Tyler Perry was left devastated after his teacher killed his pet hamster in front of him.

The 55-year-old actor/director shared his most traumatic childhood memory while he was being feted at the Paley Honors Fall Gala at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California on Wednesday (04.12.24) and revealed a science teacher who "hated" him encouraged him to bring Buddy to school and then killed him for dissection in class.

Tyler told the audience: "I didn't know why he hated me, but I was sitting in the room, and I was really leaning in and paying attention. He was like: 'Why are you looking at me that like that? You don't intimidate me' ...

"[He told me] 'No, Black kids don't have a hamster. You don't have a hamster'."

Tyler claimed the teacher then encouraged him to bring Buddy into school, adding: "So I brought the hamster to school, and all the kids were fawning over how cute he was. Buddy was his name ... [The teacher then spoke about dissection]. My little innocent boy self asked: 'Will he live?' And he said: 'No.'"

The movie star claims fellow students pressured him to hand the animal over so he relented.

Tyler went on: "I tried to go to the back of the room, and he's [the teacher] like" 'No, no, no. Stay up here.' So I watched him put his chloroform on Buddy and kill him in front of me.

"It was a memory that I didn't even know was there until I was in this therapy session. I saw myself walking home with this empty cage and realising that no one asked me what happened or why the cage was empty. Not one person in my life."

He concluded: "[The people who hurt me] did not steal my compassion [or] rob me of my heart and my care for others, and they could not grip away my ability to heal ...

"[I'm now] the freest version of myself that I've ever been. I have turned toward all of that pain, threw my arms wide open, embraced every bit of it, stared the shame, went down in it, and took the power out of it so that I could heal ...

"I want to spread as much joy and good as I can. I want to make my mother proud, and I want to make my son proud of his father - something that I was never able to be of the man who raised me."