Meet The Only Billionaire Actor In The World

Sam Parr

**Tyler Perry**... I don't know a lot about him, but I know that he's a baller. Yeah, I mean, he's incredibly talented.

Steph Smith

So, what's cool about Tyler Perry is, like, one, he's a billionaire. I mean, not a ton of people are billionaires, but he is. I think he's an unexpected billionaire in the sense that some people haven't even heard his name, right? There's a lot more people who you would think are more well-known, who at least at first glance have done more things. But he's done a ton of things. Just to compare, you're like, "Okay, $1,000,000,000." He works in the movie, TV, and play industry, so that doesn't sound so crazy. But, like, Taylor Swift—guess what her net worth was? I pulled this earlier this year, so it's probably way higher now.

Sam Parr

maybe what 50

Steph Smith

so 365,000,000

Sam Parr

oh my god

Steph Smith

leo dicaprio how much do you think his net worth is

Sam Parr

a 100

Steph Smith

260 serena williams

Sam Parr

is serena the oldest or the youngest

Steph Smith

She's the younger one. Venus is the older one. 200... yeah, so 225. Anyway, I shared those.

Sam Parr

with you guys what are those what's that source

Steph Smith

I don't know I mean some some site on Google so yeah take it with a grain of salt

Sam Parr

Dude, those sites are bullshit. If you Google a couple of people's net worth, some of my personal websites come up number one. I just made this stuff up, and I've seen people cite it.

Steph Smith

Well, I... yeah, I mean definitely take it with a grain of salt. Because I've definitely Googled some of this stuff before, and you'll see someone, and one site will be like their net worth is $50,000, while another site will say their net worth is $50,000,000. So it definitely, you know, can vary. But the... is...

Sam Parr

I've met one or two celebrities through the podcast who, if you Google them, they'll be listed as being worth $10 or $15 million. I've talked to them, and they're like, "I wish! I make like $100,000 a year."

Steph Smith

Yeah, okay. So, Tyler Perry is, at least I think, he was written about by several different publications. I think they verified he's a billionaire.

Sam Parr

I believe with him with him I believe it because he's on the forbes list

Steph Smith

yes exactly so and

Sam Parr

forbes is very reputable for that for that reason

Steph Smith

His story is awesome because he basically... I mean, he didn't start out with much. When he was younger, he used to watch his dad subcontract. His dad would make $800, while the person he was contracting for would net $80,000. He remembers thinking at the time, "I always knew there was more power in the man that owned the house rather than the man working on building it." So, he wanted to be the guy who owned the house. He very early on understood the principle and the importance of ownership.

Sam Parr

and he had

Steph Smith

a and

Sam Parr

He had a messed up childhood. I think he was molested a little bit, and I think his dad was abusive. This guy went through a lot.

Steph Smith

Yeah, and he was also a high school dropout. When he dropped out of high school, he was doing a bunch of different odd jobs. He struggled to pay rent; he was a bill collector, he sold cars, and he did all types of stuff. Eventually, he saved up enough, which was $12,000, to rent an Atlanta community theater. This was his first bet. He basically wrote this play himself; it was called "I Know I've Been Changed." He started running this play, and you're probably thinking, "Oh, okay, overnight success." No, it was really bad at first, and he struggled to pay rent. He actually worked on this play for over a decade. He produced the play, sold the tickets, designed the set, and sold the snacks. He was doing the whole thing because no one else would invest in him at the time. But over that decade, I think the play got better. He honed his chops, and basically throughout that decade, he sold over $100 million in theater tickets, $20 million in merchandise, and $30 million in just the videos of the plays. Because again, he owned the IP, so he could actually make money.

Sam Parr

He was just making plays... like, yes, interesting plays. Which sounds simple, but that's hard in itself. So he made these wonderful plays. Was it like he made a bunch and then they went to different places? Did he literally tour and just make like $50 a night through hosting it in Atlanta, then Nashville, and then Chicago or wherever?

Steph Smith

I think that it was just this one play. I know I've been changed, but I do think that they did several tours. Actually, one of the different theaters he eventually ended up at was the acclaimed Fox Theater. Remember, he started at this Atlanta community theater and then moved his way up. I think this one play, "I Know I've Been Changed," kind of helped unlock some things for him. So that was his start; he began with plays. But even then, you know, that $100,000 a lot of that was in theater tickets. I don't know how much profit he made from that. So the next thing is, he basically said, "Okay, I want to..."

Sam Parr

and that and that was a 100,000,000 in over 10 years

Steph Smith

yes exactly so it's over like a long. Of time

Sam Parr

that's amazing though

Steph Smith

And so, basically, he wanted to create, I think, a movie next. It was called "The Diary of a Mad Black Woman," which is pretty funny. He definitely knows his audience, right? He has tailored his career towards an audience that he understands really well. But when he wanted to create this, basically, no one would take him up on it. He was looking for a distributor, and the only people that would take him up on it and act as his distributor were Lionsgate. Even then, Lionsgate was like, "We're not so sure." So, basically, Tyler had to put up half the money. He said, "Look, if this is what it takes, I'll put up half the money."

Sam Parr

how much was it

Steph Smith

The nice thing about that... I'm not sure how much it was actually, but the great thing about that deal, which you'll see throughout every deal he does.

Sam Parr

So, the budget he owns, by the way, was $5.5 million. He put up $2 million. What's that, $3 million?

Steph Smith

Nice. So with that deal, he owned and controlled the content. Basically, every deal he's done, he's owning that IP. The Lionsgate CEO basically said, like, before it was released, "If this makes $20,000,000 total..." because, yeah, the budget was like $5 million, he's like, "We'll be really stoked." And it did over $20,000,000 in weekend one, and since then, it's made over $150,000,000 in licensing alone.

Sam Parr

That's crazy! So, first of all, I understand that he launched this stuff in the nineties or the early 2000s. Basically, the Black population is, I don't know, about 12% of America. So you think, "You're going to do a thing dedicated to only 12% of one group? There's no way that can be big." He totally proved that wrong. It's kind of like, is it Iceland? Where's Björk from? I think it's Iceland, and Iceland doesn't have a lot of people, but Björk is incredibly famous. I think the reason is that Iceland has so much pride. A huge chunk of the Icelandic population was like, "Oh, we love Björk!" Therefore, once they started seeing her succeed, they got behind her and said, "Björk is awesome!" That's almost what happens here a little bit. That's kind of why sometimes it's cool to appeal to a smaller but more passionate base than it is to appeal to the larger percentage.

Steph Smith

yeah and by the way iceland has a population of 366,000 people

Sam Parr

so is it that small

Sam Parr

very small I remember I had

Steph Smith

A friend on exchange from Iceland told me, not jokingly, that they have a dating app that ensures you are not related to someone you are dating because it is such a small population.

Sam Parr

and hey they made and bjork sucks sorry if you're a bjork fan

Sam Parr

But objectively, she... she sucks. It is not good music. So, like, it was definitely, you know, they say it's like, was the product good or was the marketing good? The Icelandic marketing or wherever she's from.

Sam Parr

it was wonderful because they made her famous

Steph Smith

that's so funny anyway so that was his first foray into movies but then he kept going k so he's done play then he's done a movie and now he wants to do tv k so he goes and basically he goes and creates 10 episodes first himself because again he's like I can do this like I produced a play for 10 years I don't need like to hire a bunch of people I can do this myself so he creates 10 episodes first he sells it to one network called cw and they air it and the ratings are through the roof people absolutely love it and because of that it caught the attention of another network which basically was like hey can we steal this and they did and they struck a deal for $200,000,000 for him to leave this other network and he would produce 90 more episodes and again he owned the episodes which is kinda crazy he owned the ip of those episodes even after that $200,000,000 deal this deal alone is expected to have made him $138,000,000 so his show his earnings then you know people still aren't really paying attention to tyler for some reason he continues to make remember that lionsgate deal that he did he continues to make movies with them and over time he makes an 11 film franchise that's done over a 1,000,000,000 in sales and netted him specifically him individually over $290,000,000 because again he always owned the copyright and then tyler made one I mean I'm sure he's made other bets but one really big bet in 2015 which basically this whole time he's like an atlanta native right and he he kind of saw the potential for the city and so he bought a plot of land worth $30,000 sorry $30,000,000 at the time it's 3 30 acres and about double the size of a warner bros warner bros lot and he turned it into this like production base where where different like media companies could go and film shows so since then I think like the walking dead has filmed there black panther and part of it is he actually like it wasn't just him betting on his city he saw that in 2008 georgia had changed the tax law so there were certain incentives for production companies so we saw these incentives and he said you know what I think people are different production companies

Sam Parr

and I bet maybe they they they could have created those incentives just for him

Steph Smith

Well, I mean, this happened... So the law happened in 2008, and he did this in 2015. We saw that this was changing. Basically, in 2007, before that law, $67,000,000 was spent in Georgia. Then, in 2018, it was $2,900,000,000, much thanks to Tyler and his investment there. Because of that, he has since signed a $150,000,000 deal with ViacomCBS to run another suite of episodes. He has just kept going, and at every juncture, he has made sure to own what he's producing. Now, listen to this: he has basically amassed 22 films, dozens of plays, and 1,200 TV episodes. That's like his life work so far, plus this production base. He owns much of his work. Even the latest $150,000,000 deal, I think he sold it for 5 years, but after those 5 years, the rights return to him.

