In July 2014, Sherri Shepherd’s lawyers filed paperwork in her then-ongoing divorce battle with her estranged husband, Lamar Sally. The papers were basically Sherri’s declaration that she did not want any part of the child she and Lamar were expecting via surrogate, a child who had not even been born when Lamar Sally dropped the divorce filing on Sherri. Sherri claimed that Lamar was attempting to defraud her, that he only wanted a child so that he could get child support from Sherri. Then, back in July of this year, a judge ruled that Sherri would have to pay child support for the kid that Sherri said she never wanted. The catch was that if Sherri could prove that Lamar Sally defrauded her, she wouldn’t have to pay child support. It was an especially crazy legal decision, made even crazier by the fact that biologically, the kid isn’t Sherri’s – Sherri and Lamar used a donor egg and Lamar’s sperm.
Anyway, a lot of people were queasy about every part of this story. It’s a unique legal decision, it reflects poorly on parents who use gestational carriers, donor eggs, etc. Sherri looked bad because she kept publicly stating that she wanted no part in this child’s life, when at one point… she definitely did. She definitely agreed to it at some point. In any case, Sherri is speaking about all of the drama in a new interview with People Magazine. Some highlights:
What went wrong: “My situation was a sense of, I didn’t state what I needed and what I wanted and what I didn’t want for being scared of somebody leaving the relationship. There are consequences to everything, but I was scared to say, ‘That’s not going to work for me. I don’t want that.'”
Her mindset now: “I’m the type of person I feel like as long as you can get up, you have another chance. I’ve gone through stuff, a nasty divorce, nasty custody battle but for me, I get up and I smile. I go through it and I make it through.”
She still doesn’t want to be considered the kid’s mother: “I am appealing the ruling that happened and he [Sally] gets his settlement every month. He’s happy. There nothing I can do. It’s out of my hands. You move on and I have a son. I have to take care of him so everything is good.”
She has integrity: “As long as the people who know me, know my heart and they know my love for my son and my character and integrity. That’s all I have to stand on. As long I can look at myself in the mirror and look up and go ‘Did I do what you told me to do’ I’m good. I still have to get to a place where I am mentally okay. I’m the type of person that I feel like as long as you can get up, you have another chance. I’ve gone through stuff – a nasty divorce, nasty custody battle but for me, I get up and I smile and I make it through.”
Future plans: “I do want to do a book for women about stepping past fear. I think it would help a lot of women who are in this place of being scared to walk away, but right now I am just laying low and letting time do its work.”
I know this article and these quotes were specially designed to elicit sympathy, but I’ve never disliked her more. I feel like she’s co-opting the language of battered women – “a lot of women who are in this place of being scared to walk away” – when her situation was not a case of being under threat, psychologically, emotionally or physically. She and her husband disagreed about how and if to start a family and instead of telling Lamar Sally that she didn’t want a child, she went along with his plan to use a surrogate and donor egg. She agreed to it. She was not coerced. Yes, maybe she was “afraid” that he would leave her, but having abandonment issues is not the same thing as being abused or battered or having real fears about your safety and well-being.
It will be interesting to see what happens in the appeal and if there really is any evidence that Lamar Sally coerced her and/or defrauded her.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
