Sherri Shepherd’s Ex Blasts Her For Abandoning Their Baby — She ‘Put Me Through Pure Hell’
Mar. 15 2016, Updated 4:18 p.m. ET
Sherri Shepherd’s ex-husband is blasting the talk show star for cruelly abandoning their baby son, LJ, in a scathing new interview.
“What good Christian woman would abandon a child?” Sally wondered of Shepherd and 19-month-old LJ. “He’s such a good kid. He wants love and I’m scared: Am I giving him enough? Am I enough for both parents?”
As RadarOnline.com reported, Shepherd and Sally, who wed in a lavish August 2011 ceremony in Chicago, decided to become parents using a surrogate and donor egg after in vitro attempts using her eggs all failed.
They selected a woman named Jessica Bartholomew to carry their baby.
At first, everything seemed okay and Shepherd even went to a sonogram appointment when Bartholomew was 20-weeks along.
“She seemed excited to see the ultrasound,” noted Sally.
But that all changed when Shepherd did an about-face just weeks later.
“She said, ‘I can’t be the wife and mother you need. You can take the kid and go to L.A.,’” a shocked Sally recalled his wife saying.
It was a bizarre decision, considering Shepherd, 48, made it crystal clear she wanted to become a mom from the very beginning of their relationship, noted Sally in the New York Post interview.
“I said, ‘I love you. We don’t have that many problems, but the ones you do have you need to confront. We have a baby on the way and he needs a mother. I’ll meet you halfway,’” continued Sally.
Shepherd, whose son Jeffrey with her ex-husband Jeffrey Tarpley was born in 2005, wouldn’t hear of it and told Sally they would “work out visitation” and she promised to pay child support.
Shepherd’s resolve was hammered home for Sally when he saw an email from lawyers to his wife, suggesting they could get her out of the surrogacy contract.
“My stomach dropped, I burst into tears,” said Sally, 48. “This is someone I love. How can you get out of being a mother to this child?”
Little Lamar Jr., known as LJ, was born on Aug. 5, 2014. True to her word, Shepherd refused any contact with her son and eventually a judge forced her to cough up $4,100 in child support every month until the boy turns 18. Sally filed for divorce from Shepherd in 2014.
“I had my lawyer ask Sherri to put LJ on her insurance. She said no. I couldn’t believe she was that cold,” said Sally, a teacher and comedy writer.
“I got painted as a gold digger, that I used Sherri,” added the dad. “Sherr’s friends in the media — Wendy Williams dogged me out every chance, Steve Harvey talked about me.”
Shepherd refused to comment on Sally's claims.
“I waited 40 years until I found someone,” said Sally. “I wanted to do it right. Sherri put me through pure hell. I didn’t want to be a single father. I didn’t want my son to not know his mother’s touch.”