Tyler Perry is fighting his sexual assault accuser, Mario Rodriguez, in court over his private texts … TMZ has learned.
According to court docs, obtained by TMZ, Tyler says he turned over private texts with associates to Mario as part of their legal battle. The director said he wanted those messages to remain confidential, like they previously agreed.
He said the messages should be private because some of the convos talk about financial matters.
Tyler says he and the associates he was texting believed their conversations were private … and Mario has no right to release them. He says his associates have nothing to do with the case at hand and disclosure of their texts would cause unnecessary annoyance and embarrassment.
Mario has yet to respond to the issue in his own court docs.
As TMZ first reported, Mario sued Tyler for $77 million over an alleged sexual assault. He said he met the director in 2015 at the gym … which led to him getting a role in Tyler’s film, “Boo! A Madea Halloween.”
In his lawsuit, Mario claimed Tyler assaulted him when he went to visit him at his home in 2018. Mario claims Tyler asked him if he liked oral sex and then grabbed his junk. He said Tyler gave him $5k and apologized.
The suit alleged Tyler also forced his hand on Mario’s penis during another hangout … which led to another alleged $5k payment.
Tyler and his company denied all allegations of wrongdoing in the case. He claimed Mario kept talking to him after the alleged incidents occurred… and only turned on him when he stopped providing him with financial assistance.
As TMZ first reported, Tyler previously fought Mario in court over whether he has to answer questions about his sexuality at his deposition.

Hollywood is saying goodbye to a beloved TV mom.
Oscar-nominated actress Barbara Barrie, who warmed living rooms across the nation through roles like Nana in Suddenly Susan, died at 95 years old with help from her medical team.
“On behalf of the Harnick family,” Barrie’s rep said in a statement to E! News, “I can confirm that her passing was medically assisted in accordance with the New York State Medical Aid in Dying law, of which she was a proponent and advocate.”
The critically acclaimed actress—who made appearances in countless series like Nurse Jackie and Law & Order: SVU—proceeded with end-of-life care in her Manhattan residence following a terminal cancer diagnosis, according to The New York Times.

South Park returned to Comedy Central on Wednesday with a fresh episode that was full of shit, quite literally, as the cost of inflation, elite food trends, and President Trump’s recent tariff pause on beef became the unexpected topics skewered by the Emmy-winning, long-running animated show. But maybe more importantly, the episode featured new footage from the year’s most anticipated release, Grand Theft Auto VI.
The reveal came as the boys from South America (née South Park) visited a cattle ranch, where Ruth Chris, a character introduced here who is not an actual person but looks an awful lot like Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse founder Ruth Fertel, gives them a preview of “what’s coming in November.” (Recall that the release of GTA VI next month is the metaphor Trey Parker and Matt Stone are drawing for the upcoming midterm elections.) The footage shows main character Jason Duval fighting a man on Vice Beach and involves a bag of dog crap that here, perhaps, represents partisan politics.
“Look at that, the graphics are seriously next level. You see the world-building?” Ruth Chris tells the boys. “It’s a dog taking a poop. And people can pick up the dog poop. You can throw things at the person with dog poop, and if they choose to fight back, you can pick up the dog poop and actually attack them with the dog poop. That is what’s coming in November.”
That moment is sure to drive fans batty as they salivate over the Rockstar Games release on Nov. 18. It arrives about two-thirds of the way through the latest episode, which struggles to connect its various ideas into the cohesive, perfectly structured and executed satire we love, as the show often does.
Gary Glitter’s controversial stadium anthem “Rock & Roll Part 2” is heard as the episode opens with our own Eric Cartman climbing up the walls of the newly renamed South America Elementary, as he waits for his lunchtime, Sloppy Joe. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen because record-high domestic beef prices have led the local public school to nix the Joes.
This catalyst sets our four main boys — which now includes Stan’s dad, Randy, as a Kenny replacement after he shrank to kid size after taking youth-enhancing creams in the prior episode — on a journey to reclaim the tender, buttery beef that comes out of their town (of South America). They probably don’t want it back, though, as it’s been a bit rough lately on the digestive systems of those who can afford to dine on some. See, it gives them diarrhea so terrible that it literally makes them explode. Literally — Scanners-style, right there in the restaurant.
It’s a gross-out spectacle that is certainly ick-funny the first time a cartoon explodes into a pile of diarrhea, but it happens again and again. Of course, the South Park creators cleverly tie eating the so-called patriotic beef with being a true American patriot, so many a moron convince thenseld=vesro he episode weaves in Stan dealing with his tiny dad joining his social circle, much to his chagrin, and it’s nice to see Stan bossing Randy around.
But as the episode marches toward its non-conclusion, viewing it grows difficult; after so many animated men and women are seen exploding into piles of shit, it’s all you can really anticipate. Sure, they get some mileage out of the interviews conducted with piles of shit, who, it turns out, are still full of shit. But mostly, we have a mid-season episode that does its best work in further setting up what is sure to be a great reveal of what’s to come in November.

