Sherri Shepherd clarifies remarks about abortions and saving Barbara Walters

View co-host Sherri Shepherd drew a lot of ire yesterday when quotes were published from an interview she gave to a black Christian women’s magazine in which she claimed she had more abortions than she would like to count and that she sometimes prayed for televangelists to “save” Barbara Walters.

On “saving” Barbara Walters: It was a joke
Shepherd said she was joking about saving Walters and that she called Walters personally ahead of the interview being published to apologize. She said Walters was in France at the time and she laughed and said “I’m already in Heaven, I’m in Paris.” Shepherd also apologized again on air to Walters, who was not on the panel that day. Walters grew up with Jewish parents, but her father was an atheist and she was not raised going to temple or church. Walters did a piece on religion in 2005 in which she explored her own background and belief system. She said she was most affected by a visit with the Dalai Lama, after which she felt at peace for a couple of weeks. She has not been “saved” in the Christian sense.

On having more abortions than she could count: it was taken out of context
Many of you pointed out in the comments that Jaybird’s title that Shepherd had more abortions than she could count was technically inaccurate, because she had said it was more than she would like to count, which is much different. She was saying it was painful for her to remember them and not that there were so many she lost track.

Shepherd said that the author didn’t print her entire quote about her abortions, which she is open about because she wants to “inspire women who go through a lot of shame and guilt about having abortions.” She said the full quote was that she had suffered a lot of shame and guilt and that “a wonderful woman at one of the women’s conferences I speak at came to me and said, ‘Sherri, you know when you get to heaven all your babies are going to be there saying, ‘Hi momma.” and it just kind of freed me and I knew that Jesus had forgiven me.

“I wasn’t being flippant about abortions. I wasn’t glamorizing.”

Joy Behar said that society puts a lot of shame on abortions and Shepherd said that’s why she came out to talk about it.

Shepherd isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but I kind of admire her for talking about this so openly when there’s such a huge stigma attached to abortion. She does deserve credit for being open about something that can so easily be mocked. It also has to be hard for her to see her words twisted around to being some dismissive comment about having multiple abortions instead of the way she meant it, that she carried around a lot of guilt and shame and wants other women to hear that she suffered with it silently too.

Shepherd got confused in December when they were talking about history on The View and she kept insisting that “I don’t think anything predated Christians.. Jesus came first” in history and didn’t seem to get the whole B.C./A.D. idea. She also doesn’t believe in Evolution at all and says she’s never thought about whether the world is flat or not.

As JayBird mentioned yesterday, it’s pretty inspirational that Shepherd went through such a tough life and is now a co-host on such a big show, especially considering that she doesn’t seem to have basic knowledge of history and science. God can’t substitute for an education.

Sherri Shepherd is shown at the Daytime Emmy Awards on 6/20/2008. Credit: Glenn Harris / PR Photos

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