Sherri Shepherd won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Daytime Talk Series Host on Friday, October 30, five months after the final episode of her talk show, Sherri, went to air on May 21.
The trophy was handed out at the 53rd Daytime Emmy Awards at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles. She beat Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Hudson, Tamron Hall and the entire panel of The View, the show where she once sat at the table herself.
The win lands for a series that no longer exists. Debmar-Mercury, the Lionsgate-owned company that produced and distributed Sherri, announced on February 2 that the show would leave syndication after four seasons.
Sherri, counted back from the Emmy
For readers who did not follow American daytime TV, here is the show’s run traced backward from Friday night:
October 30, 2026: Shepherd wins the hosting Emmy.
May 21, 2026: The last episode airs, closing a run of 596 episodes taped at Chelsea Studios in New York, usually two a day. The hoped-for new home never materialized.
February 2, 2026: The ending is announced. “This decision is driven by the evolving daytime television landscape and does not reflect on the strength of the show, its production — which has found strong creative momentum this season — or the incredibly talented Sherri Shepherd,” Debmar-Mercury co-presidents Ira Bernstein and Mort Marcus said in a joint statement. They added that they intended to explore other platforms for the program.
March 20, 2025: A fourth season is ordered.
2023: The show wins the NAACP Image Award for outstanding talk series, and Shepherd earns her first Daytime Emmy hosting nomination for it. She does not win.
September 12, 2022: Sherri premieres, built from the slot and much of the staff of The Wendy Williams Show, which Shepherd had guest-hosted during its last season. Fox Television Stations were its main affiliate group.
The host race, and who she beat
Her old seat at The View made the field personal: the six current co-hosts there, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Ana Navarro, were nominated together as one entry. Hudson and Hall, both still on the air, were the other rivals.
There is a twist in the results. Clarkson lost the hosting prize but her show took Outstanding Daytime Talk Series, the top program award of the night. Like Sherri, The Kelly Clarkson Show was also confirmed in early February to be ending, after seven seasons. “This was not an easy decision — but this season will be my last,” Clarkson wrote on Instagram at the time. So the two biggest talk show prizes of 2026 both went to farewell seasons.
Not her first Emmy
Shepherd already had one Daytime Emmy at home, won as a co-host of The View. This one honors the show that carried her own name, three years after her first hosting nomination for it came up empty.
The full list of winners is on the 53rd Daytime Emmy Awards page, and The Jennifer Hudson Show, now one of the few traditional daytime talkers left, is on its fifth season.
Further reading
Image: Staff Sgt. Addie Zinone, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
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