Tyler Perry Shared What Helped Him Become A “Good Father” To His Son

When Tyler Perry became a father in 2014 to his son Aman, he wasn’t sure if he would be a good dad. In fact, as he told Oprah Winfrey on a recent episode of The Life You Want, he really worried that he wouldn’t know how to be a good father at all because of his own difficult relationship with his father, Emmitt Perry. Worried until he discovered a new perspective that helped him become be the parent he wanted to be for his son.

The Selma director was asked by an audience member of Oprah Daily’s The Life You Want about how he knew he would be a good father. “I didn’t,” he replied simply. “I struggled with that and I worried because I didn’t have an example, because this man was just awful, right? One day I was praying about it, looking in the mirror, and I’m like, ‘God, what do I do?’ And the answer came to me as clear as day: Do it in reverse.”

He went on to explain that he decided to “reverse the image” he had of his own father, and did his best to do everything his own father didn’t in an effort to be an “incredible father.”

“And that’s what I tried to do. I show my son love and encouragement, and I stand with him when he’s wrong. I straighten him up,” Perry went on to explain. “I chastise him the right way so that he understands that the correction is done in love. Everything that man didn’t do.”

One of the ways that Perry makes an effort to be a good father is to keep Aman, who he shares with ex-girlfriend Gelile Bekele, out of the spotlight. “My son’s not famous. I want him to have as normal a life as he can,” Perry told AARP in 2022. “I want him to know what it’s like to have his own name and his own life and not have the pressure of trying to live up to whatever or whoever your father was.”

As for his relationship with his own father, Perry admitted that while he might not have enjoyed a good relationship with him, he was a “good provider” to his family. “[My father] worked his a** off every day, sunup to sundown. Made sure that the money was coming into the house, made sure all the bills were paid, everything that my mother wanted him to do financially was there as best he could,” he said during his appearance on The Life You Want.

Tyler Perry chose a different way to parent from his own father. But he learned from him nonetheless.