Jeffrey Charles Tarpley Jr.: The Real Story of Sherri Shepherd’s Brave Son

Jeffrey Charles Tarpley Jr. is the son of Sherri Shepherd, the comedian, actress, and talk show host, and her first husband, actor Jeff Tarpley. He is not an actor or a public figure by his own choice. Almost everything the public knows about him comes from what his mother has chosen to share, with love, in interviews and in her own writing over the years.

His story starts with a very hard beginning. He was born three and a half months early, weighing just one pound and ten ounces, and doctors warned that he might not survive. He did survive, and his mother has called him the best birthday gift she ever received, because he was born on her birthday. This article sticks strictly to that public record and tells it with respect.

Quick Facts

A Birth on His Mother’s Birthday

Jeffrey was born on 22 April 2005 in Los Angeles. The date is also his mother’s birthday. Sherri Shepherd was born on 22 April 1967, so her son arrived on the day she turned 38, a detail she has mentioned many times over the years.

Getting to that day was not easy. Shepherd has spoken openly about her fertility struggles with her then husband Jeff Tarpley. She described rounds of treatment, many shots, false hopes, and tears before she finally became pregnant. She was expecting fraternal twins, a boy and a girl. Sadly, she lost her daughter during the pregnancy, a loss she has also spoken about publicly. Jeffrey was the surviving twin.

He then arrived far too early. At 25 weeks, about three and a half months before his due date, he was born weighing one pound and ten ounces. That is about the weight of a small loaf of bread. A baby born that early and that small faces serious danger, and Jeffrey’s first months were spent fighting for his life.

The First Months in Intensive Care

Jeffrey spent more than four months in the neonatal intensive care unit, the special hospital unit for the smallest and sickest newborn babies. His mother has described, in her own words, what he went through in that time. He had three blood transfusions. He had bleeding in his brain. He had a hole in his intestines and a range of other serious problems.

The outlook doctors gave the family was very dark. Shepherd has said that doctors told her Jeffrey would have severe mental challenges and would not be able to walk. At the hardest point, she has said, a doctor even raised the idea of taking him off life support because he was so sick that they thought he was going to die.

She refused to accept that ending. Her faith is a central part of how she tells this story, and she has often summed it up in a short line: doctors gave their view, but God said no. As an infant, Jeffrey still needed a great deal of support, including therapy several times a week, and his immune system was weak. But he kept going, month by month, past every warning that had been given about him.

This article does not add medical detail beyond what his mother has shared herself, and it offers no medical views of its own. His early health story is hers to tell, and she has told it to encourage other families going through the same fear.

Growing Up With Developmental Delays

Jeffrey grew up with developmental delays linked to his very early birth, and his mother has never hidden that. She has described him as a child who learns in his own way and at his own pace, and who needs more support than many other children. She has also been clear that she had to learn to accept her son as he is, rather than as she had pictured him before he was born.

One small detail she has shared gives a clear picture of their bond. She is, by her own description, a bubbly morning person. Her son is not. He does not show his feelings in the same open way she does. Instead of treating that difference as a problem, she has talked about learning from it, and about being his advocate in every setting, at school, with doctors, and in daily life.

She also noticed early that he had a sense of humor, and she encouraged it. Accounts of her parenting describe her putting him in improvisation classes to build his confidence and give his funny side room to grow. It is a very Sherri Shepherd choice: meet a challenge with laughter where laughter can help.

As he became a teenager, she shared the normal, funny side of their life too. She joked that her best friend had turned into a teen who did not want photos taken, did not think she was cool, and did not want her around, but who still came to hug and kiss her goodnight. Behind the joke is a simple point she returns to often: he is finding his own way, and her job is to be his safe place while he does.

His Parents, Their Divorce, and Custody

Jeffrey’s parents married in 2001. His father, Jeff Tarpley, is an actor and comedian. The marriage broke down after Shepherd discovered an affair, and the couple separated and then divorced, with the divorce completed around 2009 to 2010. Their son was still a young child at the time.

What followed was a custody dispute, which is a matter of public court record. Tarpley challenged Shepherd’s care of their son, and in 2014 he asked the court for custody, claiming that Shepherd’s busy career meant Jeffrey was being raised mostly by others. Shepherd answered that she was a devoted mother and that Tarpley had been largely absent from his son’s life. The court sided with Shepherd, and she remained Jeffrey’s custodial parent.

This article reports that dispute only in outline, because it is part of the public record and often appears in searches about Jeffrey. The important fact for his story is the outcome: he stayed in his mother’s care, in the home he knew, with the support structure she had built around him.

Shepherd later married television writer Lamar Sally in 2011, and that marriage also ended in divorce. A younger child from that marriage was born through a surrogate in 2014, which made Jeffrey a half brother. Details of that separate court case are widely reported elsewhere and are not the focus of Jeffrey’s own story here.

The Role He Plays in His Mother’s Life

It is impossible to understand Shepherd’s public career without understanding her son. She has said for years that everything she does is for him. Her health journey is one example. She was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2007 and has said that wanting to live a long life for Jeffrey pushed her to change her eating and lose weight. She once described picturing him as a small boy asking where heaven was, because people told him that was where his mother had gone, and said that picture changed her.

In November 2025, Shepherd received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the 2,827th star on the boulevard. Jeffrey, then 20, stood beside her at the ceremony. She became emotional while thanking him in her speech, telling the crowd that he was born at 25 weeks at a pound and ten ounces, that everybody told her he would not be here, and that everything she is and everything she does is for her baby. She added that he may be 20, but he will always be her baby.

Moments like that explain why his name is searched. He is not famous for a job or a show. He is known because one of America’s most open talk show hosts has let the public see, in careful pieces, how much her son has shaped her life.

FAQs

Who is Jeffrey Charles Tarpley Jr.?

He is the son of talk show host and comedian Sherri Shepherd and her first husband, actor Jeff Tarpley. He was born on 22 April 2005 in Los Angeles, which is also his mother’s birthday.

Why was Jeffrey Charles Tarpley Jr. born early?

He was born at 25 weeks, about three and a half months early, weighing one pound and ten ounces, after a difficult pregnancy in which his mother also lost his twin sister. He spent more than four months in intensive care as a newborn, as his mother has described publicly.

Who has custody of Jeffrey Charles Tarpley Jr.?

His mother, Sherri Shepherd. When his father challenged her custody in court in 2014, the court ruled in her favor, and she remained his custodial parent.

Is Jeffrey Charles Tarpley Jr. a public figure?

No. He lives a private life. Public information about him comes almost entirely from his mother’s own interviews, books, and speeches, and from court records about his parents’ custody case.

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Final Thoughts

Jeffrey Charles Tarpley Jr.’s story, as told in the public record, is a story of a very small baby who was not expected to live and who grew up, step by step, with a mother who refused to give up on him. She calls him brave, and based on his start in life, it is easy to see why. Beyond what his mother has chosen to share, his life is his own, and it deserves the privacy she works hard to protect.

Featured photo: Sherri Shepherd – photo by Gabriel Brooks, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons