Tyler Perry stepped in when the former royal couple had found itself in a foreign country with few options. Photos: AP, AFP
Three years ago, in early May, the former royal couple of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle reportedly stayed at Tyler Perry’s Los Angeles mansion for some time.
The couple’s stay at Perry’s “super exclusive gated community,” as TMZ called it, has since caught the attention of reporters and readers alike.
Now Prince Harry has offered new insight into how Atlanta’s media mogul Tyler Perry saved the day during a time when the former royal couple needed it most.
In January 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle moved to Canada’s Vancouver Island after announcing their decision to step down from their royal duties.
By March, the pandemic had taken its hold and the former royal couple moved to Los Angeles, where Tyler Perry’s custom built 24,000 square foot compound was ready to receive them.
In his memoir Spare, released earlier this year, Prince Harry revealed that the former royal couple’s friendship with the Atlanta-based movie mogul began a few years earlier.
“He’d sent a note to Meg before the wedding, out of the blue, telling her that she wasn’t alone, that he saw what was happening,” Prince Harry said in his memoir, as reported by Bustle. Moving forward to 2020, Prince Harry found himself video-calling with Markle and Perry to discuss their situation.
Prince Harry explained to Perry that they were losing their security and the Canada-US border was quickly closing due to the pandemic lockdown. The former royal couple had found itself in a foreign country with few options.
“It’s gated, it’s secure – you’ll be safe there. I’ll keep you safe,” Prince Harry recalled Tyler Perry saying. Atlanta’s media mogul had proposed that the former royal couple stay at his compound, where Perry would pay for security to watch over them.
Prince Harry “eagerly” accepted the offer, but not before asking Perry why he was offering him and Markle so much aid.
“My mother loved your mother (the late Princess Diana),” Prince Harry remembered Perry saying.
“I was caught completely by surprise,” Harry wrote. “(Perry) said: After your mother visited Harlem, that was it. She could do no wrong in Maxine’s Perry book.”
The experience at Tyler Perry’s home was not without its challenges. The former royal family was found out.
“The press somehow learned we were at Tyler’s,” Prince Harry wrote, as reported by thenews.com. “It had taken six weeks exactly, same as Canada. Suddenly there were drones overhead, paps across the street. Paps across the valley. They cut the fence. We patched the fence. We stopped venturing outside.
“The garden was in full view of the paps. Next came the helicopters. Sadly, we were going to have to flee. We’d need to find somewhere new, and soon, and that would mean paying for our own security.”
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle ultimately spent three months at Tyler Perry’s L.A. mansion.
In 2021, as revealed in the Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle named Tyler Perry the godfather of their second child, Lilibet. – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
