June 26th, 2012 | 5:15 pm by Sabrina Rojas Weiss (@shalapitcher)

Tyler Perry’s Going To Have A Hard Time Hiding Out In Witness Protection Once Alex Cross Comes Out

Writer/director/actor/producer Tyler Perry is uber-prolific and, yes, extremely successful in the risky biz of movie-making. We were surprised to hear that Madea’s Witness Protection is only his 14th movie. At its New York premiere, Perry attributed his fast pace to lack of traditional experience.

“I didn’t go into the business through the process that everyone else did; I don’t know how it’s done,” he told VH1 News. “The first time I was ever on [someone else's] set was on Alex Cross and Star Trek.”

After seeing Perry go up against a jacked-up Matthew Fox in the Alex Cross trailer that premiered last night, we can see how that set might seem a little bit different from his own dramedy fare. Stepping into Morgan Freeman’s shoes as the James Patterson character, Perry goes from quiet, whispered detective-talking to full-on gun-toting, criminal chasing and explosion-dodging. Consider us impressed.
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May 30th, 2012 | 9:53 am by Sabrina Rojas Weiss (@shalapitcher)

Bobbi Kristina Walks Off Set Of Tyler Perry’s For Better Or Worse: Report

Bobbi Kristina Brown has reportedly quit her role on Tyler Perry's sitcom For Better or Worse

Weeks after making a rare public appearance onstage at the Billboard Music Awards to accept an award on mother Whitney Houston’s behalf, Bobbi Kristina Brown is apparently not doing so hot. Radar reports that the 19-year-old walked off the set of Tyler Perry’s TBS sitcom For Better or Worse, on which she was making her acting debut in a recurring role, and broke down in tears. She’s taped a few episodes, a source said, but has decided not to do any more.

“Bobbi Kristina had a private breakdown and barely anyone saw it,” the source told Radar. “She was crying and said she needed a minute, she needed a break to get herself together. But then she decided she couldn’t handle doing the show right now. She’s still mourning her mom.”

We’ll wait and see if any of this story gets official confirmation from the show, which is scheduled to return for its second season in July. Perry and company will probably have to do some last-minute scrambling to rewrite the show — but maybe they should have had a plan B prepared, considering the state we’ve heard Bobbi Kristina’s been in since her mother’s death in February.

[Photo: Splash News Online]

April 30th, 2012 | 5:29 pm by Jordan Runtagh (@JordanRuntagh)

Kim Kardashian Wants Her Own Sitcom, We Pitch Her Some Remake Ideas

Kim Kardashian Sitcom Suggestions

Kim Kardashian’s reality show already seems scripted all to hell. In fact, her whole life seems like it’s completely plotted by evil mastermind Kris Jenner. So it’s probably  no surprise that Kim’s rarin’ to move on to the real thing; a sitcom! Sources close to the celebrity say that she’s in talks to develop her own half hour series. “Kim wants to move beyond reality TV and become a comedy actress,” a friend told Page Six. “She really wants to be the next Sofia Vergara.”

This comes on the heals of her recent guest spot on 30 Rock, as well as the scenes she shot for Tyler Perry’s upcoming movie, The Wedding Counselor. Now that she has a taste for comedy, it seems like Kim wants more! While the odd cameo is fine every now and again, does she have the comedy chops to head up a full original series? We’re not so sure. So to help her out, we’ve put together a list of remakes that Kim could star in, without straying too far from her own reality. Check ‘em out in the gallery below!

[Photo: Paramount Pictures]

 

March 30th, 2012 | 12:41 pm by Jordan Runtagh (@JordanRuntagh)

Bobbi Kristina Brown Reportedly Cast In Tyler Perry Sitcom

 

After surviving some of the toughest weeks of her life, we’re happy to finally report some good news for Bobbi Kristina Brown. The 19-year-old has reportedly been cast to appear in the new season of Tyler Perry’s sitcom, For Better Or For Worse. The show is based on Perry’s blockbuster Why Did I Get Married franchise, and Bobbi is rumored to make her acting debut as the daughter of one of the stylists. Brown has apparently been getting closer to Perry since he spoke at her mother Whitney Houston’s funeral last month.

