Actor Derek Dixon, who plays Dale on Tyler Perry’s long-running TV show, The Oval, says he “couldn’t say no” to the Hollywood mogul’s unwanted advances, and had to lock himself in a bathroom because he thought he would get raped.

Dixon told the Hollywood Reporter that one day while on set, Perry had asked him to come to his trailer for a drink.

“I knew I had to,” the actor said. “We all were living at Tyler Perry Studios, working for Tyler Perry — who was the producer, writer, and director — and I understood that you do what Tyler Perry says, and you go where he demands.”

“I felt like if you were invited and you cared at all about your career and staying on the show, you couldn’t say no,” Dixon added.

The actor, who is now suing Perry for sexual assault and harassment, went on to say that the director’s assistant brought margaritas into his trailer, where he then began asking Dixon inappropriate questions, such as whether he was attracted to him.

After deflecting Perry’s advances by telling him he wasn’t “that sexual” and wasn’t “looking for anything,” the Hollywood mogul gave him a hug and then pushed him against a wall — grabbing his buttocks — just as the actor was about to leave, Dixon told the magazine.

“After he would do things like that, he would say things like, ‘We need to just be business. We need to just be professional,’ and I would think, ‘Great. Yes.’ Every time I thought it would stop,” the actor explained.

In the summer of 2021, while production on The Oval was delayed during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, Perry invited Dixon to his house to discuss a comedy pilot, but instead proceeded to make additional unwanted advances, the actor’s lawsuit alleges.

“I was worried, but I knew I had to go,” Dixon told the Hollywood Reporter, recalling the allegation in his complaint. “I thought if he tried anything again, I could handle it and de-escalate it, like I usually did.”

After a few drinks, Perry told Dixon to sleep in his guest house, the actor said.

“He told me to give him a goodnight hug, and as I did, he abruptly and forcefully pulled down my underwear and groped my bare ass,” Dixon told the magazine of the incident.

“When I tried to pull my underwear back up, he grabbed my wrists to keep me from putting them back on. I couldn’t believe what was happening,” the actor added. “I told him ‘No,’ ‘Stop,’ and ‘I don’t want this, but he wasn’t stopping. He just told me to relax and let it happen and that he wasn’t going to hurt me.”

At that point, Dixon said he believed he was about to be raped, noting that fleeing Perry’s home — equipped with both a guard and a gate — was not an easy task, at it was located “in the middle of nowhere.”

“An Uber cannot drive to the guest house,” Dixon said.

To pacify the situation and avoid sexual harassment, Dixon said he told Perry he couldn’t get intimate because he was hungry, to which the director responded by leaving the house to pick up a pizza.

Later, the two men ate the pizza in Perry’s living room, after which Dixon was able to go back to the guest house and lock himself in the bathroom, where he fell asleep on the floor, the actor told the Hollywood Reporter.

Dixon — who said he felt compelled to come forward with his claims because “I couldn’t just let him get away with this” — spoke to the magazine in what was his first interview since filing a $260 million sexual assault lawsuit against Perry in Los Angeles Superior Court on June 13.

“Everyone deserves to go to work and do their job without their boss trying to have sex with them,” the actor said.

Matthew Boyd, a lawyer for Perry, responded to the allegations claiming Dixon is someone “who got close to Tyler Perry for what now appears to be nothing more than setting up a scam.”

“Tyler will not be shaken down and we are confident these fabricated claims of harassment will fail,” Boyd asserted.

Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.