Sherri Shepherd Dishes on Her New Sitcom

who the hell cares. i don't care what she has to say. I can't believe this show is till on the air, there must be alot of lonely people with nothing to watch.

lisa lore

You know her best as an outspoken foil to Whoopi and Barbara on "The View." But paralegal-turned-stand-up comedian Sherri Shepherd has also done time on sitcoms from "Everyone Loves Raymond" to "30 Rock."

And although the Chicago-raised actress dropped some major pounds this summer, she's scored big with her own Lifetime laugh-fest, aptly entitled "Sherri." The show -- about a paralegal/comedian who drops her dead-weight husband when she finds out he cheated -- is based on Shepherd's real life foibles. We caught up with Shepherd to gab about mining her real life for TV, balancing multiple careers and her new book, "Permission Slips," which hits shelves today.

On putting her real-life divorce into the show: "It was based on my life and my stand-up comedy. This is something that I've gone through. Divorcing my husband, infidelity, a child from another woman -- and dealing with it all but having friends that helped me get through it. It was very cathartic to get onstage and talk about it, and I've found that a lot of women are going through this. It's really about how I move on from it because that's a portion of my life that I didn't choose to dwell on. So many upcoming episodes are about my life in the show dealing with being a single mother. I think when women see it, it will make them feel good because it shows women how you can pass hurt and how you work on forgiveness and how you get strength from your friends."

On taking center stage: "I'm not used to actually being the star. In everything I've ever done, you've seen me as the secretary or the best friend. You get your zingers and you leave. In this show, I get long monologues and I had to get used to that. It was a big adjustment I had to make. And I never got to kiss all these men! Every week they have me kissing a different man, which I'm loving. When Malcolm Jamal Warner auditioned for [the role of my ex-husband], I wasn't even really feeling him because I said, 'That's Theo from 'The Cosby Show!' But then he walked in and he was swollen up like he had just gotten out of prison. I said 'That's not Theo at all from 'The Cosby Show.' When are they going to write a sex scene? It was a bit of an adjustment, but I love it because [the show] is telling my life and it's very cathartic for me in the healing process."

On sharing the spotlight: "I do have two jobs, so I can't walk in and say, 'I'm tired today.' They'll look at me and say 'You can't be tired! Our livelihood depends on you.' It's a little bit of pressure but I love it. It's challenging and I love the fact that I have this amazing cast. I tell all my co-stars that I am not a girl who has to hog the spotlight. I told them that as soon as the show gets on the air and becomes a success, everybody needs to help me do the publicity. I don't need the limelight. I'm really, really thankful of the cast I have. Malcolm Jamal-Warner, Kali Rocha, Tammy Townsend, James Avery -- they are really truly, truly funny."

On balancing raising a family with her two jobs: "I guess if it were a job that I hated it would be very hard. But this job is a dream come true for me. I've always wanted to have a talk show, I've always wanted to have my own sitcom and I've always wanted to make people laugh. So it's all coming true. It just energizes me. I keep thinking that if you pinch me, I'll wake back up as a legal secretary with some lawyer telling me to get him some coffee. [But then there's] the guilt. My son had an ear infection. And he called me and said, 'Mommy, my ear hurts!' I was in the middle of doing a photo shoot for the show so I had to push that sad feeling down and keep smiling. I hope he'll look back and say, 'Mommy did the best she could to take care of me.' I'm trying to do all of this and be there for my son. My dream is to provide for him and be there for him, to show him what a strong woman is."

On her new book, "Permission Slips": "It’s a bunch of funny stories from my life. It came about when I was on 'The View,' in my first few days. I was so nervous and Barbara [Walters] asked me if I thought the Earth was round or flat and I said I didn't know! I had so much coming at me -- I had a brain fart. At the end, she said, 'Dear, the Earth is round' and I said 'I know that!' And then I found out that I was the second-most Googled person in the country. People said they hated me and I didn't expect the backlash I got. I came in the next day and Whoopi [Goldberg], Elisabeth [Hasselbeck], Joy [Behar] and Barbara were so supportive. I even went on 'Jay Leno' with a globe and said 'I am not the blonde Jessica Simpson.' That didn't help. It will follow me till the day I do and it's okay. Because I got hundreds of emails from women who said, 'We totally get where you're coming from. We don't care if the world is round or flat either. I'm just trying to take care of my child. I'm just trying to be a good wife.' It was so overwhelming, the support, and that is the onus for writing this book. Women are always trying to hold ourselves together. We're trying to be the perfect wife, perfect mother and inside we're falling apart. Sometimes it's okay to give ourselves permission and say 'It's alright! I'm going to let my kids watch cartoons for two hours because I have to sleep some more and he's not going to die.'"
 
Catch "Sherri" in previews at 7 p.m. ET/PT every night this week on Lifetime, and Tuesdays at 10 p.m.  ET/PT starting next week.