Talk show host Sherri Shepherd may have helped Sunny Hostin get a higher salary on “The View” talkfest. But Shepherd, who now helms her own show, says when she was a “The View” co-host she was unable to get money equal to that of Jenny McCarty.
Sherri Helped Hostin Get McCarthy Salary
“I don’t even know if you remember this, but when I signed my deal sheet, you gave me a call. I don’t know how you got my number,” Hostin told Shepherd when she was a recent guest on “Sherri.” “You were like, ‘I heard you’re coming on the show,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m joining the show.’ She was like, ‘Did they give you a car stipend?’ I was like, ‘No.'”
Hostin, who joined “The View” as a permanent host in 2016, continued, “You basically went over your salary for the entire time you were there, and you also gave me Jenny McCarthy’s salary. You got me paid.”
With Shepherd’s help, Hostin was able to go back to her agent and ask for more money from “The View.”
Popular film and TV actress McCarthy was “The View” from 2013 to 2014 after hosting her own television talk show, “The Jenny McCarthy Show.” She is now on “The Masked Singer.”
Her salary on “The View” has not been revealed.
While Shepherd helped Hostin get a higher salary, she herself was unable to negotiate as well for herself.
Shepherd Talks Salary
Shepherd said during an episode of “Sherri” that she learned McCarthy had to keep her salary a secret during her time on “The View.” But she also learned that McCarthy was making more money than her when she joined the show, even though Shepherd had been on the show six years longer.
Shepherd was on “The View” from 2007 to 2014.
“I was fine with how much I was making until I found out what Jenny was making,” Shepherd shared.
“She could have made much more, but they told her not to say anything to anybody else,” she continued, per AfroTech. “So she had to keep her salary a secret ’cause they were trying to get it done. And had I known, I would’ve said to Jenny, ‘Girl, you got all the power because they don’t have anybody else to sit in this chair. They are putting everything on you.’ She could have been making double. … When you know something, when you band together, then you can negotiate.”
Interestingly, Shepherd did not say if she encourages her own staff to share their salary figures.
Despite learning of the salary discrepancy, Shepherd revealed she didn’t ask for a higher pay when she renegotiated her contract because she didn’t think the request would be honored.
Yet she encouraged others to seek more money from the long-running show. “I did it because people did that for me,” she said, recalling that when she was on “The View,” co-host Rosie O’Donnell, who left the show in 2007, the same year Shepherd joined, helped her negotiate her initial contract to join the show, as Finurah previously reported.
“Rosie took the time to email me, and she said, ‘This is what I’m making. This is what the other co-hosts are making, so this is what you should ask for.’ And it changed the game for me,” said Shepherd.