Sherri Shepherd fulfilled a childhood dream Monday when a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was unveiled in her honor, marking the 30th anniversary of her career in comedy, acting and daytime television.
Tyler Perry, Niecy Nash and producer Ira Bernstein joined Shepherd at Monday’s ceremony in front of the W Hollywood Hotel at 6258 Hollywood Blvd.
“I’ve dreamed about having my own talk show since I was a little girl,” Shepherd said just before the 2,827th star on the Walk of Fame was unveiled.
“I used to always dream that I was going to be somebody, ’cause on my report card it always said, `Sherri is amazing and she’s wonderful, but she talks too much.’ So before I got in trouble, I knew it was going to pay off — me talking too much.”
Shepherd grew emotional as she thanked her 20-year-old son, Jeffrey, who was born prematurely and later diagnosed with autism.
“My biggest shout-out is to my son, Jeffrey Tarpley — my son who was born at 25 weeks, a pound and 10 ounces, and everybody told me he wouldn’t be here,” Shepherd said. “Everything that I do, everything that I am, is for my baby. He’s 20, but he’ll always be my baby.”
Before Shepherd took the podium, Perry reflected on her impact both as a performer and as a friend. He produced “Precious,” the 2009 Oscar best picture nominee in which Shepherd co-starred. He directed, wrote and produced the psychological crime drama “Straw,” released in June on Netflix in which Shepherd co-starred as a bank teller who meets a struggling single mother (Taraji P. Henson) who is having the worst day of her life.
“There are many people on the planet that were sent here to bring light, and then there are other people who are here to be light. Sherri is a person who is light. When she walks in the room, you feel it, you know it. She makes everybody feel seen,” Perry said.
Nash and Shepherd appeared together in the 2005 romantic comedy “Guess Who.” Shepherd later had a recurring role on the 2012-16 TV Land comedy “The Soul Man,” in which Nash was a series regular. Nash, who received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2018, praised Shepherd’s resilience and generosity.
“You will never know what it costs her sometimes to make other people laugh and to make them feel … and I’m so, so grateful to call you (a) friend,” an emotional Nash told Shepherd.
“I would’ve never thought that these two girls … would both have stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame right across the street from each other,” Nash added.
Bernstein, co-president of Debmar-Mercury, which distributes Shepherd’s talk show “Sherri,” said her genuine personality is what sets her apart.
“There’s a saying in television, `that if you’re on every day, your real self shows through.’ In Sherri’s case, that’s her superpower. What you see on screen is truly who she is — warm, authentic, full of joy and genuinely in love with what she does every day,” Bernstein said.
Born April 22, 1967, in Chicago, Shepherd began her television acting career in 1995 as a cast member on The WB comedy “Cleghorne!” which was canceled after 12 episodes aired.
Shepherd was working as a legal secretary when she was cast as the dim-witted sister of Ellen Carson (Ellen Cleghorne) who aspires to become a model.
“My agent told me, `You can quit your job,”’ Shepherd said in a 2018 interview with Ebony. “I had that big break … and then it was canceled. I lost my apartment, my car was repossessed and I was homeless for a year. I slept on everybody’s couch.
“In this business, it’s very uncertain. You can be working one day and not working the next.”
After guest-starring roles on “Claude’s Crib,” “Living Single,” “Suddenly Susan” and “Friends,” Shepherd was cast in her second series, “Holding the Baby,” which ran for eight episodes on Fox in 1998.
Shepherd was a cast member on the NBC comedy “Suddenly Susan” during its final 1999-2000 season, playing a different character than in her 1997 guest-starring appearance.
She was also a cast member of the 2001 NBC comedy “Emeril”; the 2002 ABC comedy, “Wednesday 9:30 (8:30 Central)”; the 2002-06 ABC comedy “Less Than Perfect”; the 2007 Fox comedy-drama “The Wedding Bells”; the 2009 Lifetime comedy “Sherri”; the 2017-18 NBC mocumentary legal sitcom “Trial & Error”; and the 2019-20 Netflix comedy “Mr. Iglesias.”
Shepherd also had recurring roles on the CBS comedies “Everybody Loves Raymond,” “How I Met Your Mother” and “Man With a Plan”; the NBC comedy “30 Rock”; the Disney Channel comedy “K.C. Undercover”; The WB comedy “The Jamie Foxx Show”; the 2021 ABC comedy “Call Your Mother”; and the 2024-25 Netflix teen comedy drama, “The Sex Lives of College Girls.”
She was a host of “The View” from 2007-14, joining her co-hosts in receiving Daytime Emmy nominations from 2008-2011 and 2014, winning in 2009. She has hosted “Sherri” since 2022 after being a guest host of “The Wendy Williams Show.”
Shepherd is set to begin a five-month comedy tour in January.