Tyler Perry is pictured on September 3, 2023, in Malibu, California. | Source: Robin L Marshall / Getty
Tyler Perry is opening up about what he described as a “disrespectful” process when Paramount Global made BET available for purchase earlier this year.
The movie mogul spoke out more than two months after the company that owns VH1 and BET Studios, BET+ and the BET channel stopped accepting bids because “a sale wouldn’t result in any meaningful deleveraging of its balance sheet.”
Building on that sentiment, Perry said on Wednesday that the price tag Paramount Global placed on BET exceeded the media company’s value, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
“I was disappointed about it for a number of reasons,” Perry, 54, said during a Bloomberg Equality summit at The Gathering Spot in Atlanta. “The way it happened was disrespectful in a lot of ways.”
Perry added: “Don’t try to get me to pay for something that’s not worth anywhere near the value.”
Reports claim Perry offered up to $2 billion for BET. At least one offer was for as much as $3 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.
It is unclear what the desired amount was being sought by Paramount Global.
Conflicting reports about Perry buying BET that ultimately proved to be false went viral in June.
Aside from Perry, music mogul Diddy and media giant Byron Allen were reported as being in the mix of names of potential BET buyers.
Perry already owns a minority stake in the company. He has a long history with both BET and Paramount. Both companies have played significant roles in Perry’s entertainment career, with BET helping to fund Perry’s romantic comedy-drama Diary of a Mad Black Woman nearly 20 years ago.
The optics of successful and wealthy Black people vying to buy BET, the first Black-owned cable network whose sale by founder Bob Johnson created the nation’s first Black billionaire, were simply awesome while they lasted.
Instead of that possibility becoming a reality, BET remains a white-owned company for now.
That leaves Urban One, NewsOne’s parent company founded by Cathy Hughes, standing alone as the single largest African American-owned multimedia conglomerate in the country comprised of a television network, local and syndicated radio group, a digital company and branded content agency.
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