Tyler Perry has responded to the sexual assault claims levied against him by Derek Dixon and is claiming that the actor “needs help.”
Following Dixon’s first televised interview about the allegations, Perry’s legal team has fired back with claims of extortion, falsified allegations and a failed TV pilot. The 56-year-old film and TV titan says that Dixon relied “on Hollywood stereotypes and the bad acts of others,” and tried to “turn sinister Mr. Perry’s acts of platonic friendship and professional mentorship,” according to PEOPLE.
Perry’s legal teamed filed documents on Oct.1 and is planning to take the matter to court instead of bending to Dixon’s $260 million request.
“Dixon invents alleged assaults and encounters that never happened,” the filing states, as reported by PEOPLE. “Mr. Perry never assaulted Dixon or committed any sexual battery. He did not offer Dixon pay raises and shoot Dixon’s television pilot script to threaten, coerce, or control Dixon. And it is notable that in his effort to exploit his friendship and professional relationship with Mr. Perry to obtain a $260 million payday, Dixon was forced to lie not only about Mr. Perry, but himself too.”
It continues,
“By his actions and false accusations, it is clear that Dixon needs help. But he cannot find it in this Court. Although Dixon alleges that he was the victim of escalating sexual misconduct, he had no problem taking a role on Season 2 of Mr. Perry’s television series The Oval.”
BOSSIP previously reported that Dixon is claiming he was assaulted on multiple occasions by Perry at his Atlanta home and coerced into allowing it in order to keep his job.
“We were both walking back to the guest area, where I’d stayed before, and there’s this health monitor scale on the way. I was like, ‘What is that?’ And he said, ‘Well you have to be in your underwear to measure,” Dixon recalled. “He reached down and pulled my underwear down and grabbed my ass and I tried to stop him and pull back my underwear up. He kind of grabbed my arms and said, ‘No no no, it’s okay. Just go with it.’ And I said, ‘Stop, I don’t want to be naked. I don’t want this.’ And he said, ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’”
Dixon continued,
“Unless someone’s been through something where they have their control over their body taken away, you don’t really understand the kind of feelings that you get in that moment. Every thought came into my head: to run, to fight, to freeze. I didn’t know what to do.”
In a special interview with ABC, Dixon claimed that the incident followed another in which Perry climbed into the bed at the guest house that the actor was sleeping in and attempted to make a move on him.
“I jumped up out of bed. He said, ‘Turn around so I can look at you,’ and just commented on how I looked. And he got up and left,” Dixon said. “I thought after that instance, it was pretty clear that I was not interested in that type of a relationship…It’s okay that people try to make a move or shoot their shot, but if they get rejected I think that they should stop. I thought it would stop after that and it didn’t.”
He claims his $260 million asking price is the least he’s owed for being subjected to the harassment. Unless Dixon drops his lawsuit, he and Perry will have their day in court.
