In the glittering underbelly of Chicago’s beauty empire, where lipstick stains hide bloodstains and boardroom battles are fought with stilettos sharper than scalpels, Tyler Perry’s Beauty in Black has carved out a niche as Netflix’s most addictive guilty pleasure. What began as a soapy saga of class warfare, family betrayals, and the cutthroat cosmetics industry in October 2024 has ballooned into a cultural juggernaut, blending Dynasty-esque excess with P-Valley‘s raw edge. Season 1’s split release—eight episodes in October, eight more in March 2025—racked up 14.3 million views in its debut week, topping charts in 28 countries and proving that Perry’s flair for melodrama still packs a punch. Season 2, dropping its first eight episodes on September 11, 2025, followed suit with even juicier vendettas, but whispers of a third season were just that—until today.
Netflix has officially confirmed Beauty in Black Season 3, greenlighting another 16-episode arc to be released in two parts, with production slated to ramp up in Atlanta by November 2025. The announcement came bundled with the bombshell trailer drop during Netflix’s Tudum global event, a two-minute sizzle reel that’s already amassed 2.1 million views on YouTube and sparked a frenzy on X, where fans are pausing, rewinding, and theorizing like it’s the Zapruder film. “New faces. Old wounds. Endless drama,” the tagline teases, promising fresh blood in the Bellarie family feuds while ripping open scars from Kimmie’s improbable rise and Mallory’s crumbling reign. But it’s that final 10-second twist—a shadowy figure emerging from the flames of a torched warehouse, clutching a lye-laced prototype that could topple the empire—that has viewers glued to their screens, frame by frozen frame.
The trailer opens with a pulse-pounding montage: Kimmie Bellarie (Taylor Polidore Williams), now the iron-fisted COO of Beauty in Black after her shotgun wedding to ailing patriarch Horace (Ricco Ross), struts through the company’s gleaming headquarters like a queen reclaiming her throne. “I didn’t marry into this family—I conquered it,” she purrs in voiceover, her once-vulnerable stripper eyes now steely with ambition. Cut to Mallory Bellarie (Crystle Stewart), the former HBIC reduced to scheming from the shadows, her Botox-smooth facade cracking as she whispers to a mystery ally, “If I can’t have the crown, no one will—especially not that gold-digging interloper.” Old wounds fester: Flashbacks to Season 2’s cliffhanger, where Horace’s cancer diagnosis forced his hand in marrying Kimmie to thwart his greedy heirs, play out amid heated board meetings and back-alley threats. Rain (Blue Kimble), Kimmie’s ride-or-die from the club days, eyes a corner office with envy, while Charles (Steven G. Norfleet) and Roy (Nolen Lee) plot a sibling coup that could land them in prison—or the morgue.
But the new faces steal the spotlight, injecting fresh venom into the venomous Bellarie brood. Enter Tichina Arnold as Delilah Voss, Horace’s long-lost sister and a ruthless venture capitalist with a grudge older than the family recipe for their infamous lye relaxers. “Blood doesn’t make family—money does,” she snarls in her debut scene, arriving at the funeral of a key character (no spoilers) with a briefcase full of dirt on everyone’s secrets. Joining her is newcomer Larenz Tate as Victor Kane, a slick forensic accountant hired by Mallory to audit the books, but whose loyalties shift like the Chicago wind—hinting at a steamy affair that could either save or sink the dynasty. And don’t sleep on recurring guest Angela “Baby” Simmons as Zara, Kimmie’s half-sister from a one-night stand gone wrong, whose arrival unearths a paternity bombshell tying back to Jules (Charles Malik Whitfield) and his trafficking underbelly. These additions, announced alongside the renewal, promise to escalate the “endless drama” from interpersonal sabotage to corporate espionage with federal stakes.
Perry, who writes, directs, and executive produces under his multi-year Netflix deal, leaned into the show’s themes of power’s corrupting allure during a Tudum panel. “Season 3 digs deeper into the beauty myth—what we hide under powder and pretense,” he said, his signature intensity on full display. “Kimmie’s not just surviving anymore; she’s rewriting the rules. But every queen needs a court, and these new players? They’re jesters with knives.” Williams, whose breakout role has her Emmy buzz simmering, echoed the sentiment in a post-trailer interview with USA Today: “Kimmie’s arc this season is about owning the wounds that made her. The trailer’s twist? It’s the spark that lights the whole powder keg—fans are gonna lose their minds dissecting it.” Stewart, no stranger to Perry’s universe from The Haves and the Have Nots, added fuel: “Mallory’s downfall in Season 2 was just the appetizer. Now? It’s scorched earth, and that warehouse scene… let’s just say, no one’s safe.”
The wild twist hits like a lye burn: As flames engulf a Beauty in Black distribution warehouse—symbolizing the toxic legacy of their products—the camera pans through the inferno to reveal a singed hand clutching a vial labeled “Project Phoenix.” It’s not just arson; it’s sabotage from within, and the fingers? They belong to someone we thought was dead since Season 1’s mid-season massacre. “Who is that?!” exploded across X within minutes, with @Isaiah_Jaay pausing at 1:48 to zoom in: “Frame by frame, y’all—those rings? That’s [redacted]! Season 3 bout to resurrect the dead and bury the living! #BeautyInBlackS3” racking up 2K likes. On Reddit’s r/Netflix, u/AggravatingShow2028 theorized: “The twist ties back to the trafficking ring—Project Phoenix is their new drug-laced lipstick? Kimmie’s rise just got a resurrection plot. Rewatched 10x, still shook.” X threads lit up with side-by-side comparisons to Season 2’s finale, where a similar vial vanished in a shootout, fueling conspiracies about time jumps or twin swaps. “This ain’t no accident—Perry’s playing 4D chess,” tweeted @Jabu_Macdonald, dissecting Mallory’s smirk in the pre-fire boardroom clip.
Critics, once divided on the show’s formulaic flair and graphic edge—The Guardian called Season 1 “a disaster of one-dimensional tropes,” while Decider praised its unapologetic grit—are warming to its addictive pull. TVLine hailed the trailer as “a masterclass in escalation,” noting how new faces like Arnold and Tate amplify the old wounds of greed and grief. Production, helmed at Tyler Perry Studios, wrapped Season 2’s back half amid Atlanta’s summer heat, with Perry teasing reshoots for Season 3 to “nail that resurrection glow.” Guest stars like Randall J. Bacon as a crooked cop and Kajanee Smith as Zara’s confidante add procedural thrills to the soap suds, while the score—remixed R&B anthems underscoring betrayal—amps the emotional wreckage.
For U.S. viewers, Season 3 Part 1 hits Netflix in late summer 2026, with Part 2 following by early 2027, mirroring the split-drop strategy that kept Seasons 1 and 2 in the Top 10 for months. Globally, it’s already trending in the UK and Brazil, where the Bellarie family’s dysfunction resonates like a universal mirror to capitalism’s ugly underbelly. As Perry’s second Netflix series (She the People debuts later this year), Beauty in Black cements his streaming pivot, proving that in a sea of prestige dramas, sometimes you crave the unfiltered chaos of a family imploding over foundation flaws.
The trailer’s twist isn’t just wild—it’s a resurrection that redefines revenge, forcing Kimmie to confront ghosts she thought buried. Fans aren’t just rewatching; they’re remixing, memeing, and manifesting theories that could spawn fanfic empires. In Perry’s world, beauty is skin-deep, but drama? It’s eternal. Stream Seasons 1 and 2 now, because when Season 3 rises from the ashes, you’ll want to be powdered up and ready.
