All it takes is one person. One person to see your talents, see your worth and extend that opportunity.
For actress and comedian Sherri Shepherd, that person is Tyler Perry. During an interview with Bevy Smith on Sirius XM, Shepherd revealed why she loves working with Perry on projects like “Straw,” acknowledging the safe space he has created for her and many other Black stars in the industry.
“I think that people sometimes see us and think, ‘Oh, y’all got it easy.’ You’re in this place, you’re making money. You are on film. We see you all the time. And you, you don’t understand the behind-the-scenes. The struggles that we go through to fight for us,” she shared.
Recalling a time when her management (whom she is no longer with) consistently told her to “prove” herself every time she mentioned wanting to appear on projects, the actress explained why working with Perry felt like an escape.
“Why? I’ve been trying to, I’ve been proving myself my entire career. How much more I gotta prove,” she remembers saying. “Which is one of the reasons why I loved working with Tyler Perry. Because I didn’t have to prove anything.”
“You only need one. Just one,” she said using a metaphor to explain how God made a way for Perry to see her: “There was one [God], and there was one [Tyler Perry] and there was the one [God] who used that one [Perry]…who believed in me.”
In an industry where stars typically have to negotiate everything, Perry gave Shepherd a trailer that not only left her speechless but also affirmed her star power.
“They showed me my trailer and I went, ‘Is Brad Pitt here?’ And I remember I walked into this trailer and there were these flowers, and there was a double staircase here, a study here, the living room here, and a full-size kitchen. And I was just like, all of this for me?” she recalled.
“I didn’t have to prove my worth. This Black man understood me,” she said, getting teary-eyed.
Despite the glitz and glam of Black Hollywood, Black stars like Shepherd, Perry, Taraji P. Henson, and others are “still fighting” for equal treatment, pay, and opportunity. Even after they’ve reached the highest accolades, Shepherd says they are still fighting.
“You have to continue to fight because you know young ones are coming after you. And we wanna make it a little bit easier, but don’t ever think that we ain’t back there fighting like hell to be seen,” she concluded. “ It was nice to not have to fight, working with Tyler.”
