Just days into the new season of her daytime talk show, Sherri Shepherd has tested positive for COVID, bringing production to a halt.
Shepherd announced the unfortunate news and shared a message to her viewers in a post to the Sherri Instagram account. “I am absolutely heartbroken that I cannot return to host my show this week,” she said. “As soon as I get the all-clear from my doctor, I look forward to coming back strong to deliver the fun, laughter, and a real good time.”
The post included a message from the show, stating encore episodes from the beginning of the week will air instead of new episodes.
Sherri just returned for Season 2 on Monday, Sept. 18, before production came to a halt. Shepherd was joined by comedians Michelle Buteau and Brad Williams for the Season 2 premiere, and was slated to have Katherine Heigl, Leslie Jones, and Julie Chen Moonves join her later this week.
She began her new season by explaining why she chose to bring the show back despite so many other daytime talk series choosing to stay off the air during the ongoing writers strike. According to Shepherd, returning with the show did not count as “crossing the picket line.”
“This summer you all may have seen your favorite actors and Hollywood stars have been on the picket lines with the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes,” she explained, per Entertainment Weekly. “There has been so much confusion about who can work and who can’t work. Well, for me, I am a SAG-AFTRA actress and I actually marched with some of my colleagues while I was in Los Angeles recently.”
She said, “Talk shows, in general, fall under a different union contract code, so we are allowed to come back unless you are a WGA show. Now, the Sherri show is not a WGA show. We have never employed WGA writers, so us coming back to work is not crossing the picket line.”
Shepherd said that, technically, she’s “the writer” on Sherri.
“As a comic, my comedic take on the headlines is my voice,” she said. “I write my jokes. I’m the writer, and I’m not in the WGA. I have the producers who help me shape my words, which is why we don’t have WGA writers over here at Sherri.”
This is not the first talk show to resume production during the writers strike.
Drew Barrymore brought back The Drew Barrymore Show last week to much criticism before she ultimately reversed her decision, after which The Jennifer Hudson Show and The Talk also delayed their season premieres.