Tyler Perry Opens First Fully Black-Owned Film Studio

Oprah, Beyoncé, Will Smith, and dozens of other Hollywood royalty helped Tyler Perry celebrate the opening of the first Black-owned film studio.

Tyler Perry opened the first fully Black-owned film studio and plenty of A-listers joined him to celebrate the historic moment.

Perry held a grand opening for Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, GA as the first Black actor and producer to own a studio outright. More than 800 people attended, including Hollywood and music legends like Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, Will Smith, Beyoncé, Usher, Jay-Z, and Oprah Winfrey.

“We didn’t wait for Hollywood. He didn’t wait for anybody to tell him to do it,” Winfrey stated at the opening. “He did it his way.”

Perry, whose acting, producing, and writing credits span over two decades, purchased the 330-acre studio lot in 2015. The complex previously served as an active military base from 1885 to 2011.

“Every time that I came in to work here at Tyler Perry Studios, it was the biggest smile on my face ‘cause I know the history of this place,” Tiffany Haddish stated. “It was a Confederate union military base, ok—trying to keep us enslaved, now it’s owned by a Black man.”

Other guests included Bill and Hillary Clinton, former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, and free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

“For people to drop what they’re doing in their very busy schedules to come and join me in this moment is beyond anything I could’ve imagined,” Perry stated. “It makes me happy. It makes me want to cry. It makes me grateful. It’s just—I’m beyond, I’m over the moon right now.”

Pretty has since used the lot to accommodate film and television projects like “The Walking Dead” and “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.”