Tyler Perry Visits 'The Real,' Talks about Difficult Moment When He Had to Discipline His 4-Year-Old Son

Tyler Perry recalled that the "hard" moment he leveled with his five-year-old son which reminded him of his painful past and what he missed out as a child.

Parenting isn’t an easy job. Just ask Tyler Perry and he’ll tell you why.

TYLER TALKS ABOUT TOUGH LOVE

The media mogul recently dropped by “The Real” and opened up about the painful moment he had to endure in disciplining his five-year-old son, Aman Tyler Perry.

Tyler described the moment as “really hard for me,” speaking to the show’s hosts, Tamera Mowry, Adrienne Houghton, Jeannie Mai, and Loni Love.

“He’s just crying and going, ‘Yes Papa. Yes Papa.’ But as he’s crying and I’m down on his level, I’m trying to hold my tears..."

He spoke in the context of how his world literally stops when his son is around him.

“He centers everything. He makes everything stop for me. I literally stop with him,” he says of the little boy whose mother is the mega producer’s longtime girlfriend, Gelila Bekele.

But as much as Tyler admits he encourages Aman to “be who he is,” he also acknowledges that there are times when he has to be disciplined.

“Nobody talked to me as a five-year-old like that. Nobody had a conversation with me. Nobody talked to me like a person..."

He cites an occasion when Aman became rude to his nanny. Tyler recalled Aman arguing with his nanny in the bathroom and Gelila asking for his help to set their son straight.

“Gelila calls me and I go in there and get down to his level and I’m talking to him eye-to-eye,” he begins to narrate.

“And I was all like, ‘Listen. What are you doing? We don’t behave this way. You don’t do this.This is unacceptable. You’re not gonna disrespect her. You’re not gonna disrespect your mom. You’re gonna do what they say to do. And do you understand that?’”

Tyler continues,

“He’s just crying and going, ‘Yes Papa. Yes Papa.’ But as he’s crying and I’m down on his level, I’m trying to hold my tears. So, I get up and I leave out of the room and Gelila said, ‘You okay?’”

A PAINFUL REALIZATION

The 50-year-old father explained that there was also a realization for him at that moment.

“Nobody talked to me as a five-year-old like that. Nobody had a conversation with me. Nobody talked to me like a person. So, here I am having an opportunity to heal my little boy self by talking to my son like a person.”

HIS TRAUMATIC CHILDHOOD

Perry previously came out in the open about his difficult childhood as a victim of abuse. He recalled in a recent issue of People how he would hide under the front porch to escape his alcoholic father’s aggression.

He said at one point, Emmitt Perry, who he later learned was not his biological father, beat him with a vacuum cord causing the skin of his back to rip open.

“I don’t think I ever felt safe or protected as a child,” he confessed.

Tyler also revealed he was sexually abused by three men and a woman who were acquaintances of his family. At 10 years old, he said he was "raped" but because he "didn't know what was going on" at the time, he just "moved through it."

Armed with his painful experience as a child, Perry is likely to take the path his father didn’t in rearing his own son. He said he had to forgive his father in order to feel lighter inside.

“I chose to be as positive and inspirational and I can, because I don’t want to feel that again," he explained.

Aman is lucky to have a father like Perry who learned a lot about what a father shouldn't be and is using that to make things right by him.