The role will likely come as a welcomed distraction to all of the turmoil in the young woman’s life lately. Her family has said that Bobbi has been feeling “lost” in the wake of her mother’s death. “Everyone is worried about Bobbi,” an insider confided to Us Weekly. “Bobbi just doesn’t want anyone’s help. She’s lost.” Bobbi was hospitalized for anxiety, and now also has to contend with her father Bobby Brown’s DUI, and media scrutiny of her relationship with “adopted brother” Nick Gordon. Hopefully she’ll find some peace in getting her acting career off the ground.

[Photo: Getty Images]

January 30th, 2012 | 1:07 pm by Jordan Runtagh (@JordanRuntagh)

Is Rudy Huxtable Joining The Real Housewives Of Atlanta?

We’ll level with you: we haven’t totally accepted the fact that Keisha Knight Pulliam, better known to the world as Rudy Huxtable from The Cosby Show, didn’t just remain an adorable 7 year-old forever. We don’t care how many episodes of Tyler Perry’s House of Payne she appears on! But if these new rumors are true, it looks like we might have to wake up and face the facts that Rudy is all grown up. Reports are circulating that the former child-star has been tapped to join the cast of Real Housewives of Atlanta! According reports on MediaTakeOut.Com, Keisha will be filling the spot left by Kandi Burruss, who bounced from the series to take on her own spin-off show, The Kandi Factory. Although there has been no official press release as of yet, a “high ranking Bravo producer”confirmed the story. One snag, though: her never-married status doesn’t exactly qualify her as a “real housewife.” But hey, she does live in the Atlanta area, so you never know… Stay tuned!

[Photo: Bravo]

November 17th, 2011 | 2:50 pm by Halle Kiefer (@hallekiefer)

Olivia Wilde, Tyler Perry Have Got Kim Kardashian’s Back

Kim Kardashian haters, stand down! The backlash to the backlash has begun, and it’s nice to see some other celebs rush to Kim’s defense. Well, maybe not rush; she did announce her divorce over two weeks ago. Olivia Wilde, herself newly divorced, repped Kim super-hard to the New York Post this week, explaining, “People judge you because divorce is seen as failure. [Kim] took a risk. No one should be attacking her. Our attention should be focused on things that are truly scandalous.” See, in Hollywood, Kim Kardashian’s 72 day marriage isn’t scandalous at all. Olivia is just trying to show us what Kim looks like…through famous eyes!

Meanwhile Tyler Perry responded to a proposes boycott of his upcoming film The Marriage Counselor over Kim’s minor role. “She literally has millions of young people following her. I thought and still do think, that it would be very responsible of her to be a part of this film. To have the young people that look up to her, see her in a film that is about, what happens in life when you make the wrong choices,” the director wrote in a statement. Is anyone else now picturing Kim, Olivia and Tyler breaking into some kind of fabulous First Wives Club musical number? If so, why not? Discuss your reasons below.

[Photo: /Getty Images]

April 20th, 2011 | 11:30 am by Anthony Miccio

Tyler Perry Tells Spike Lee To “Go Straight To Hell”

While Spike Lee spent Tuesday sniping with Celtic fans at the TD Garden (and on Twitter), fellow writer/actor/director Tyler Perry gave Spike a piece of his mind at a press conference. “I’m so sick of hearing about damn Spike Lee,” said Perry, ostensibly promoting Madea’s Big Family. “Spike can go straight to hell! You can print that. I am sick of him talking about me, I am sick of him saying, ‘this is a coon, this is a buffoon.’ I am sick of him talking about black people going to see movies. This is what he said: ‘you vote by what you see,’ as if black people don’t know what they want to see.” Lee had suggested that Perry’s sitcoms Meet The Browns and House Of Payne were “coonery and buffoonery” in 2009, cracking “We got a black president, and we going back to Mantan Moreland and Sleep ‘n’ Eat?”

