An actor and screenwriter has accused media mogul and famed Madea actor Tyler Perry of sexual harassment, claiming in a lawsuit that Perry made unwanted advances on several occasions while attempting to cover up an assault with an offer to develop a show.

According to the 46-page complaint filed at the Los Angeles Superior Court in California State, USA last week, which compares to similar lawsuits filed against well-known entertainment industry figures accused of sexual assault, the plaintiff, one Derek Dixon, is seeking punitive damages amounting to US$260 million stemming from what he alleges occurred in the actor's home in Georgia, Atlanta just a few months after their first meeting where Dixon, who worked at an event

Dixon played minor roles on one of the American mogul's shows, Ruthless, before moving on to 85 episodes of BET's The Oval.  

According to the lawsuit, after Dixon quit his job and joined Perry's show "The Oval," Perry would question his sexual preferences, go on sexually explicit rants, and call or text him almost every day, treating him as his on-call "pet."

Dixon was scheduled to debut his role on the show near the end, but was allegedly told his character might be kept on for future seasons if he did a "good job."

Tyler and Dixon's encounter is said to have taken a wild turn when Perry began discussing his sex life, becoming more aggressive when Dixon ignored him.

Perry's lawyers responded with a statement accusing Dixon of getting close to the mogul in an attempt to "set up a scam." They also expressed confidence that Perry will not be shaken, claiming that Dixon's claims of sexual harassment were fabricated and bound to fail.

The suit entails deeper details of the encounter, with the oldest one dating back to 2019 after Dixon was offered an acting role by Tyler. In the suit, Dixon stated that he was groped by Perry while he was in the mogul’s Georgia home, sleeping in the guest room, after having a few drinks with him. 

“Dixon kept informing Perry that he was not into sex in order to keep Perry at bay while at the same time not insulting the person who was dangling his career in front of him,” the suit says.

Furthermore, the lawsuit alleges that Dixon was groped by Perry twice, once at a cast party in the Bahamas in 2020 and again at Perry's house in 2021, with the second encounter being aggressive.

Following the alleged second assault, one of Perry’s lawyers was quoted saying “Christmas came early” in reference to Dixon’s performance in the political thriller “The Oval”, produced by Tyler Perry’s Studios.

Dixon is said to have been given a raise for the show’s following seasons and Perry wanted to buy the rights to shoot a pilot for a script Dixon had written, called “Losing It.”

Despite buying rights to the script and planning to shoot a pilot for it, the suit says that Perry had no intention of proceeding with the planned production and instead used it as a quid pro quo (favor granted in return for something) over Dixon’s head like “the sword of Damocles”

Since the show wasn’t developed, Perry offered Dixon the role of a writer in one of his shows, which he didn’t accept and instead filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, although the status of the complaint remains unclear