Tyler Perry didn't take offence to negative reference in A Strange Loop musical

Tyler Perry chose not to take offence to a negative reference in the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical A Strange Loop following an intervention by Whoopi Goldberg.

In Michael R. Jackson's hit Broadway show, the lead character Usher pens a musical and becomes annoyed that his parents want him to write a gospel play in the style of Perry.

Although the media mogul has not seen the musical, he had been told that it criticised him - but Goldberg interceded to persuade him the reference wasn't meant to offend.

"I have not seen it and I don't plan to see it," he told WSJ. Magazine. "But I have spoken to Michael. I'd heard all these things about it, and Whoopi had a different take on it. She said, 'Tyler, I know that people are saying it's offensive, but what I took away from it was it was this young man realising he could never be you, so he had to be himself.'"

Jackson was previously on Slate's Working podcast back in 2020 and talked about getting a phone call from Perry after winning the Pulitzer.

"A day or two after I won the Pulitzer, I was on the phone with my mother when I receive a text from Tyler. I ignore it, because I'm on the phone with my mother. And then I get a phone call, and I see that it's an Atlanta area code, and I know that it's him. So I'm like, 'Hey mom, let me call you back,'" he recalled.

Revealing that Perry then admitted his scene had some truth to it, Jackson added: "Then he mentioned that he knows from talking to Lee Daniels that a lot of young Black writers complain that their family members often say they should write more like him, and that he feels like everybody should be able to write whatever they want."