Sherri Shepherd wants to make sure everything is clear about where all her life victories come from.
The talk show host and comedian was one of the premier speakers at this year’s Black Enterprise Women of Power Summit in Las Vegas, and there was no shortage of outspoken gratitude from her the entire time.
“I used to be like, ‘How are Black women feeling about me?'” Shepherd said. “I’m representing this. How would these people feel, or how would Christians feel about things? I would get on the blogs to see what people were saying, and it would exhaust me… At this point, I don’t care because I know what my position is with God.”
Shepherd said the glow the public sees in her now while raising an autistic son, moving to New York from Los Angeles, and going through a public divorce came from changing her perspective.
“When people say things about me, it doesn’t bother me because I know where I stand with my Father, and I know where I stand with my son,” Shepherd said. “And my close friends who will call and check in on me. Life is too short to be bogged down with the weight of everybody because you can’t please everybody. If you try to make people like you and they don’t, then they don’t, but there are so many other people who do love you. Why am I wasting my time with people who don’t know me and don’t know my son? So I carry that thought around that I’m only trying to please One [God].”
Shepherd also shared that she’s appreciative of her relationship with Oprah Winfrey, and how she speaks with both Tamron Hall and Jennifer Hudson as fellow Black women who have daytime talk shows. At the end of the day, however, she did admit it’s still a numbers game and she wants to have the highest-rated show.
“Make no mistake, I do want to beat Tamron and Jennifer Hudson in the ratings,” Shepherd said. “I want to be No. 1 because there can only be one No. 1 with the ratings, but we’re all up there. I love seeing my sisters flying and doing well. I watch them both every day.”
Shepherd also opened up on her fitness journey. It’s something she takes seriously because her mother was diabetic, and she couldn’t watch Shepherd grow into the successful woman she’s become. Her motivation is to be there for her son now.
“It’s not that I want to fit into a bikini,” Shepherd said. “I just want to live. I want to help. I want to be able to feel good because God has a purpose for us. It’s hard fulfilling a purpose when you don’t feel good. We have to care because we all have that mask… I don’t want it to be a facade, and then when I get home, I’m stuffing my face with a bunch of different things. I had to learn to eat better. Little changes every day get big results at the end of the year. Just little changes; I drink more water. I drink so much water I almost pee on myself when I’m doing the show.”