Sam Parr

I love tyler perry is there a tyler perry biography out there I would read that in a heartbeat he

Steph Smith

I think there's a few

Sam Parr

go to Google tyler perry house he's got a this huge spread in outside of atlanta with a private jet runway a runway no one has that that is baller so I was doing this podcast earlier today with rob walling and I was talking about how hustle con because I've met all these like successful people in these billionaires and stuff like that that I I'm like I was like often I'll meet someone like for example like the founders of casper or something like that and I'll say to myself you know you're like maybe you're financially more successful than I am maybe and like your company is definitely bigger than my company but I don't think that you're necessarily like if I I don't think you're necessarily 20 times or 50 times more smart or smarter than I am or however much bigger I was like you know like we're in the same ballpark you might be a little bit or maybe even I might be a little bit smarter or even hardworking or something like that the difference is is that maybe you just kept at it or there's probably some luck involved or you you kind of like landed on the right idea like you're not like significantly better than me and therefore that's why I believe that most people can accomplish something interesting of course like it definitely takes luck and like all this crazy other stuff to become a billionaire but like we can all become pretty successful if we just kinda stick with it because the intelligence isn't that big of a factor in order to achieve some success however I see guys like tyler perry and I see the work that they like their output and their genius and I think well we're just not the same you're just better than me like you are so good at what you do like I went and just I I saw hamilton the other day and I was researching lin manuel and I was like oh you're just a freak like you like like I was watching it and I was like I don't even like musicals but the fact that someone was so brilliant that they came up with this and put this together that like I understand you should be a billionaire like you should have it all you should or like when I read harry potter I'm like how on earth does one person invent this in their brain you you're better than me you and I we are not the same you are just a different human being and you're more of an alien than you are a human being and that's how I feel about tyler perry that's how I feel about like lin manuel or what his name lin manuel and that's how I feel about like a jk rowling type so kudos to tyler perry he deserves it

Steph Smith

Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. He's done over 1,200 TV episodes. You have to be just so good at what you do to be able to do that. I think his first play came out in 1992, so he's been creating for 30 years straight. Some people are one-hit wonders, but this guy is not a one-hit wonder. He knows what he's doing; he's honed in on his craft. So, yeah, it's super cool. I remember I got a lot of flack for this, but I once tweeted something about Jeff Bezos. I think he had resigned, and I was like, "This guy's been working on this company for 27 years. How rare is it that someone works on anything for even 5 years straight?" These guys, like Tyler Perry as well, have just worked on their craft for decades. That's insane.

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's pretty cool. I think that, like we were talking about on this podcast, I was like, "You know, I think I could become a billionaire if I wanted to." I just... you have to be willing to dedicate like 30 years to it. I'm definitely smart enough, and I work pretty hard. I just don't know if I want to spend the time doing it. I think a lot of people who achieve greatness aren't much different, except there are people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. They just have more horsepower than I do; they're just different. I'm going to put Tyler Perry in that category too. We're just not the same, you know what I mean?

Steph Smith

yeah I know

Sam Parr

It's just like a race car versus, you know, not a race car. There's just no amount of modifications that can make my car as fast as that. Yeah, you have.

Steph Smith

To have so much horsepower to want to do this for so long, which is why you ask me all the time, "Do you want to be a billionaire?" And like every time you ask me, I'm less sure of the fact that I want to do it. Because I'm like, "Yeah, everyone wants to be a billionaire. Everyone wants to amass..." well, maybe not everyone, but a lot of people are like, "Yeah, I'd love to live a great life." But a lot of people don't want to put in that effort. Now I'm questioning, like, I think I'll actually be pretty happy with less than a billion dollars.

Sam Parr

Yes, I think you'll be... you definitely don't need that to be happy, that's for sure. About to see my first million. Got to the safe, and it's spilling up. Got to the bank, it's not...