Sherri Shepherd is opening up about how her time on The View changed and expanded her perspective on the world.
Appearing on the Sept. 23 episode of The Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast, Shepherd, 58, explained how joining the ABC daytime talk show helped her embrace her own political voice after growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness.
“I was a Jehovah’s Witness so I didn’t vote. I didn’t start voting until I got on The View,” Shepherd told host Jamie Kern Lima.
According to the website for Jehovah’s Witnesses, those who follow the religion are encouraged to “remain politically neutral for religious reasons, based on what the Bible teaches.” This includes not lobbying or voting for political candidates, running for government office or participating in actions to change governments.(L-R) Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd and Barbara Walters on ‘The View’.
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Shepherd then revealed how two of her co-hosts, Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg, encouraged her to open her mind and question things for herself.
“[When] you feel lke you fail … I feel like, don’t look at it as failure. Just get back up and fix or course correct,” she explained. “And for The View, I didn’t know anything about politics — I’d never voted before — and one time Barbara Walters said to me, ‘Dear, read a book.'”
“All I knew was what the church taught me. That’s what it was. I didn’t think for myself,” she continued. “What I realized is sometimes we have to get out of where we live. We have to go travel the world. We have to meet people that are different from us. Because when you don’t, that’s how you get prejudice and that’s how you get judgmental.”
Shepherd then recalled another time on The View when the women were discussing a topic, recalling how Goldberg asked her, “But what do you think? What do you think about that?”
“And I was like, ‘I don’t know,'” she remembered.
Shepherd joined The View in 2007 and remained a co-host for seven seasons, giving up her chair at the “Hot Topics” table in 2014.
Shepherd was also part of the panel when she, along with Walters, Goldberg, Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck, won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Daytime Talk Series Host in 2009.(L-R) Elisabeeth Hasselbeck, Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Walters, Joy Behar and Sherri Shepherd on ‘The View’.
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Shepherd credited Behar with helping her let go of the “weight of the world” she said she used to carry on her shoulders on The View, believing she had to represent Black people, women and Christians without letting those groups down.
It was Behar who helped her realize she couldn’t please everyone and that she should speak her truth, Shepherd noted.
“That’s a lot to carry,” she said. “And Joy Behar said to me, ‘Sherri, the moment you open your mouth, half the world is gonna hate you. So go by what you feel and what you think.'”
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Shepherd said that advice from her The View co-hosts helped her begin “stepping out of my comfort zone,” which has led her to her own talk show, Sherri, airing weekdays in syndication.
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