The Real Reason You Don't Hear From Sherri Shepherd Anymore
There was a time when it felt like Sherri Shepherd was constantly on our television screens. The Emmy Award-winning star was dishing about hot topics as a co-host of The View from 2007 until 2014, and she has also appeared in several major films, including Beauty Shop, and 2009's blockbuster hit, Precious.
Like most celebrities at the height of their careers, numerous doors began to open up for the actress and comedienne. She was invited to guest star on 30 Rock, and she even had a pretty good run as a contestant on Season 14 of Dancing With the Stars, which aired in 2012, though she and her partner, Val Chmerkovskiy, were ultimately eliminated.
It wasn't until 2014 when Shepherd made headlines for all the wrong reasons: a nasty divorce battle and surrogacy dispute that overshadowed all of the exemplary strides she had made in Hollywood.
After her personal life became the source of incessant tabloid fodder, she seemingly disappeared from the limelight. Here's the real reason you don't hear from Sherri Shepherd anymore.
She wants to help women feel beautiful, one hair strand at a time
On any given day, you never know what Shepherd will look like. She might be sporting a blonde bob, a shoulder-length brunette number, or some curly, jet black locks. The television personality has been wearing wigs ever since she was a little girl, and she loves to slay a gorgeously styled hairpiece to protect her natural tresses. "Being in this business, they put so much heat on your hair that I would be bald since I do a show every single day," she told Essence magazine. "I love wigs because they give you such a different look. At any time you can pull a wig out of the box, shake it, and throw it on. I go from short to long to curly to straight and I love that I can have so much variety with hair."
Her love for wigs prompted her to partner up with a company called LUXHAIR in 2013 to release her very own line of wigs. "We worked together to come up with styles because I really wanted something practical that women could wear when they go to work," she said. "Now, I feel comfortable saying to my customers, 'I wear this wig so I know it's going to work for you.'"
That explains why she's not in the spotlight as much as previous years. She's too busy wiggin' out and growing her business empire!
Though unlucky in love, she wanted to help others
The two-time divorcée has been a bit unlucky in the romance department. She married Jeffrey Tarpley in 2001 and in 2006, she gave birth to their son, also named Jeffrey. Sadly, things immediately went downhill from there.
During divorce proceedings, the Ride Along 2 star told the court that after giving birth to her son prematurely, she returned home from the neonatal intensive care unit to find pictures of her then-husband having sex with a random woman, whom he later impregnated, according to TMZ. And no one was the least bit surprised when their marriage ended in divorce in 2010.
She moved on and tied the knot with Lamar Sally Sr. in 2011, and The Style Network even featured their nuptials on the program, Wedding Fabulous: Sherri Shepherd Gets Married. That marriage also ended in a tumultuous public battle, which we'll get into in a bit.
Despite her personal love life being in complete shambles, Shepherd made it her mission to assist other love hopefuls on their quest to find their perfect match. She was the executive producer for a "Black bachelors show" called Match Made in Heaven, Ebony reported. The show premiered on WEtv, but it didn't make it past the second season. However, it kept Shepherd pretty busy behind the scenes during the entire production process.
She returned to her roots
Instead of showing off her acting prowess in front of camera lenses, Shepherd hit the road to focus on her true love: stand-up comedy. And when she wasn't perfecting her own hilarious routine, she was working behind the scenes to make the magic happen for others.
While speaking with N'Digo, the Think Like a Man star said, "Right now I'm producing a one-man show for the comedian, [Anthony "Scruncho" McKinley]. He's a former drug dealer who went to prison and is now a successful comic."
McKinley felt honored to work with the comedic legend, telling the L.A. Sentinel, "You usually don't meet genuinely nice people. She is a nice lady, she is generous, kind, funny and smart. She has found a way to maintain her humbleness."
It was the first time the lovable TV personality worked as a theatrical producer, and she told N'Digo in 2017 that she was "absolutely loving" her new gig.
Shes a working mom all decked out in pjs
After the birth of her son, Jeffrey (pictured), in 2006, Shepherd cranked the humor down a bit to put her energy into parenthood. And when her marriage to her first husband ended in 2010, she became laser-focused on the difficult task of being a single mom.
She still manages to simultaneously juggle her career with her motherly duties, but the comedienne and actress revealed just how much of a hands-on mom she really is. "I took him [to school] this morning. I went in my pajamas with no bra on. I was like, 'please Lord, don't let the police stop me,'" she joked to Ebony. "I don't have my hair on. I got these crazy looking pajamas on with my house shoes. Please don't let this be the day where they take me and drag me out the car.'"
Although she's making light of her responsibilities, we give her props for holding it down as a working mother!
She's a writing machine
During her first week as co-host of The View, Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg asked Shepherd if she thought the Earth was round or flat. "The response that came out was, 'I don't know. I'm trying to take care of my son,'" Shepherd said while recalling the incident to Time magazine.
The backlash she received from the public was immense. "I was really nervous. I was totally outside of my comfort zone, and I made a comment that I didn't mean to make. It was a brain fart. I did not know that people were going to hate me as much as they did. I mean, like hate me," she said.
The incident also inspired her to write her book, Permission Slips: Every Woman's Guide to Giving Herself a Break. "I got a ton of emails from women saying, 'I don't care if the Earth is round or flat either, Sherri. I'm just trying to pay my bills.' That's when I realized that we've gotta give ourselves a break or permission to say dumb things and keep moving." Genius.
She also wrote Plan D: How to Lose Weight and Beat Diabetes (Even If You Don't Have It) and revealed to N'Digo 2017, "I'm also working on a book about going through hardships and how you can come up for air and be able to smile again."
She's had some surrogacy drama
Following their 2011 wedding, Shepherd and her then-husband, Sally (pictured), agreed to have a child via surrogate. Lamar Jr. was ultimately conceived using Sally's sperm and a donor egg. But once their marriage hit the skids, Shepherd was done with Sally and the unborn baby.
It took a lengthy court battle for Shepherd to be declared the legal mother of the baby and financially responsible for his wellbeing.
She later told People magazine the reason she agreed to have a child with her then-husband in the first place. "My situation was a sense of, I didn't state what I needed and what I wanted and what I didn't want for being scared of somebody leaving the relationship," she said. "There are consequences to everything, but I was scared to say, 'That's not going to work for me. I don't want that.'"
Though Shepherd is obligated to take care of Lamar Jr.'s financial needs, as well as his health insurance, she doesn't have a relationship with him at all. "I've just chosen to take myself out, because I think it's worse for a child with two parents not getting along. He deserves to have a–a mother in his life that loves his father and who's committed... so he doesn't know me," she told The Dr. Oz Show (via Rolling Out).
The battle of the exes
Her first husband, Tarpley, was unhappy with the $131 a month in child support he was receiving, so in March 2018, he asked a judge for an increase. But that wasn't the only time one of Shepherd's exes came for her pockets.
After her second ex-husband, Sally, requested (and was ultimately denied) an increase in his alleged $4,100 per month that Shepherd was paying in child support for the son that was conceived through surrogacy, Shepherd took to her Twitter to write, "How many ex husbands does it take to get money from a single mom. Two. #dumb and #dumber #getalife #getajob."
Her angered stemmed from her belief that Sally was using the child support payments to support his lifestyle. "For the record... I always offered to financially care for my ex-husband's son. What he was demanding was not fair & allowed him to not work," she wrote in a follow-up tweet.
When the former TV host came across a dating profile of Sally's, complete with his bio where he described himself as "well off," Shepherd fired shots via Twitter once again. "'Hmmm I wonder if he's using the #ChildSupport money I pay for him to be 'well off,'" she wrote.
So, not only is she busy raising her son, but she continues to get dragged into court over money and custody issues. And you really surprised you don't hear from her anymore?