Tyler Perry Recounts Moving Experience While Accepting Humanitarian Award At 2021 Oscars

Tyler Perry shared a moving story about a homeless woman she encountered almost two decades ago while accepting the Humanitarian Award at the 2021 Oscars.

Perry received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Oscars on Sunday night. Viola Davis presented the award to the celebrated media mogul and she highlighted his charitable efforts before he took over the stage and accepted the award.

"My great friend, filmmaker, and philanthropist, Tyler Perry, personifies empathy," the "How to Get Away with Murder" star was quoted by Entertainment Tonight as saying. "Tyler knows what it is to be hungry, to be without a home, to feel unsafe and uncertain. So when he buys groceries for 1,000 of his neighbors, supports a women's shelter, or quietly pays tuition for a hard-working student, Tyler is coming from a place of shared experience."

Davis' sweet introduction was accompanied by a short video featuring Perry and Whoopi Goldberg. In his acceptance speech, Perry recounted an incident when he met a homeless woman who asked him for a pair of shoes 17 years ago.

"When I set out to help someone, I'm not trying to do anything other than meet somebody at their humanity," Perry said. "It stopped me cold, because I remember being homeless, and I had one pair of shoes, they were bent over at the heels. So I was like, 'Yeah.'"

Perry took the woman into the studio and went to the production's wardrobe department to find her a pair of footwear. She was looking down the whole time and she had tears when she finally looked up to him.

"She said, 'Thank you, Jesus. My feet are off the ground,'" Perry continued. "In that moment, I just recall her saying to me, 'I thought you would hate me for asking.' I go, 'How can I hate you, when I used to be you? How can I hate you when I had a mother who grew up in the Jim Crow south, in Louisiana?'"

Perry recalled how difficult her mom's life was as she lived in frightening times. But she taught him "to refuse hate and blanket judgment." The "Madea" star has kept his mom's legacy and dedicated his award to "anyone who wants to meet me in the middle and refuse hate."

In September, Perry officially became a billionaire. When asked how he managed to work his way up as a self-made billionaire, he said he just listened to his gut.

"I mostly go on my gut and my instinct. I like to challenge the system and see what I can do differently," Perry said about his secret to achieving his wealth.