While other daytime talk shows have paused shortly after announcing their returns, Sherri Shepherd launched the second season of her syndicated show, Sherri, on Monday, September 18 as promised, and she opened the program by explaining why her show doesn’t violate WGA strike rules.

The 56-year-old actress and comedian began by declaring that she’s a SAG-AFTRA actress and marched with some of her colleagues while in Los Angeles recently.

“But here’s the thing, talk shows in general fall under a different union contract code, so we’re allowed to come back unless you’re a WGA show,” she continued. “The Sherri show is not a WGA show and we have never employed WGA writers, so us coming back to work isn’t crossing the picket line.”

“As a comic, my comedic take on the headlines is my voice. I write the jokes. I’m the writer … Producers help me shape my words. That’s why we don’t have WGA writers at Sherri,” Shepherd explained. “My heart is breaking for all of the people that can’t work right now and I hope our industry can get this strike resolved soon.”

“I stand in solidarity with my union,” she added.

Addressing a couple of the union’s issues, Shepherd noted, “Residuals during times that I was not working kept the lights on. My residual payments helped me care for Jeffrey when he was born at 25 weeks. So good residual payments are important to actors.”

“And the big sticking point is Artificial Intelligence — which could replace working actors from working. And it could replace writers. I’m here to tell you, A.I. can’t replace all of this sass,” she joked.

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