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Sherri Shepherd – Newlywed Game takes on a new VIEW

January 1, 2011 by  
Filed under Cover Story, Feature

By Kimberly Bailey-Tureaud

If you find yourself watching Channel 13 (ABC) at 10 a.m. on a typical weekday, chances are you will be unable to turn away from “The View.” One of the reasons the show has grown in popularity over the past three seasons: the effervescence of its newest co-host, Sherri Shepherd.

Her bright, joyful smile and winning personality have propelled the onetime legal secretary to superstardom as a comedian, actress and talk show host. What many may not realize is how many years of hard work it took to land Shepherd, 43, on the stage to mix it up with Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar and Elizabeth Hasselbeck during the show’s signature “Hot Topics” segment.
“What I can say about my career is that I just didn’t blow up overnight,” she said. “You might now be hearing my name from a lot of seeds that have been planted, and those seeds are now blooming. I started in this business back in 1991, while I was still working as a legal secretary and doing standup comedy on the side. I was working with Jamie Foxx, D.L. Hughley and Chris Tucker back then in comedy clubs.”

Today, she is making a new kind of history, as the first African-American woman to host “The Newlywed Game,” which airs on GSN. As Shepherd describes it, this new stage of her career is nothing short of a blessing. “I am so excited about hosting ‘The Newlywed Game,’ and I am so thankful that the whole production was moved to New York to work around my ‘View’ schedule,” she said. “It is such a crazy thing for me, because typically for game shows you only see white men hosting. Now it seems like a new day with Wayne Brady hosting ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ and Steve Harvey hosting ‘Family Feud.’ I think my grandmother never thought she would see Barack Obama as our first black president and see her granddaughter ask, ‘Where’s the strangest place you ever made whoopee?’ It is really exciting.”

A recently divorced single mother, Shepherd insists that one of the keys to her success is keeping God first. “God gives you people, he opens doors and sometimes I wake up in the morning and ask myself, ‘What scares me the most today?’ I then go toward my fear and I just do it,” she said. “So when they came to me and asked if I wanted to host ‘The Newlywed Game,’ I was scared to death because I had never done that before. It scared me so bad I said, ‘Yeah, I will do it.’ I was also asked to [guest host] ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.’ Now I am the Oprah of game shows.”

In addition to her television work (she has had her own sitcom, as well as recurring roles on several series, including the critically-acclaimed “30 Rock”), Shepherd is also an author. In 2009, she wrote the empowering “Permission Slips: Every Woman’s Guide to Giving Herself a Break,” which was published to rave reviews. Asked how she keeps such a multifaceted career moving forward, Shepherd was unequivocal about the importance of keeping one’s dreams and goals in harmony.
“Fear is a big barrier for some women in stopping them from doing what they want to do,” she said. “We might think that people will think we are silly or stupid if we pursue a dream we have for ourselves. That thing in your belly that makes you scared — run toward it. Because if you go toward it, there are blessings on the other side. A dream has to be bigger than what you think you can accomplish.”

Comments

4 Responses to “Sherri Shepherd – Newlywed Game takes on a new VIEW”
  1. kudos to you Sherri 😀 you deserve to be where you are now 🙂

  2. shirley vanderplas says:

    The Newlywed Game has taken a turn to the worst the questions are indecent. we no longer watch it Why do we need more junk on T V

  3. URL says:

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