Tyler Perry Recalls a Teacher Killing His Pet Hamster When He Was a Child: 'No One Asked Me What Happened'

Mar. 15, 2025

Tyler Perry, hamster.Photo:Leon Bennett/FilmMagic; Getty

Leon Bennett/FilmMagic; Getty

Tyler Perryis looking back at a traumatic moment from his childhood.

While being honored during thePaley Honors Fall Galaat the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Wednesday, Dec. 4, the actor and director, 55, touched on his “childhood trauma” in a speech, including a time when a science teacher killed hispet hamster.

Perry then recalled an instance where he was talking about his pet hamster with his classmates one day when his teacher told him, “No, Black kids don’t have a hamster. You don’t have a hamster,” before imploring the star to bring the animal to school.

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Tyler Perry in July 2024.John Nacion/Variety via Getty

John Nacion/Variety via Getty

“So I brought the hamster to school, and all the kids were fawning over how cute he was. Buddy was his name,” Perry next explained during his speech.

However, theMadeastar said his science teacher then asked him about dissecting the animal, which confused a young Perry. “My little innocent boy self asked, ‘Will he live?’ And he said, ‘No,’ " Perry explained of his interaction with the educator.

Detailing that his fellow classmates were “putting pressure” on him, Perry eventually gave in and handed over his pet to the teacher.

“I tried to go to the back of the room, and he’s like, ‘No, no, no. Stay up here.’ So I watched him put his chloroform on Buddy and kill him in front of me,” Perry said.

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Tyler Perry in December 2024.Leon Bennett/FilmMagic

Leon Bennett/FilmMagic

According to the star, he didn’t remember the horrific death of his beloved pet until years later.

“It was a memory that I didn’t even know was there until Iwas in this therapy session,” Perry said. “I saw myself walking home with this empty cage and realizing that no one asked me what happened or why the cage was empty. Not one person in my life.”

“So I survived that and forgot all about it, growing up at a time where there was an AIDS pandemic,” Perry continued, highlighting another challenge he faced. “I would go to church every Sunday, and many of the men in my choir would be dead every Sunday.”

“Or being stopped and frisked and slammed to the ground, just because I was Black and big, and the police were corrupt,” he added. “But I survived, and I’m here. So I think that’s enough to allow myself to be celebrated.”

Tyler Perry in October 2022.Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty

Looking back at his life, Perry said that the people who hurt him “did not steal my compassion” or “rob me of my heart and my care for others, and they could not grip away my ability to heal.”

Further detailing that he is currently “the freest version of myself that I’ve ever been,” Perry continued, “I have turned toward all of that pain, threw my arms wide open, embraced every bit of it, stared the shame, went down in it, and took the power out of it so that I could heal.”

“I want tospread as much joy and goodas I can,” Perry said. “I want to make my mother proud, and I want to makemy sonproud of his father — something that I was never able to be of the man who raised me.”

source: people.com