Tyler Perry's Historic Compound to House Homeless LGBTQ+ Youth
Tyler Perry is planning to do far more with his new, historic Atlanta studio than just shoot films. During an interview with CBS This Morning, Perry told Gayle King that the 330 acre complex — which houses a dozen of sound stages, all named for black Hollywood legends (Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Sydney Poitier, Whoopi Goldberg, and Spike Lee are all honored) — will also house a shelter and community center for women and queer youth
"I tell you what I’m most excited about next is that pulling this next phase off is building a compound for trafficked women, girls, homeless women, LGBTQ youth who are put out and displaced," said Perry. "And having a compound that is a beautiful place...where they’re trained in the business and they become self-sufficient, they live in nice apartments, there’s daycare, there’s all these wonderful things that allows them to re-enter society and then pay it forward again. So, that's what I hope to do soon.”
Perry also acknowledged the “poetic justice” of building the studio complex on a former Confederate Army base. “The Confederate Army is fighting to keep Negroes enslaved in America, fighting, strategy, planning on this very ground,” he explained. “And now this very ground is owned by me.”
Perry hopes that the studio, more than his individual films, is what he’ll be remembered for. "You know, the studio's gonna be what [my legacy] is,” he said. The space is the first fully Black-owned movie studio, and is drastically larger than the studios of Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Fox Studios, and Walt Disney Studios. Perry’s lot could house all four of those studios and still have over 40 acres to spare.
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