Tyler Perry
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50 free Tyler Perry trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Tyler Perry turned a self-financed stage musical that flopped into an entertainment empire. He writes, directs, produces and stars in his own films and sitcoms, owns the studio lot they are shot on, and has played a tough-talking grandmother named Madea since 1999. This quiz covers the whole career: the childhood he escaped, the touring plays that built his audience, Madea and her sprawling family, the dramas and sitcoms, his surprise turns in other directors' blockbusters, and the Atlanta studio complex he built on a former military base. The questions suit anyone who knows the plays and the films, with easy openers and some tougher ones for fans who have followed him since the stage days. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Diary of a Mad Black Woman, which tool does Madea use to wreck the mansion's living room furniture?
A chainsaw
A chainsaw is Madea's weapon of choice when she and her granddaughter Helen vandalize the mansion, and the spree lands the repeat offender under house arrest.
Q 02Which royal couple did Tyler Perry house for three months before becoming their daughter's godfather?
Harry and Meghan
Harry and Meghan had lost their British royal protection when Perry lent them a home and security, a favor they made public in a televised interview the following year.
Q 03Tyler Perry took over the role of detective Alex Cross in 2012 from which Oscar-winning actor?
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman had played James Patterson's detective before the series was rebooted with Perry; critics panned the new film and a planned sequel was cancelled.
Q 04Which TV doctor makes a cameo running Madea's anger management course in Madea Goes to Jail?
Dr. Phil
Dr. Phil McGraw's sessions do not take: the judge had ordered the therapy after freeing Madea because the arresting officers never read her rights.
Q 05Which reality star won a Razzie for her role in Perry's Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor?
Kim Kardashian
Kim Kardashian played Ava and was named Worst Supporting Actress, while Perry himself was nominated for Worst Director at the same Razzies.
Q 06Which Marvel blockbuster was the first film shot on the new sound stages at Tyler Perry Studios?
Black Panther
Black Panther filmed there before the studio's 2019 grand opening, and Perry broke the news himself on Instagram.
Q 07Which real political figure did Tyler Perry portray in Vice, the 2018 biographical comedy about Dick Cheney?
Colin Powell
Colin Powell was Perry's part in Adam McKay's satire, which stars Christian Bale as Cheney and Amy Adams as his wife Lynne.
Q 08After a Pennsylvania swim club turned away 65 day-camp children in 2009, Tyler Perry paid to send them where?
Walt Disney World
Walt Disney World was the treat for the Philadelphia campers; Perry wrote that for every act of evil thrown at them, millions more people would do something kind.
Q 09Which British actor plays the mechanic fighting for custody in Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls?
Idris Elba
Idris Elba starred opposite Gabrielle Union in the first film Perry directed without appearing in it himself.
Q 10Madea's 2006 bestselling book has a title warning against making a Black woman take off which accessories?
Her earrings
Her earrings coming off means trouble in Perry's first book, written in Madea's voice, which topped the New York Times list and won Book of the Year at the 2006 Quill Awards.
Q 11In which Southern city was Tyler Perry born in 1969?
New Orleans
New Orleans is where Perry grew up before he moved to Atlanta around 1990, the city where he staged his first play and later built his studios.
Q 12At 16, Tyler Perry legally dropped which first name to distance himself from his abusive father?
Emmitt
Emmitt was the name he shared with the man who raised him; a DNA test Perry took as an adult later indicated that the elder Perry was not his biological father.
Q 13Which talk show host's episode about writing as therapy inspired Tyler Perry to begin writing letters to himself?
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey's show set him writing the letters that became his first musical, and two decades later the pair signed a deal for him to make scripted series for her network.
Q 21Tyler Perry has called Madea a PG version of which two women from his own family?
His mother and aunt
His mother and aunt, Perry said, would beat you but make sure the ambulance got there in time, because the love was inside all of it.
Q 22Madea made her stage debut in the 1999 play I Can Do Bad All by Myself in which city?
