An actor accused Tyler Perry of shielding a top executive after claiming he was raped and manipulated under false pretenses in 2022.
Tyler Perry is facing serious accusations after actor and military veteran Braxton Demarco Wells publicly claimed the media mogul helped conceal a rape allegedly committed by Mark E. Swinton, Senior Vice President of Scripted Programming at Tyler Perry Studios.
Wells, who appeared on Perry’s BET drama The Oval, posted a detailed account on Instagram accusing Swinton of grooming and sexually assaulting him in January 2022 after flying him from Los Angeles to Georgia under misleading circumstances.
“Mark E. Swinton, you groomed and raped me while I was under your influence, flying me from Los Angeles to Georgia under false pretenses,” Wells wrote. “You abused your position as Vice President of Tyler Perry Studios — a company that claims to stand for faith — to commit unspeakable evil behind closed doors.”
Wells also accused Tyler Perry of remaining silent and protecting Swinton to preserve his public image.
“Tyler Perry, you built your empire on the image of a God-fearing man,” he added. “Yet when darkness crept in through your own executive, you chose silence. You retained a predator in your house and helped cover it up, protecting your brand over a broken human life. That’s not faith — that’s fraud.”
As of Tuesday (July 8), neither Perry nor Swinton has publicly addressed the allegations.
Wells further claimed Perry’s legal team pressured him into signing a non-disclosure agreement to keep the incident under wraps. He said attempts to report the assault were met with threats, including from his own attorney.
In a separate post, Wells referenced actor Derek Dixon, who filed a $260 million lawsuit against Tyler Perry in June.
Dixon, also a cast member on The Oval, alleged repeated sexual harassment, assault and retaliation after rejecting Perry’s advances.
Wells wrote, “I came out about this situation way before Derek Dixon! They told me to take down the video threaten me and even my own lawyer threaten me while I was trying to go to law enforcement!”
Swinton, a longtime collaborator at Tyler Perry Studios, has worked across film, television and stage productions.
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