Wednesday, June 18, 2025 Drama is brewing in Atlanta as actor Derek Dixon, known for playing Dale on Tyler Perry’s BET series The Oval, has filed a lawsuit accusing the Hollywood mogul of sexual harassment and assault — and he’s asking for a whooping $260 million compensation
According to court documents obtained by TMZ, Derek claims
he met Tyler at an event in 2019 where the filmmaker allegedly approached him
and took his number. Not long after, Tyler reportedly gave him a small role
on Ruthless before inviting him to his home in Atlanta.
Derek says he drank too much during that visit and passed
out in a guest room. He alleges that Tyler entered the room while he was
asleep, got into bed with him, and touched his thighs. He says he rejected the
advance, but things didn’t end there.
Derek claims that after landing a bigger role in The
Oval, Tyler began sending sexually charged texts — one allegedly saying,
“No straight man would be going on walks with you or cooking dinner for you
unless they wanted to fk you. I would fk you.” He says his character on the
show, a gay and homeless store clerk, mirrored what Tyler allegedly described
he was looking for in real life: someone desperate and dependent.
In June 2021, Derek says things escalated when he was
staying at Tyler’s guest house. He claims Tyler came in to hug him goodnight,
pulled down his underwear, and groped him, allegedly saying, “Relax and just
let it happen.” Derek says he quickly changed the subject and avoided further
contact.
Fearing that rejecting Tyler would ruin his acting career,
Derek says he kept quiet for years until finally filing an EEOC complaint in
June 2024. He has since quit The Oval, saying he could no longer
work under the alleged conditions.
Tyler Perry’s lawyer, Matthew Boyd, has called the entire
suit a “scam,” saying, “Tyler will not be shaken down and we are confident
these fabricated claims of harassment will fail.”
For now, Tyler has yet to speak publicly, but all eyes are
on how this shocking story unfolds.
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