Tyler Perry is stepping in to end a six-month insurance nightmare for a Chicago-area homeowner.
The filmmaker was outraged after watching a local news report. It exposed a widow left with a gutted home and nowhere to live after her insurance claim was denied.
The debt kept mounting in the months that followed.
According to FOX 32, the stress of the ordeal eventually sent her to the emergency room with an anxiety breakdown.
That homeowner is Brenda Daurham, an 81-year-old retired hairstylist from Markham, Illinois.
Daurham was hit with a nearly $18,000 lien after Allstate refused to cover the damage to her home. The lien came from
Perry took to Instagram on Sept. 2 to call out the insurer directly, reportedly after learning of the story through Chicago broadcaster Tia Ewing.
He’s now covering the lien, and he also plans to pay for remaining repairs.
“Hey AllState!! Step to the front real quick,” he wrote, before adding, “This woman is 81 years old. You call this being in good hands?”
🚨THIS IS INSANE!!!
— Matt Van Swol (@mattvanswol) August 31, 2026
A daughter drove HUNDREDS of miles to check on her sick 75-year-old father… only to find the locks changed and a Ring camera on his door.
When she climbed through a window to reach her own dad, SHE got arrested for trespassing.
Then she was told, THROUGH… pic.twitter.com/Y3ZDjPWCPp
He followed it with the message Daurham needed to hear most: “Don’t worry Ms. Daurham, help is on the way.”
Her ordeal began on Valentine’s Day, when a pipe under her kitchen sink suddenly burst. Water rushed through the kitchen and spread into the adjoining rooms, prompting the Markham Fire Department to respond and help contain the damage.
Daurham immediately contacted her insurer, Allstate, expecting full coverage after holding a homeowners policy for more than four decades. Excel Fire and Water Damage Restoration Services arrived the following day to clear out ruined materials and set up industrial drying equipment.
The work generated a bill totaling $17,827.96. When the company was not paid, they placed a lien on Daurham’s property.
Then came the denial. The insurer cited policy exclusions involving deterioration, wear and tear, and continuous seepage. Excel disagreed sharply with that conclusion. The company maintained the flooding resulted from a sudden, accidental escape of water, and argued that Daurham’s policy should have covered it.
With no payment made, Excel filed a mechanic’s lien against Daurham’s property on Aug. 20.
The amount could continue to grow because of interest, legal fees, and other costs tied to the unresolved case.
Perry’s followers celebrated his intervention almost immediately, and many turned their frustration on Allstate’s well-known slogan.
“Oh Tyler. That’s why God continues to bless you immensely,” one person wrote. Another was more direct: “Wow!! Allstate y’all are just low down!! God is not sleep!! Thank you Jesus!! And thank you Tyler!!”
A third follower simply asked, “Y’all call this being in good hands?”
Others used the moment to vent about the insurance industry more broadly.
“Beeeeeeen told my parents to drop All State. They never do right by people but charge the most,” one commenter wrote.
One commenter recalled calling Allstate after their own accident, joking that Allstate “ran outta hands.”
Perry’s intercession on Daurham’s behalf is only his latest high-profile rescue of aging or displaced residents.
In 2023, he offered to help 93-year-old Josephine Wright defend her Hilton Head Island property against a developer seeking land that had remained in her family since shortly after the Civil War.
When a tree later damaged Wright’s house, Perry responded by funding the construction of a brand-new five-bedroom home for her and her grandchildren.
Perry also stepped in back in 2014, when he saved a family from eviction.
Xernna Nieves was raising four children at Ashley Woods Apartments in Stockbridge, Georgia, while her 16-year-old son battled severe aplastic anemia and had already undergone two bone marrow transplants.
The family returned home from a Make-A-Wish trip only to find an eviction notice waiting. Perry offered to cover their rent for an entire year, and the complex accepted the payment.
More recently, Perry committed $2.75 million to help hundreds of low-income Atlanta seniors avoid displacement caused by rising property taxes. The multiyear initiative paid off back taxes for more than 300 legacy residents and established a tax-freeze fund for seniors living on fixed incomes.
For Daurham, Perry’s latest act may finally end an exhausting insurance battle — and put her back where she belongs. Home.
ABS has reached out to Allstate for a response.
