Tyler Perry has offered $400,000 to actress Cocoa Brown, whose Fayetteville home burned down a week ago.

According to a report on WSB-TV, Brown barely made it out of her home with her son Phoenix. It took three hours for the fire department to get the fire under control and the home is a complete loss.

A friend posted a GoFundMe site that has raised more than $73,000 so far. “Cocoa, a beacon of joy in our lives through her incredible comedy, now faces an unimaginable challenge as she and her son must rebuild their lives from scratch. While we’re grateful to hear that they are safe, the road ahead is undoubtedly daunting,” the GoFundMe site said.

Besides the separate Perry donation, others who gave her money on the GoFundMe site include actors Tiffany Haddish, Sherri Shepherd and Marlon Wayans as well as Los Angeles media mogul Byron Allen, who owns the Atlanta-based Weather Channel cable network.

Brown played Jennifer in 162 episodes of Perry’s OWN sitcom “For Better or Worse” from 2011 and 2017 and starred in Perry’s film “The Single Moms Club” in 2014.

Over the years, Perry has made a variety of donations to all sorts of people and organizations, some privately, some publicly.

Last year, he gave a family $25,000 after hearing their plumbing work van was stolen. He also gave $2.75 million to poorer, older homeowners in Atlanta to help ensure they could stay in their homes. Early in the pandemic in 2020, he gave 42 out -of-work servers at Houston’s in Atlanta $500 tips each.

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Credit: abbey.cutrer@ajc.com