Tyler Perry is Going to be a Dad
It’s a great day for Tyler Perry. The director and actor is about to take on the biggest project of his life; he’s going to be a father! The 45-year-old celebrity is set to welcome his first child with his longtime girlfriend Gelila Bekele later this year. He and his longtime lady love have managed to keep their pregnancy a secret for a long time, considering she’s more than six months along in her pregnancy.
“Tyler is thrilled. He and Gelila are so excited. They’ve got the nursery ready and he’s ready to change diapers,” said a friend of the couple who is close to both. Another friend also opened up about the parents-to-be. “He will make a wonderful father. You will never find a more loving, patient, honorable or decent man than Tyler Perry. Any child would be blessed to have him as a father,” said the second friend of the couple.
There’s a good chance that Perry let the world in on his secret before it was a reality, telling the world just before his 44th birthday in 2013 that he thought that 45 was a good age to become a father for the first time. And he also thinks he will be a good dad.
“I know I would be a great father. I don’t want to work this hard, I don’t want to have all this and not leave it to my children. I also know that as hard as I’m working, doing 20 hours a day, now is not the time…Eventually I’ll get there,” he said to friend Steve Harvey when he was visiting the actor’s talk show last year. Harvey made light of Perry’s words, telling him that he’d be turning 60 when he kid was 15 if he waited that long, and Perry joked back, “I’ll hire somebody to take him to the basketball court,” he said of his future baby.
(Photo by Moses Robinson/Getty Images for American Express)