‘Pure greed’: Tyler Perry slams ‘appalling’ act amid LA fires

Mogul Tyler Perry has lashed out as Los Angeles burns while a Hollywood legend’s home is destroyed and a former Biggest Loser Australia trainer’s Malibu home miraculously survives damage.

Billionaire movie mogul Tyler Perry has slammed American insurance companies for making policy changes before the devastating Los Angeles wildfires.

“Watching a daughter use a garden hose to try and protect her 90-year-old parents’ home because their insurance was cancelled was just gut-wrenching to me,” Perry wrote in a an Instagram post.

“Does anyone else find it appalling that insurance companies can take billions of dollars out of communities for years and then, all of a sudden, be allowed to cancel millions of policies for the very people they became rich on?” Perry wrote.

Tyler Perry, with friend Meghan Markle, has slammed insurance companies who cut coverage just prior to the Los Angeles fires. Picture: Getty Images

“People who have paid premiums all of their lives are left with nothing because of pure greed.”

Perry, who is close to Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, concluded his message by writing, “As I am in the process of trying to figure out what steps to take to do all I can to help as many as I can, I am keeping everyone in my prayers.”

Thousands of people in the Los Angeles area have lost their homes due to the devastating wildfires.

According to the LA Times, State Farm General announced in March 2024 that it would not renew 30,000 homeowner and condominium policies — including 1,262 in Pacific Palisades, the area hit hardest by the fires.

Chubb Insurance reportedly stopped writing policies for high-value homes with higher wildfire risk in 2021.

Allstate, Tokio Marine America Insurance Co. and Trans Pacific Insurance Co. similarly made policy changes in California before the 2025 wildfires, according to the LA Times.

It’s been estimated by AccuWeather that the fires have caused between A$220 billion and A$245 billion in damages to Los Angeles.

JILLIAN MICHAELS

Meanwhile, former Biggest Loser Australia trainer Jillian Michaels’ A$16 million Malibu mansion miraculously survived the fires while all the homes around it were destroyed.

The beachfront home, which reportedly features three bedrooms and three bathrooms, sustained minor damage in the blaze.

Jillian Michaels’ Malibu home was the last one standing as destroyed homes surrounded it. Picture: Getty Images/AFP

Michaels, who has long been a vocal critic of California governor Gavin Newsom, said that she is “personally outraged” by the wildfires ravaging Los Angeles, placing the blame on California’s government.

“People are dead, homes have burned, it is not your first rodeo,” she told the Daily Mail. “It is not.

“And when you know that you have a state that is prone to fire and — I’m going to give it to you — you’ve got global warning, you have literally have a tinderbox,” Michaels said.

Michaels slammed Newsom, saying the National Guard should have been called in much earlier to help fight the fires.

The charred remains of the iconic Sunset Boulevard street sign in Los Angeles. Picture: Supplied

“I’m sorry, and the reason for me this is super serious is because this guy wants to be your president. This now goes from a California problem to a countrywide problem,” Michaels said about Newsom.

Michaels also took to X to share her thoughts, calling it “pure incompetence”.

“I’m so-so upset for the people of California,” she wrote.

“My family who stayed. My lifelong friends who live there. Our brave firefighters. This is not a partisan issue it’s pure incompetence and misprioritisation.”

O’NEAL AND FAWCETT’S HOME DESTROYED

Ryan O’Neal’s daughter, Tatum O’Neal, has revealed that the house her late father once shared with actress Farrah Fawcett has burned down in the Los Angeles fires.

“It’s the saddest ever so sad I could cry,” O’Neal said via social media. “My father’s house is gone Malibu gone.”

O’Neal, who starred opposite her father in the hit 1973 film Paper Moon, said the house was “gone, gone, gone”.

Ryan O'Nea outside his Malibu home in 2004. The beachfront home has been destroyed. Picture: Supplied

“It’s so scary. I am so freaking sad,” she said.

Damage to the Hollywood star’s home comes just two years after he died from congestive heart failure at age 82 in December 2023.

Fawcett died from cancer in 2009 at 62.

Tatum O'Neal said she was “so freaking sad” after the Malibu home of her late father, Ryan O’Neal, was destroyed. Picture: Getty Images/AFP

FBI AGENTS SEEN AT AFFLECK’S HOME

It comes as FBI agents were seen at Ben Affleck’s Brentwood home, calling over the gate, although no one appeared home at the time.

Affleck’s A$30 million estate has so far escaped undamaged from the fires, even though the Brentwood estate is on the border of Pacific Palisades, which has been devastated by the inferno.

Affleck was previously seen returning home, despite his house apparently being under a mandatory evacuation order.

The Oscar-winner’s ex-wife Jennifer Garner said in an interview on US TV that her home had escaped the blaze, but revealed that the losses from the fire had hit close to home.

“I did lose a friend who did not get out on time,” she said during an emotional interview on MSNBC in the US.

Originally published as ‘Pure greed’: Tyler Perry slams ‘appalling’ act amid LA fires