For Tyler Perry, hindsight is 20/20.
The actor and filmmaker recently recounted an experience from his youth in a touching Instagram post, revealing that ten years ago he was visiting his “first apartment after being homeless” when he heard the building was going to be demolished (even though it still is).
Sharing photos from his visit and the apartment itself interspersed with slides of text, Perry, 54, recalled how he was “so happy to have” the apartment but also felt “anxious and scared that I wouldn’t be able to pay the $425 rent every month.”
When the landlord knocked on his door to collect the rent, “I would just freeze and beg him to leave,” Madea the star wrote. “I’ve been behind on my rent every month. Man, this is driving me to tears.”
Perry said he “had a job in UPS collections and was so depressed,” because “nothing was working” in terms of “trying to get my games up and running from a dead stop.” And when he finally got enough money from playing the show, “he was so happy” that he could pay his rent, which he did immediately.
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Tyler Perry’s Instagram post about his old apartment.
Tyler Perry/Instagram
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But after returning from a show one weekend, “the landlord kicked the house out on my doorstep,” Perry wrote. “This is after I paid him. I was so angry. He said I was late too many times and I was there too long and it was time to go.”
Despite being “angry” at the time about being “forced to leave” the only space “I found comfort in,” Perry said he eventually saw a parallel between his unit number and the beginning of something new in his life .
“8 in the biblical sense means a new beginning,” he wrote above a photo of him standing outside the door of his old apartment. “Now I know I was at a new beginning. Now I know if he had let me stay there, I would never have left, because I got comfortable.”
Perry explained that he now realizes “just like stagnant water, stagnation can kill your dreams,” adding, “Now I know you can’t get to the other side if you get comfortable.”
“Now I know and I thank God that that man threw me out of that place,” he continued. “I hear his voice: ‘You have to go, you’ve been here too long’. ”
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Tyler Perry’s Instagram post about his old apartment.
Tyler Perry/Instagram
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Perry said that “looking back it’s easy to see the blessing” in his experience, although “going through it feels like you’re at the end” at this point.
“But I choose to believe that you are at a new beginning. Do not be afraid!” he concluded.
Celebrities took to the comments to share their gratitude for Perry’s words, such as Tina Knowles, who wrote: “God has been preparing you ❤️how can you be so compassionate to others❤️God bless [sic] your.”
Musician and business owner Chris “Classic” Davis thanked Perry for sharing his story and took it a step further, suggesting it be shared with a wider audience.
“Apt 8 is the best series I haven’t seen yet, where the landlord is ‘God’ who helps people who need a place, but kicks them out when they have the option to move on,” he wrote. “They all go on to do great things and they all go back to visit apartment 8 when they hear it’s being demolished… and when they all meet up, they find out he’s the landlord — no one outside of those apartments can confirm his existence 🙏🏽.”
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Source: HIS Education