Perry’s response harsh about Markle leaving the royal family

Tyler Perry had a cold response to a question about his friend Meghan Markle moving to California after she and Prince Harry stepped down from their senior roles in the British royal family. In an interview with the Sunday Times published on December 8, the 55-year-old comedian was asked how he helped the Duke and Duchess of Sussex relocate to the U.S. after they stepped down as senior working royals in 2020.

“I didn’t,” he simply responded. “Meghan is from California. She knows California well. So there was nothing to prepare them for.”

“But I will say this: what I learnt about mentioning them — because there’s this insatiable appetite to know all about them — is that any question that is asked becomes the headline of anything I say,” he continued. When asked why the public is so invested in stories about Meghan and Harry, Perry responded: “You’re from the UK, you tell me.”

The interviewer then pointed out there are also headlines about the duke and duchess in American media, to which Perry claimed he doesn’t notice it. “You think? Well, you would know better than I would because I’m not paying attention to that world,” the Madea’s Family Reunion star said.

Tyler Perry

Perry has previously opened up about helping Meghan and Harry after they left the UK in 2020. The duke and duchess lived in one of Perry’s homes in Southern California shortly after arriving in the US from Canada.

At the time, the filmmaker also provided the couple with security, a gesture Harry and Meghan shared their gratitude for during their tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021. The pair noted that Perry’s offer came shortly after they learned their own security was being removed amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

“While we were in Canada, in someone else’s house, I then got told, short notice, that security was going to be removed,” Harry recalled to Winfrey. “So suddenly it dawned on me: ‘Hang on, the borders could be closed, we’re going to have our security removed, who knows how long lockdown is going to be, the world knows where we are, it’s not safe, it’s not secure, we probably need to get out of here.” According to Meghan, Perry’s offer gave them the chance to figure out what their next move would be.

“We didn’t have a plan and we needed a house and he offered security as well so it gave us breathing room to try to figure out what we were going to do,” Meghan told Winfrey of the couple’s first months in California. The royal couple now reside in Montecito, California, with their two children: Archie, five, and Lilibet, three.

“It was a very difficult time for them, and what I know about the two of them that I wish the world knew is how much they love,” Perry said during a 2022 appearance on the Today show, when asked how he supported his friends after they moved.

“These two people love each other. They found each other. Out of all these odds against them finding each other, they found each other,” he added. “The love they have is really, really moving and I just wanted to do anything I could to support them.”

Tyler Perry is an American actor, filmmaker, and playwright. He is the creator and performer of Mabel “Madea” Simmons, a tough elderly woman, and also portrays her brother Joe Simmons and her nephew Brian Simmons. Perry’s films vary in style from orthodox filmmaking techniques to filmed productions of live stage plays, many of which have been subsequently adapted into feature films. Madea’s first appearance was in Perry’s play I Can Do Bad All by Myself (1999) staged in Chicago.