On Wednesday night’s episode of “The Tonight Show,” host Jimmy Fallon gave his best Nathan Fielder impression while guest Jamie Lee Curtis played Elizabeth Holmes to spoof A24’s buzzy documentary, “You Can See Everything.”
“Now, be honest. Do you really want to be on the show tonight?” asks Fallon, doing his best Fielder impression. “Of course I do. I love talking to you,” responded Curtis with her best Holmes-like voice while donning a blonde wig and looking deeply into the late-night host’s eyes. “So, you’re not just here to promote your new show. ‘Newlyweds’?” “No, I’m engaging with you as a human being,” said Curtis. “Why would I deceive you? There’s no reason for me to do that. There’s nothing for me to deceive you on.”
“Good chat,” concluded Fallon, but not before one last question: “You’re being real right now?” “I’m always being real,” responded Curtis. As Fallon leaves, she yells, “Thank God! Fuck, what an asshole!”
As mentioned in the cold open, Curtis was on the show to promote “Newlyweds,” her new NBC sitcom that premiered on Oct. 23. The logline for the show, starring Téa Leoni and Tim Daly, describes it as “a later-in-life love story about a free-spirited woman and a buttoned-up professor who marry impetuously after a whirlwind courtship.”
Curtis will appear on the show in a recurring guest star role, and also co-created it with Gail Lerner, who was fired from the show earlier this month for “creative differences.” In Lerner’s statement when the news broke, she described the experience working on the show as “the most joyous TV experience of my life.”
“You Can See Everything,” which debuted in theaters earlier this month on Oct. 16, has been a hit both critically and at the box office, where it’s already grossed $45.1 million domestically to date. Fielder and co-director Lance Oppenheim quietly worked on the movie for more than three years, which offers an unhinged look at the Theranos founder a month before she began an 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors.
Watch the full cold open here.

James Gunn has once again taken to Threads in defense of his DC universe, and this time, is clarifying his previously proposed eight- to 10-year roadmap for the fictional world and making it clearer where each character stands within it.
“You can look at my quotes from January ’23 when we started and I said we were going to do exactly what we’re doing,” the DC Studios co-head wrote responding to a now-deleted post. “I said some stories would be standalone like the Guardians movies were (which is what Clayface is) and some stories would have part of a larger narrative structure, which is what the Superman Saga is. All that said, each piece of the larger story should work on its own with or without having to see everything else.”
He continued in a second post: “ALSO, some things get conflated here. The often cited ‘8 to 10 year roadmap’ originally pitched wasn’t only story points (although that was a part of it), but also the plan for DC as a whole, including focusing on diamond characters (Superman, Batman, WW) as well as smaller characters we could turn into diamonds (Krypto, John Stewart, Peacemaker), how we would foster filmmaker freedom & allow for multiple tones & ratings, the influences of Star Wars & George RR Martin, and so much more.”
Gunn’s note about the “8 to 10 year roadmap” refers to his and fellow co-head Peter Safran’s 2022 remarks during a virtual Warner Bros. Discovery town hall, during which he’d said they’d mapped out an 8- to ten-year plan for DC. In a third post, he added: “It’s exciting seeing things START to come together and all that makes me even more excited for what we have in store for everyone in Man of Tomorrow.”
On Saturday, Gunn took to the social media platform to defend his decision to expand the DC universe with “individual stories” amid criticism that his films aren’t building toward a major crossover event.
Responding to a commenter who pointed out that Gunn doesn’t necessarily need to lay the foundation for one totally interconnected universe, he wrote, “I couldn’t agree more.” “DCU is just an alternate universe; we can enter at any location or time and tell THAT story. I dislike the idea that individual stories aren’t meaningful unless they lead to something else. People not understanding this is strange to me, because ‘Star Wars’ has essentially been doing this for 50 years across movies, shows, games and books, admittedly without the tonal variety,” he wrote.