Mar 17, 2025

Updated Mar 17, 2025

2 min

Billionaire Tyler Perry Steps In To Pay Mortgage For 85-Year-Old Woman

Billionaire Tyler Perry Steps In To Pay Mortgage For 85-Year-Old Woman
Photo Credit: Slaven Vlasic

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Tyler Perry has provided great financial relief for 85-year-old Anniece Tisdale.

According to WSMV-4, Tisdale hired an unlicensed contractor to renovate her East Nashville, TN, home to accommodate her disability and growing family. However, the project took a turn for the worse when the contractor abandoned it altogether after not meeting completion expectations. Tisdale was then left with a home unsafe to live in and thousands of dollars lost.

After an interview with the local news station, Tisdale was asked by Sherri Shepherd to appear on her “Sherri” talk show, and was joined by her daughter, Yolanda, who revealed that at least $180,000 had been invested into the home renovation project. Yolanda and her husband both took out personal loans and pooled from savings and credit cards to gather the funds.

Yolanda also helped to refinance her mom’s mortgage to pay for the $200,000 in renovations.

“We signed the contract in January. We were supposed to be finished March 31. It was a five-phase-to-pay [agreement], because I knew not to pay all the way. So, the first, second, and third, it looked like things were going well, but with the fourth payment, which equaled to about $180,000 we had given to him in his pocket, things stopped… It was just the outside was done, but the inside was ridiculously just in bad shape,” Yolanda said on the “Sherri” show.
Tisdale told WSMV-4: “I pray this never happens to no one else.”

The home holds great significance as one of her four daughters passed away from a heart attack, and her memories are within that home, Tisdale shared with the outlet.

Tyler Perry, a billionaire filmmaker who owns the first Black-owned film studio, caught wind of Tisdale’s situation and has offered to pay off her mortgage.

“Tyler Perry heard about what you have been going through, and he feels, as I do, at 85 years old you didn’t deserve this,” Shepherd revealed to Tisdale during the show’s taping. “You didn’t deserve to have this happen to you, not with all of the storms that you have weathered throughout your life. But your strength and your faith have gotten you through, and Tyler is aware of all the piled-up bills this ordeal has caused you, and he wants to take that financial burden off of you.”

Shepherd added, “So Tyler Perry, Miss Anniece, he is going to pay off your mortgage. He’s paying off the entire mortgage so that you can live in the home that you love. You don’t have to worry about these payments every month.”

The surprise left the mother and daughter in tears. The night that Tisdale’s other daughter passed away, Tyler Perry’s play at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center was one of her final stops, Tisdale shared.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she expressed, per WSMV-4. “…It was a coincidence that she was watching over me with Tyler and helped him bless me with this.”

Tisdale’s home is now nearly furnished. The family said they plan to pay it forward, and the next mortgage payment will be donated to Habitat for Humanity.

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Samantha Dorisca
Samantha Dorisca

Samantha Dorisca is a Houston-based journalist and photographer whose mission is to impact communities through the gift of storytelling using the written word or visual media. She completed her B.A at The University of Texas at Austin and is pursuing a M.A at The University of Memphis. Her work can be found on platforms such as Houstonia Magazine, Girls' Life Magazine, and Blacque Magazine. Samantha mainly reports on tech, trends, and entrepreneurship.

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