Sherri Shepherd is a comedian, actress, producer. Perhaps best known as one of the cohosts on ABC’s The View. She has a brand new show Wedding Fabulous: Sherri Shepherd Gets Married 9 o’clock on the Style Network. Hello there, Sherri.

Sherri Shepherd:                   Hey, how are you?

 LO:                  I’m so, look at you. Come on ask me how I’m doing. Thank you so much for hanging out with us.

Sherri Shepherd:                   Well, you know what it’s just a dear compliment. I really appreciative that you’re having me on.

LO:                  Okay, here’s the deal, what are you trying to do on The View? Is it voicing your own opinion? Are you trying to give rise to a certain perspective? Or are you just out there entertaining? What are you trying to do when you go do The View every day?

Sherri Shepherd:                   You know what, it’s a mixture of all of that. I mean I was not hired to be a political pundit. You know, they knew my background. I came from being a legal secretary. I was a Jehovah’s Witness that didn’t vote. I was just over there trying to raise my son. I was a standup comic and an actress. So, you know, everybody knew I came from an entertainment background, and somebody who was just new to the entire political arena. But I had an opinion on some stuff. So, yeah, I do, I get paid to voice my opinion. I take a stand on things, and sometimes when I’m sitting there with Dick Cheney, I’m like, okay, you done spoke for 10 minutes, I don’t know what you said.

LO:                  [LAUGHS] This is a serious question, but you might not think it is. Should men watch The View, or is it let’s just let you women do your thing?

Sherri Shepherd:                   No, I absolutely think no. if you’re a smart man, you want to get totally ahead of the game. You want to be one step ahead of your woman. So if you come up and you talking to your woman about, you know, the fact of, hey I heard that, you know, hanging around with kids, my testosterone is lowered. She’s like, what? Where did you hear that? And you get into a whole discussion, but you find out a lady’s point of view, you’re so ahead of the game.

LO:                  Because I got to admit, you know, we work in a studio, so there’s a TV on and I’m just saying sometimes The View is on and I feel like, you know, sometimes like, should I be watching this?

Sherri Shepherd:                   Yes you should.

LO:                  Okay.

Sherri Shepherd:                   Because that way you can go to the bar and have this great conversation and some woman’s walking away going, you know what, I really like him.

LO:                  Yeah, okay. And my testosterone level does not drop by watching it?

Sherri Shepherd:                   [LAUGHS] No, it doesn’t.

LO:                  Okay, thank you for freeing me of my guilt. Behind the scenes, is there politics going on? Like, is there lobbying for you to get like a segment you want or does Barbara ever come out and say, hey you know what, this is my favorite. She’s doing this. Is there politicking?

Sherri Shepherd:                   Well, I mean, you know, it depends on people’s, you know sometimes we have, there’s a priority over something else. So we have to decide on what day if we have time to do something. But generally, if we have something that we’re passionate about, we can bring it to the table. Absolutely, there’s no problem with that. And is there politicking? I mean, you know, in every place you go there’s politics. There’s politics to a marriage. You have to figure out what it is. But I mean, I’ve never…this is really, truly a rewarding job to me. I love coming in every single morning. If it was crazy, I couldn’t do it.

LO:                  Is Barbara the hammer though? She’s the heavy, like if something goes down, Barbara just drops the, you know.

Sherri Shepherd:                   No, I would not characterize Barbara as the hammer. I, she’s more, she’s our big kahuna. But Barbara will absolutely go to bat for people, and I’ve seen it happen that if something, I swear, if I got caught over the border and they put me in jail, and it was a drug bust, and it wasn’t me, the first person I go and say, Barbara Walters. Can you call her?

LO:                  Awe, that is awesome.

Sherri Shepherd:                   Not that I’d be caught in a drug bust over the border. I don’t even know if…

LO:                  Hypothetically speaking. Hypothetically…

Sherri Shepherd:                   But if you ever did.

LO:                  [LAUGHS] So you…

SS:                   Barbara Walters.

LO:                  [LAUGHS] So you had success before The View, but I imagine The View gave you a whole new level of visibility. You do a slew of things, game shows, 30 Rock. How now do you decide what projects you want to take on?