Chicago
Chicago met a Madea who was 68 years old in that first play; the 2009 film that borrows its title tells a different story.
Q 23What is the real first name of Madea, the tough grandmother Tyler Perry has played since 1999?
Mabel
Mabel Earlene Simmons is her full name, and a later play names the woman who bore her as Big Mabel Murphy.
Q 14Which gospel musical, Tyler Perry's first play, did he stage in 1992 with his $12,000 life savings?
I Know I've Been Changed
I Know I've Been Changed flopped at first, and Perry spent six years rewriting it before a 1998 restaging in Atlanta finally turned it into a touring hit.
Q 15Tyler Perry built his following touring plays on which informally named network of Black theaters?
The Chitlin' Circuit
The Chitlin' Circuit, which sustained Black performers through segregation, carried Perry's plays to audiences who had bought more than $100 million in tickets by 2005.
Q 16Which magazine ranked Tyler Perry the highest-paid man in entertainment in 2011, with $130 million in a year?
Forbes
Forbes counted $130 million earned between May 2010 and May 2011, and in 2020 the same magazine declared Perry a billionaire.
Q 17Which honorary Oscar, earlier given to Debbie Reynolds and Geena Davis, did Tyler Perry receive in 2021?
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award
The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award honours outstanding contributions to good causes, and Perry shared the 2021 prize with the Motion Picture & Television Fund.
Q 18Which former US Army post in Atlanta did Tyler Perry buy in 2015 and turn into film studios?
Fort McPherson
Fort McPherson closed in 2011, and Perry's 330 acres of it now hold a dozen sound stages named after celebrated African American entertainers.
Q 19Tyler Perry drew criticism in 2020 for revealing that his shows run without which standard TV institution?
A writers' room
A writers' room has no place on his shows: Perry said he writes every script himself, which critics said shuts out emerging Black writers and he defended as keeping one voice.
Q 20Which fellow filmmaker publicly attacked the imagery in Tyler Perry's comedies in 2009, drawing a pointed reply?
Spike Lee
Spike Lee's complaint drew the answer that Madea works because audiences see in her the strong Black women they already know.
Q 24Besides Madea, Tyler Perry plays her brother, the father of lawyer Brian Simmons, under which first name?
Joe
Joe Simmons finally got top billing in Joe's College Road Trip, a 2026 film in the franchise that makes Madea's brother the star instead of her.
Q 25Which daughter of Madea, a devout churchgoer played by Tamela Mann, was long presented as Mr. Brown's child?
Cora
Cora Simmons came from a one-night stand, and Mr. Brown was long presented as her father until a paternity test in the film Madea's Big Happy Family said otherwise.
Q 26Which actor plays Mr. Brown, the lead character of Tyler Perry's sitcom Meet the Browns?
David Mann
David Mann created Leroy Brown in Perry's stage plays, and the actress who plays the character's daughter is his real-life wife.
Q 27Which real-life Divorce Court judge sentences Madea to house arrest in Diary of a Mad Black Woman?
Mablean Ephriam
Mablean Ephriam presided over Divorce Court from 1999 to 2006 without ever having served as a judge, and she returned to the bench in later Madea films.
Q 28In Madea Goes to Jail, what does Madea use to wreck the car of a woman who stole her parking spot?
A forklift
A forklift lets her lift the woman's sports car out of the Kmart space and wreck it, and this time a judge gives her five to ten years.
Q 29Which future Modern Family star plays Madea's cellmate, a serial killer, in Madea Goes to Jail?
Sofía Vergara
Sofía Vergara plays T.T., and it was her second Tyler Perry film, coming a year after she co-starred in Meet the Browns.
Q 30The idea for Boo! A Madea Halloween began as a made-up movie in which comedian's 2014 film Top Five?
Chris Rock
Chris Rock invented a Madea Halloween movie as a gag in his comedy, and two years later Perry made it for real and it grossed $74.8 million.