Tyler Perry has a close relationship with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle — but he didn’t need to be too hands on when they made their move to the states.
“Meghan is from California. She knows California well. So there was nothing to prepare them for,” Perry, 55, shared in an interview with The Sunday Times published on Sunday, December 8. “But I will say this: what I learnt about mentioning them — because there’s this insatiable appetite to know all about them — is that any question that is asked becomes the headline of anything I say.”
The TV mogul is famously close with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, opening up his Los Angeles home to them in 2020. In the 2022 Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, Markle described her introduction to Perry.
“I’d never met him before,” she said. “I was a wreck. I was just crying and crying. Sometimes it’s easier to open up to someone who knows nothing at all, and that was that moment with me and Tyler.”
Now, Perry is the Godfather to the couple’s 3-year-old daughter, Lillibet. (Harry and Meghan also share 5-year-old son Archie.)
Meghan most recently supported Perry at an event in Los Angeles when she attended the Paley Center for Media’s Paley Honors fall gala on Wednesday, December 5. Perry was being honored for his work in film at the event, and the two longtime friends posed for photos together on the red carpet.
Perry, for his part, got candid about his relationship with both Meghan and Harry in an interview with E! News.
“It’s a real, pure and beautiful friendship. I love them,” he gushed on Wednesday.
He also addressed recent speculation of problems in the pair’s marriage, that sparked when they began appearing at events solo.
“They love each other,” Perry told E!. “They have a beautiful family and I just want the best for them.”
That same day, Prince Harry also recently addressed the rumors during a conversation at the New York Times DealBook Summit.
“Apparently we’ve bought or moved houses 10, 12 times. We’ve apparently divorced maybe 10, 12 times as well. So it’s just like, what?’” he said. “It’s hard to keep up with, but that’s why you just sort of ignore it. The people I feel most sorry about are the trolls. Their hopes are just built and built, and it’s like, ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,’ and then it doesn’t happen.”
