TV show host responsible for surrogate child

Sherri Shepherd paid $100,000 to the surrogate, but changed her mind

TV show host Sherri Shepherd has been found legally responsible for a child born to a surrogate she hired along with her ex-husband before they divorced, a court has ruled.

The 48-year-old actress must continue to pay $4,100 (£2,700) a month in child support, according to a lawyer for her ex-husband Lamar Sally, who is raising the one-year-old boy in Los Angeles.

He told Associated Press news agency: “She doesn’t want to be part of his life. It’s all good.

“I’m going to be parent enough for the both of us.”

Shepherd, who has starred in sitcoms and movies including 30 Rock, How I Met Your Mother and Precious, had paid more than $100,000 (£66,000) and Mr Sally another $5,000 for a suburban Philadelphia surrogate to carry the child conceived using his sperm and a donor egg.

The couple, who then lived in New Jersey, attended medical appointments with the surrogate until Shepherd changed her mind in the second trimester as their marriage broke up, the court ruling said.

The child’s initial birth certificate listed the surrogate as the mother, which led to California authorities seeking support from her when Mr Sally moved to Los Angeles.

Melissa Brisman, who owns the surrogacy agency Reproductive Possibilities in Montvale, New Jersey, said: “Surrogates don’t want to feel that someone could want a baby and then just back out. The surrogate is not the mother.”

The ruling, on Monday, upholds an earlier decision from Montgomery County, where the boy was born in August 2014.

It said: “(Shepherd) does not dispute that she freely entered into the gestational carrier contract.

“Baby S would not have been born but for (her) actions and express agreement to be the child’s legal mother.”

Pennsylvania courts had previously never ruled on the validity of surrogacy contracts, which some states have refused to uphold, Mr Sally’s lawyer Tiffany Palmer said.

A lawyer for Shepherd did not respond to a request for comment by the Associated Press. SkyNews