Sherri Shepherd:                   You know what, I am a mother first. So I have to say, well how does this affect Jeffery? Because everything I do I’m trying to figure out how I can spend time with my son and how I can be there for the you know, parent association meetings at his school. So that’s why I haven’t been on Dancing With the Stars this far because it really would take me away from Jeffery. So, you know, when I consider things, I go, who can take care of him? That’s my number one priority of if I say yes or no.

LO:                  And then everything else after this, like entertaining or what’s going to stretch you or?

Sherri Shepherd:                   Yeah, what’s going to stretch me, you know, it’s like I did Precious. You know that was nominated. It was a serious part, and it was like I’d never done a dramatic part. So I auditioned for it and I booked it. So it’s just like let’s go down that road.

LO:                  As I mentioned at the beginning, you have a brand new show coming up, Wedding Fabulous: Sherri Shepherd Gets Married. You know, why throw your wedding on TV? Isn’t it supposed to be some intimate moment? Why open it up, well, for instance to me?

Sherri Shepherd:                   Well, you know what, somebody like me, I’m obsessed with bridal shows. I watch them religiously, and I always wonder what goes on behind the scenes. So I figured, geez, I’m getting married and this is such a crazy shenanigans going on, I figured, you know, I like watching bridal shows. So I said well somebody else, I think they might like watching it and they might like to see it and laugh. We got a lot of funny things in there. I mean I learn how to cook for Sal, and I burnt up the rotisserie oven trying to cook the chicken, started a fire. He can’t move in the house, you know, because I’ve got all my stuff. We’re trying to do a bridal party dance. I lied about my wedding dress, the size, so whenElizabethwent with me nothing fit. So it’s just all kinds of chaos that goes on and I just wanted to share a fun day.

LO:                  Sherri, I feel like we’ve come close on this, so let’s try to drum up some ill here. Why did you have success with some of the publicity for your wedding, but your previous View host, Starr Jones got killed for doing some publicity for her wedding?

Sherri Shepherd:                   Well, I think if you look at Starr Jones and you look at me, there was two totally different women and I think I’m coming from the time, not going to speak for Starr Jones. But for Sherri Shepherd, I’m coming from this from a place of pure fun. I am not…I don’t need you to give me anything. I just want to share with you of how fun it was to make this day possible. And as well, for my bridal registry, Sal and I, we don’t need another toaster, so we were asking people instead of buying us a gift, there were two charities that were close to our heart, embrace.org andHalesFranciscanAcademy, they send under privileged youth to college. Embrace.org helps homeless people and theIraqvets, and we said, don’t get us a toaster. So whatever you were going to give to us, give to these two charities. In addition, I’m giving away the wedding dress I wore and the pair of crystals, foroski covered crystal shoes that I wore at my wedding. I want people to have…be blessed the way I was blessed. So I don’t speak for Starr Jones, I can just speak for me. If you know my heart and you know who I am and you follow me, you’re a fan, you know exactly why I’m doing this.

LO:                  Okay.

Sherri Shepherd:                   So I have no shame in my game. That’s what I should say.

LO:                  [LAUGHS] So if someone is getting married, would you advise them to watch the show or maybe TiVo it and then watch it after they get married?

 Sherri Shepherd:                   No, I say watch it because I think you’re going to laugh, and I think you might learn a couple things like slash your budget. Don’t be going for everything. You might want everything but can’t get it.

LO:                  Okay, anything else we need? I like that tip.

Sherri Shepherd:                   No, I think that’s it and, you know, stay married. I’m four weeks in, I got 19 years to go.

LO:                  Okay, here last question, why put your man through all this? You know, men don’t want to get married to begin with, then we got to go sit through all the other junk that goes on. Why put him through the ringer?

Sherri Shepherd:                   You know, yeah. He wasn’t for it. I had to convince him how much fun it would be. And you know what? He actually had a good time. Just shows you, sometimes you got to listen to your woman.

LO:                  The show is Wedding Fabulous: Sherri Shepherd Gets Married, 9 o’clock on the Style Network. Sherri, you’re a hoot. Thank you.

Sherri Shepherd:                   Thank you. Have a good one.

LO:                  Alright.