In an open letter to fans posted on his website over the weekend, acclaimed writer/producer/director Tyler Perry urged fans to see the upcoming film Precious — based on the novel Push, about an abused teen mother — by his own childhood hell.

When Tyler was a toddler he spent several nights in jail!; his father abused him until the age of 19; his father was a pedophile, molesting a neighbor girl!; and he also revealed that he, too, was molested by a woman when was 10 and later by a man.

“…When I was very young, my mother decided to leave my father…she had had enough of his insanity. She loaded me and my two sisters up in an old Cadillac that he had bought for her, and drove to California. When he realized she was gone, he called the police and reported the car stolen, as it was in his name. My mother was arrested and my two sisters and I were put in the cell with her. He and my uncle drove from Louisiana to California to get us. We spent several days in jail waiting for him. He bailed her out and couldn’t wait to get her into the car. He got into the back seat with us and beat her black and blue from California to Louisiana, as me and my sisters watched Even though I was only two or three, I know that this had to have some effect on me.”