It turns out that Sherri Shepherd helped more than just her “The View” colleague Sunny Hostin get more money while negotiating her contract. On Monday’s episode of “Sherri,” the longtime media figure revealed that in her practice of “paying it forward,” she called Loni Love of “The Real” and Sheryl Underwood of “The Talk” to discuss their salary and help them negotiate for a higher number.
“I decided to let people know who were going through the same thing. I called Loni Love when she got ‘The Real’ and I told her what I made and what she should ask for,” Shepherd said. “I told Sheryl Underwood at ‘The Talk’ what I made and what she should ask for.
“The least I can do is pay it forward, because if you pay it forward, and they pay it forward, we all can come up together!” she said.
Shepherd recounted how she felt when when Jenny McCarthy signed onto “The View” in 2013 and she learned that the new host was making more than her.
“Jenny McCarthy came into the show making more money than I had made after being there for six years. She had negotiated. That’s not Jenny’s fault. Not at all,” Shepherd said. But it did inspire her to start pushing back on salaries and helping others do the same. As Shepherd sees it, corporations try to keep women from knowing what their peers make in the workplace to give them less negotiating power.
“Here’s the thing: She could have made much more, but they told her not to say anything to anybody else. So she had to keep her salary a secret because they were trying to get it done,” Shepherd said. “And if I had known, I would have said to Jenny, ‘Girl, you got all the power. Because they don’t have anybody else to sit in this chair.’ She could have been making double. That’s the thing when you know something and band together: You can negotiate. After I got over being mad that she was making more than me, then I was like girl you could had made so much more because you had the power but you didn’t know you had the power because they made you feel fearful like you’d lose it if you told anybody.”
The Monday segment came following the news last week that Shepherd helped Hostin do the same by practicing pay transparency for herself as well as her “The View” colleagues. After learning everyone’s salary thanks to Shepherd, Hostin was able to return to her agent and demand more money. Shepherd confirmed the story and said that the reason she helped Hostin is because Rosie O’Donnell did the same thing for her.
Watch the full “Sherri” clip in the video above.