‘Dear, read a book’: Sherri Shepherd recalls ‘The View’ cohosts motivating her to start voting

Actress and comedian Sherri Shepherd said she grew up politically disengaged as a Jehovah’s Witness until her time on the talk show.

Sherri Shepherd is opening up about the moment she realized the importance of voting, and the surprising influence her time on “The View” had on her civic engagement.

On a recent episode of “The Jamie Kern Lima Show,” the Emmy-nominated talk show host, comedian, and actress revealed that she didn’t cast a ballot until joining “The View.”

“I was a Jehovah’s Witness, so I didn’t start voting until I got on ‘The View,’” Shepherd shared. “I was not into politics, but Barbara Walters said something to me that made me do it.”

Shepherd explained that her upbringing within the faith left her politically disengaged: “All I knew was what the church taught me. That’s what it was. I didn’t think for myself. I just knew what the church had taught me or what I had learned when I was a Witness.”

According to the denomination’s website, Jehovah’s Witnesses are encouraged to remain politically neutral, in accordance with church doctrine, which interprets several Biblical passages as guidance on abstaining from voting or participating in political affairs.

For Shepherd, that changed after Walters realized her new cohost “didn’t know anything about politics.” Shepherd recalled the legendary broadcast journalist’s simple advice: “‘Dear, read a book.’”

The Chicago native, now 58, first shared in 2008, during her inaugural year on “The View,” that it would be her first time voting.

Shepherd said Walters’ push to educate herself was pivotal. “What I realized is sometimes we have to get out of where we live, we have to go travel the world, we have to meet people that are different from us. Because when you don’t, that’s how you get prejudice and that’s how you get judgmental. When you don’t meet people that are not like you, when you meet people that are different from you.”

She also credited current cohosts Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg for helping shape her political perspective. Shepherd recalled Goldberg once telling her, “Sherri, the moment you open your mouth, half the world is going to hate you. So go by what you feel and what you think.”

Reflecting on her journey, Shepherd added a note of encouragement: “[When] you feel like you fail … I feel like, don’t look at it as failure. Just get back up and fix or course correct.”