The Internet came for Sherri Shepherd on Wednesday when she opened up about her 13-year-old special needs son, Jeffrey Charles.
Shepherd discussed her “special needs” child in an interview with PEOPLE at a WeTV event in Beverly Hills on Tuesday.
“He’s got developmental delays,” she said, describing Jeffrey as “so yummy and special.” But she irked parents of special needs children when she described Jeffrey as “perfectly imperfect in every way.”
“I love him no matter what, and I don’t compare him to other typical children,” she said. “He is who he is. I put him in an improv class. He gets to be silly and nerdy.”
Shepherd, 51, divorced Jeffrey’s father, Jeff Tarpley, in 2010 after 9 years of marriage. Tarpley sued her for child support but she was granted full custody of Jeffrey.
Shepherd says she is prepared to take care of Jeffrey for the rest of his life.
“He’s going to be 40 years old, living in my basement with white socks and flip flops,” she told PEOPLE.
The Internet hasn’t forgotten that Shepherd paid a surrogate to carry another son while she was married to now ex-husband Lamar Sally.
Sally has physical custody of Lamar Sally, Jr., a special needs child who was born in August 2014.
Shepherd filed for divorce a few months before Lamar Jr. was born and filed docs to terminate her responsibility as a parent to the boy.
In April 2015, a Pennsylvania judge ruled Shepherd was the legal parent of the youngster, making her financially responsible for his medical care. She agreed to pay Sally $4,000 a month in child support.
Sally later asked judge to increase his monthly payments, saying $4,000 a month wasn’t enough to care for Lamar Jr.’s special needs.
“I felt like I had a pretty tight pre-nup,” Shepherd told Dr. Oz in an interview that aired in 2017. Shepherd continuously referred to Lamar Jr. as “his son.”
“There’s a baby here and I have always said I would take care of his son because he’s here and I make money. I always said I would provide financially,” she told Dr. Oz.
