Actor Derek Dixon has spoken out about the $260 million lawsuit he filed in June against multihyphenate creator Tyler Perry, alleging he faced sexual harassment and assault before and during his time on two of Perry’s TV shows.
Dixon sat down with Lindsey Davis in his first television interview since filing legal action against Perry, explaining the reasons behind the lawsuit and how his life has changed since taking that step.
“It’s been hard. It’s a vulnerable thing to talk about, I think, for anybody. There’s a lot of shame, I think, around it,” Dixon said in the ABC News interview that aired on Tuesday. “Just trying to think what you could have done better and having to deal with the judgment of how you could’ve ended it better without being in that situation.”
Dixon is best known for his character as Dale on BET’s Tyler Perry’s The Oval and Tyler Perry’s Ruthless between 2021 and 2024. As Blavity reported, the actor stated that he met Perry in 2019 at an event hosted by the company where he worked at the time. After their meeting, Perry, 55, cast Dixon in two episodes of Ruthless. From there, he alleges the Madea creator also began sending messages about wanting to help Dixon and change his life.
Dixon alleges the sexual advances started between 2020 and 2021
In January 2020, Dixon alleges Perry made sexual advances toward him after having too many drinks during a visit to the filmmaker’s home. After attempting to sleep it off in one of the guest rooms, Dixon alleged Perry climbed into bed with him and began touching him.
He alleges that although he turned down Perry’s advances, losing his job was still a concern for him. He alleges that Perry continued to make advances toward Dixon during various visits between 2020 and 2021. Dixon later resigned from Tyler Perry’s The Oval in 2024, and several months later, he filed the $260 million lawsuit against Perry, citing quid pro quo and workplace sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual battery and more.
During the ABC News interview, Dixon explained two reasons why he came up with the lawsuit figure: “Part of that number is my lost job, my lost income, the loss of a show. The other part of that is a deterrent for how do you stop a billionaire who won’t stop themselves from doing this.”
Perry’s attorney speaks out amid allegations and the lawsuit
Dixon also stated that he hopes Perry takes “accountability for what happened” and that the lawsuit taught him to “not treat your employees this way and to never use someone’s dream to coerce them into a relationship that’s not professional,” according to Good Morning America.
Meanwhile, Matthew Boyd, Perry’s attorney, called out Dixon for filing the suit, claiming that he only wants money from the media mogul.
“This is an individual who got close to Tyler Perry for what now appears to be nothing more than setting up a scam,” Boyd told People magazine. “But Tyler will not be shaken down and we are confident these fabricated claims of harassment will fail.”
