Tyler Perry weighed in on where his loyalties are in the 2024 presidential election on Monday evening.
“Let me tell you what’s important to me, and I want you to hear me clearly when I say this,” Perry told The Hollywood Reporter, when asked whether he was supporting Biden’s re-election bid, at the New York premiere of Divorce in the Black on Monday evening. “What is important to me is that America remains a democracy that is free from anyone that is trying to change that or is trying to have the power of a dictator or a king. So I’m supporting anyone who stands against that.”
Perry supported Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris in the 2020 election. Now, his less specific comments come as some in Hollywood have pushed back against the president’s bid for a second term. Influential entertainment industry figures such as Reed Hastings, Abigail Disney, Rob Reiner and more have called on Biden to drop out of the race (though Reiner seemed to walk back those comments in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) on Monday). Many of those calling for Biden to drop out have cited the president’s shaky performance at last month’s debate as cause for concern, arguing Biden is too old to seek re-election.
Nevertheless, Perry’s remarks echo the Democratic talking points that Trump said he’d be a dictator on day one and that democracy is at stake in this election. His remarks also come after last week’s Supreme Court opinion that gave former presidents immunity from prosecution for official acts, a decision that Biden and other Democrats have blasted as empowering the commander-in-chief to break the law.
Also at the premiere, held at the Regal Times Square movie theater, Perry spoke about his takeaways from making a film that goes behind the statistics about divorce.
“I don’t know if I learned as much as I wanted to teach,” the writer-director-producer said. “Letting things go and not trying to hold onto … loving someone into a place that they are not able to go to is so important.”
Divorce in the Black, starring Meagan Good and Cory Hardrict, follows Good’s Ava, a young bank professional whose husband (Hardrict) abandons a marriage she is determined to fight for, revealing his bad behavior that destroyed their relationship and her ability to love. It starts streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video on Thursday.
Good, accompanied by boyfriend Jonathan Majors, and Hardrict were also in attendance at the premiere along with co-stars Taylor Polidore, Richard Lawson, Debbi Morgan, Shannon Wallace and Joseph Lee Anderson.