Tyler Perry Moves to Seal Texts

Tyler Perry has asked a court to keep private the text messages he exchanged with friends and associates as he fights a sexual assault lawsuit filed by actor Mario Rodriguez.

According to OK Magazine, citing court filings and a TMZ report published on October 29, Perry argued that the messages were produced for the case under a confidentiality agreement and should stay that way. His filing says some of the conversations include financial information and that the people involved expected the exchanges to remain private.

That is a narrow legal fight inside a much larger and uglier one. Rodriguez sued Perry in December 2025 for $77 million, alleging sexual assault. In his complaint, Rodriguez said he first met Perry at a gym in 2015, later appeared in Perry’s 2016 film “Boo! A Madea Halloween,” and was groped during visits to Perry’s home in 2018. The suit also alleges Perry gave him $5,000 after one incident and another $5,000 after a later encounter.

Perry and his company have denied Rodriguez’s claims. Perry has argued that Rodriguez stayed in contact with him after the alleged incidents and only turned against him after financial support stopped. OK Magazine reports that Perry’s team has pointed to text messages in which Rodriguez allegedly asked him for money and has also said Rodriguez proposed a multimillion-dollar settlement.

The dispute over the texts is less lurid than the headline that carries it, but it matters. Celebrity legal battles often slide into a second contest over what gets seen, copied and recirculated outside the courtroom. Perry’s filing frames the issue as privacy for third parties who are not part of the case. He argues that releasing the messages would cause those associates unnecessary annoyance and embarrassment. Rodriguez had not responded to that argument in his own court filings, according to the report.

There is also a more practical layer here. In cases involving famous defendants, private messages become their own shadow stage: not only evidence, but material for public interpretation, reputation management and tabloid appetite. Perry’s filing appears designed to keep that stage smaller, or at least less crowded.

The two sides have already fought over discovery. OK Magazine reports that Perry previously challenged whether he had to answer questions about his sexuality during a deposition. His lawyer, Alex Spiro, has called Rodriguez’s case a “shakedown,” while Perry has denied Rodriguez’s claim that he refused to answer questions about sexual orientation.

One caution is necessary: the available report describes the filings but does not reproduce them in full, so the exact wording of Perry’s request is not visible here. What is visible is the shape of the argument. Perry is not asking the court to decide the assault allegations through these texts. He is asking the court to keep a set of private conversations from becoming public collateral.

That distinction is not glamorous, which is probably why it matters. In celebrity litigation, privacy is often defended most fiercely at the point where it starts to look least cinematic.