While Perry is an easy target (none of the films he’s directed have scored higher than 55/100 on Metacritic), the infamously argumentative Lee has also gotten into verbal scuffles with more critically acclaimed directors like Clint Eastwood (who told Lee to “shut his face” after Lee complained about whitewashing in Clint’s Iwo Jima films). Steven Spielberg mediated the beef between Eastwood and Lee—is anyone going to step forward to get a truce between these two, or should we expect Spike to tweet off once he gets over last night’s Knicks loss (“The Sun rises in a Orange and Blue Sky in AM”)?

[Photos: Getty Images]

August 31st, 2010 | 2:07 pm by Lauren Olson (Deiman)

FABLife’s DVD Picks Of The Week

Why Did I Get Married Too

After last week’s slim pickings–in which a crippled dog stole The Back-Up Plan from Jennifer Lopez–there’s some promising releases on the way. Writer/director/star Tyler Perry is on good melodramatic form with Why Did I Get Married Too, where four couples work out their differences on the Bahamas. Janet Jackson is the shrink who swaps her copy of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus for a golf club. Should Perry’s Southern-fried combo of couple’s retreat pray love get to be too much, audiences can divert themselves by contemplating extended views of Michael Jai White‘s six pack.

Check out our exclusive behind-the-scenes bonus clip!

Harry Brown

Harry Brown stars Michael Caine, who younger readers will recognize as the professor from Induction. The 77-year-old screen legend plays a retiree who cleans out a London housing estate after drug dealers kill his best friend. Reviews have indicated that Brown is closer to the gritty, violent Death Wish than Clint Eastwood‘s more somber Gran Torino. If vigilantes slurping stewed prunes is your bag, it should be worth a punt.

Check out our exclusive DVD bonus clip, “Chess.”

- By C. Bottomley

March 23rd, 2010 | 10:45 am by Anthony Miccio

Janet Jackson Makes The Married Too Premiere

Janet Jackson

Janet Jackson hasn’t had the easiest time since that infamous “wardrobe malfunction” in 2004. In the five years since, she’s lost her brother, broken up with long-time boyfriend Jermaine Dupri (though not before he vomited on her in public), suffered vertigo on stage and left her last record label after only one (flop) album. With all the great music she’s given us, we’re glad to see her smiling away at the special screening for Why Did I Get Married Too? in NYC last night, joined by everyone from Jill Scott and the Rev. Al Sharpton to Ice-T and CoCo (yes, star/writer/producer/director Tyler Perry was there too). While the film is unlikely to top the box office when it’s released in April (a little flick called Clash Of The Titans comes out the same day), Perry’s track record suggests Jackson should have another hit on her hands. She’s earned it!

[Photo: Getty Images]

October 6th, 2009 | 11:33 am by Kate Spencer (@katespencer)

Tyler Perry Reveals Past Childhood Abuse, Molestation

Tyler-Perry

In an email to fans, writer/actor/producer Tyler Perry has revealed that he is the survivor of childhood abuse and molestation. The Madea star says he was inspired to pen his note after viewing the film Precious for the first time, a movie he then went on to co-produce with pal (and fellow abuse survivor) Oprah Winfrey, and which tells the story of  one teenager’s struggle with sexual and physical violence. “It gave me so much hope after watching it,” writes Perry. “For everyone who has been a Precious, male or female, this movie will make you so glad you made it through.”

He goes on to discuss physical violence at the hands of his alcoholic father and sexual abuse by a female neighbor at the age of ten (she locked him in her house, put the door key inside her vagina and told him to “come get it”), and references a male member of his church who molested him. As if that wasn’t horrific enough, his grandmother once bathed him in ammonia to “cure” him of his allergies. How did he get through these years of terror? “GOD,” writes Tyler, “only GOD.”

Read Tyler’s letter in its entirety here. [Photo: GettyImages]