Tyler Perry Buys $40M Atlanta Mansion as $7.6M Teardown

Actor-director Tyler Perry has reportedly spent $7.6 million to buy a 58-acre estate outside Atlanta known as Dean Gardens, which has sat on and off the market for about 15 years, once priced as high as $40 million.

Perry, the creator of the "Madea" character and "House of Payne" sitcom, plans to tear down the 36,086-square-foot, pink palace that software entrepreneur Larry Dean built for himself and his ex-wife Lynda right before they split.

"I think Larry took it personally at first that they were going to tear it down, but he has come to terms with that," says listing agent Suzanne Close of Sotheby's, who had the account for about a year. "It has been a burden trying to keep up a property like that. These days it is madness financially."

Perry, however, shouldn't have a problem making ends meet. The writer and co-star of "Diary of a Mad Black Woman," about a wife who was dragged out the front door of her Atlanta mansion, was ranked in 2009 by Forbes magazine as the sixth-highest-paid man in Hollywood.