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By AFRO Staff
Tyler Perry continues to score big time.
The Miss Universe organization announced <https://mobile.twitter.com/MissUniverse/status/1190021246823682048> Oct. 31 that its 2019 pageant will be held at the entertainment executive’s new 330-acre studio in Atlanta.
The show will air live from Perry’s studios on Dec. 8 and will broadcast on Fox and Telemundo. Steve Harvey will serve as the program’s host for the fifth year.
Perry launched the studio in October with a two-day star-studded gala, becoming the first African American to independently own a studio. Built on the historic grounds of the former Fort McPherson army base, the expansive facility is larger than Warner Bros, Paramount and Walt Disney’s Hollywood lots combined. It showcases 40 buildings, 200 acres of green space, backlot and 12 sound stages named after Black entertainers who inspired him, like Whoopi Goldberg, Harry Belafonte, Oprah Winfrey, Spike Lee, Will Smith, John Singleton and Halle Berry.
“I feel this tremendous sense of obligation for all the people who helped me get here,” he told Variety last month <https://variety.com/2019/film/news/tyler-perry-georgia-studios-grand-opening-heartbeat-bill-1203360437/>. “Ones I don’t know, ones I may never know… all the way back to the ancestors who prayed for one day a generation to be able to be in this position. So I’m humbled by it.”
Perry’s studio will also host the Democratic presidential debate on Nov. 20. And, it will also serve as a lab to launch his independent projects.
“[I want to] be the voice, the place for the ones who are marginalized, disenfranchised, who are discarded, because what I want this to be is a place for the underdog,” he shared. “That’s what I’ve always felt like I was, because I didn’t play by anybody’s rules. I felt like I had to do it my way. And I can’t wait to see all the dreamers and the people who come through this gate, who get it and go out and do amazing things.”
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