Tyler Perry is the godfather to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's daughter, Princess Lilibet.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will celebrate Tyler Perry at the 2024 Paley Honors.
The Paley Center announced on Wednesday that Perry, 54, will be honored at the Paley Honors gala in Beverly Hills, CA, on Dec. 4. Perry will receive the Paley Center for Media's highest honor, and Meghan Markle, 42, and Prince Harry, 39, are among the crew leading the celebrations.
"Throughout my career, I have strived to bring people together and to give a voice to those often underrepresented in media," Perry said in a statement, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "Media has served as a vital platform for this mission, and I'm honored to receive this award from The Paley Center for Media, an organization that has dedicated itself to spotlighting the power and importance of media."
Harry and Meghan are tribute chairs along with Whoopi Goldberg, Gayle King, Taraji P. Henson, George Lucas, Kerry Washington and more of Perry's friends and colleagues. The celebration is especially meaningful to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex given that Perry is godfather to their 3-year-old daughter, Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor.
Harry and Meghan first connected with the filmmaker when Perry reached out to the former Suits star ahead of her May 2018 royal wedding. In a letter, Perry let Meghan know he was praying for her amid "hurtful" stories popping up about her strained relationship with her father, Thomas Markle.
"I couldn't even imagine this woman finding the man that she loved, the man of her dreams, and him being a prince, and then to walk into all of that madness and need the security of family and then have your father do some horrible things," Perry revealed in the final episode of Netflix's Harry & Meghan docuseries, adding that he "immediately empathized" with Meghan. "When my life changed and success started to come, family members became different people, and I know how hurtful and horrible it can be."
In 2020, when Harry and Meghan decided to move out of the U.K. following a contentious exit from royal life, Perry offered them one of his homes to live at in Los Angeles with their son, Prince Archie. "You said, 'Stay as long as you need to.' We said, 'Maybe we just stay forever,'" Harry recalled Perry saying. "It was bliss, because no one knew we were there."
The docuseries then revealed that Meghan and Harry asked Perry to be Lilibet's godfather, a conversation that Perry remembered was "pretty serious on the phone."
"I go, 'OK, what's going on?' They said, 'Well, we'd like for you to be Lili's godfather.' I go, 'Whoa.' I had to take a minute to take that in," the director shared. "And I thought, 'I'd be honored. I'd absolutely be honored.'"
A spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex confirmed to ET that the couple's daughter was christened in a small and intimate ceremony at Harry and Meghan's Montecito home in March 2023. According to People, the ceremony had between 20 and 30 guests, which included Perry.
RELATED CONTENT:
