Tyler Lepley (born March 24, 1987) is an American actor who portrayed Benjamin "Benny" Young on the Tyler Perry produced prime time soap opera The Haves and the Have Nots; which was the first scripted television series to air on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
Contents
Early life and education
Lepley was born and raised in Doylestown, Pennsylvania by his mother and stepfather, who has been in his life since the age of 6. Lepley is Italian on his mother's side and Jamaican on his biological father's side. Lepley revealed that he was teased as a child because he was the only biracial kid in his school. He graduated from Central Bucks High School West in Doylestown. Lepley did several sports including track, football, basketball, karate—as a young child—and boxing but focused more on football as he got older.
Lepley played football in high school under the name Tyler Dinnis. In June 2003, he suffered an injury which nearly ended his football career and later underwent surgery. By the summer of 2004, Lepley was back on the field and was selected as the MVP at sports camp for Villanova University. He attended Kutztown University on a football scholarship. Lepley played football for the university until the fall of 2007. He went on to graduate from Kutztown in 2010 with a degree in criminal justice. Lepley accepted a friend's offer to relocate to Los Angeles in 2011 and found work as a personal trainer at Iron Fitness Gym in Santa Monica.
Career
About three months after he settled in Los Angeles, Lepley was discovered by a producer at a boxing gym who invited him to audition. From that meeting, he booked a small role in an independent film Slumber Party Slaughter. Lepley reluctantly took his agent's advice to get serious about acting and enrolled in acting classes. In 2013, he booked the role of Benny on Tyler Perry's The Haves and the Have Nots after a long casting process. Lepley was quite surprised when Perry came to the audition dressed as his famous Madea character because he was shooting a movie at the time. Lepley also appeared in the universally panned 2013 comedy Baggage Claim starring Paula Patton.
In early 2016, Lepley booked the lead role of Jaxon in the made-for-television film, produced by Swirl Films Ringside, directed by Russ Parr. The film premiered in September 2016 TV One. His costars included Everybody Hates Chris actor Tequan Richmond and R&B singer Sevyn Streeter. In 2019, Lepley was cast a series regular in the Starz drama, P-Valley. In 2020, he was cast in Harlem, Tracy Oliver's comedy series on Amazon Prime Video.
In late 2025, Lepley’s Tampa restaurant Lepley’s Kitchen & Lounge permanently closed.
Personal life
On July 25, 2026, Lepley married actress Miracle Watts in Mexico. In October 2022, they welcomed their first child together, a son named Xi Lei. Lepley has two children, Leo and Jade from a previous relationship with April King.
