Tyler Perry bemoans political extremism: ‘Everybody’s grabbing a corner, a color and a flag’

Tyler Perry is lamenting the “frightening” political climate, saying too many Americans are hopping on partisan bandwagons because they’re concerned about the direction the country is headed.

“The truth of the matter is that a lot of people in the country are worried about where we’re going,” the “Madea Family Funeral” star and director told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Monday.

“What we’re seeing, on so many levels, it’s frightening,” Perry said.

“I think about all the vitriol, all the hatred. Everybody’s grabbing a corner, a color and a flag, and nobody’s wanting to come to the middle to solve issues. That’s just a very dangerous place,” he added.

The comments from the 52-year-old film mogul — who heads up his eponymous production studio in Georgia — come just months after he made headlines for a speech during this year’s Academy Awards.

At the April ceremony, Perry urged the country to reject hate and “stand in the middle, because that’s where healing happens.”

In his interview this week, he called dealing with unvaccinated production crews the most frightening battle for his industry.

“The scariest thing now is people who are not vaccinated. They have to test every day, and it’s almost 50 percent of my crew that are not vaccinated,” he said.

While Tyler Perry Studios has a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, he said, individual productions do not.

“It’s shocking to me,” Perry said, “the level of misinformation that people will lean toward rather than lean toward people who are educated on all of this.”