EXCLUSIVE: Tyler Perry shares the one thing that ensured he would be a good father

Tyler Perry “worried” he wasn’t going to be a good father after not having the best example himself.

The award-winning filmmaker is father to 9-year-old son Aman Tyler Perry, whom he shares with model and ex-girlfriend Gelila Bekele. In TODAY.com's exclusive clip from Perry's sit down for Oprah Daily’s “The Life You Want” Class, he shares the one thing he does to be a good father.

In the clip, Oprah Winfrey asks Perry how he knew that he would be a good father.

“I didn’t. I struggled with that and I worried because I didn’t have an example, because this man was just awful, right?” he says. “One day I was praying about it, looking in the mirror, and I’m like, ‘God, what do I do?’ And the answer came to me as clear as day: Do it in reverse.”

Perry says he decided to just “reverse the image. Do the opposite of what that man did to be “an incredible father.”

“And that’s what I tried to do. I show my son love and encouragement, and I stand with him when he’s wrong. I straighten him up,” he says. “I chastise him the right way so that he understands that the correction is done in love. Everything that man didn’t do.”

Perry goes into detail about his tumultuous relationship with his father, Emmitt Perry, in his documentary, “Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story,” which was released in 2023.

While they didn't have the best relationship, Perry does tell Winfrey that his dad was “a great provider.”

“(He) worked his ass off every day, sunup to sundown. Made sure that the money was coming into the house, made sure all the bills were paid, everything that my mother wanted him to do financially was there as best he could,” Perry told Winfrey, before saying that when it came to parenting, “I did the opposite.”

In the upcoming Oprah Daily’s “The Life You Want” Class, Perry and Winfrey also talk about their triumphs over childhood abuse, poverty, discrimination and finding the strength and vulnerability to be themselves.

Additionally, Perry also touches on paying homage to his late mother, Maxine Perry, who died in 2009, with the title of his documentary.

The producer shares a story about how he started to get famous and his mother was “so sick” of people calling her “Tyler Perry’s mother.”

“I almost was a bit offended by it, I was like, ‘Well, isn’t that a good thing?’” he recalls. “She went on, she said, ‘I have a name. My name is Maxine. That’s what I told them.’ So now people know her. They know her name and that will make her feel so great that people actually (know her name and) not just Tyler Perry’s mother.”

To watch Oprah's full conversation with Perry on Feb. 21 at 4 p.m. ET., sign up for Oprah Daily’s “The Life You Want” class.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com