perry was interested in men or that he was looking for a s3xual relationship.’
Dixon said: ‘I’m not going to speak for him on how he identifies s3xually. Regardless of his s3xual orientation or gender, he should not be speaking to any of his employees whether they be men or women, gay, straight or bis3xual about their s3xual preferences, how often they’re having s3x and physically assaulting them.
