Nick Cannon withheld endorsing Sherri Shepherd of loyalty to Wendy Williams. Page Six was exclusively told by a source close to Wendy Williams that Nick Cannon would not support Sherri Shepherd’s new show out of loyalty to the former talk show host. When asked by production company Debmar-Mercury to support the launch of “Sherri,” Cannon declined.
“Nick Cannon would not endorse her out of allegiance to Wendy,” the source says. “He wasn’t cool with how they handled him and how they abruptly canceled his show and hustled everyone out of there and took their computers and s–t.”
Debmar-Mercury canceled “Nick Cannon” after just six months on the air. The short-lived opportunity was a “blessing and dream come true,” he said on his show.
Cannon, 41, was “indebted and grateful to Wendy” for giving him the chance to be on her show, which resulted in his “big endeavor,” making his loyalty to her “undeniable,” Page Six sources said.
“[Debmar-Mercury] was definitely relying on Wendy’s numbers to propel Nick’s numbers, and they placed a bet with Fox once [the network] got rid of ‘The Real,’” the source adds. “They assured Fox they would get their numbers, and they failed miserably.”
However, the news source was told, “It’s not true, and Nick was always a pleasure and business professional.”
Reps for Cannon, Debmar-Mercury, Williams, and Shepherd have not immediately responded to a request for comment by Page Six.
Ending The Wendy Williams Show and launching “Sherri” has been an uphill battle where both Williams, 57, and her ex-husband, Kevin Hunter, expressed their unhappiness with the final episode.
“There was nothing I liked about the [the final episode of] ‘Wendy Williams Show,’” Williams told The Post over Zoom this week. “[Debmar-Mercury] didn’t ask me [to appear during the finale], so I didn’t. I sat in my apartment and I watched it. And [I was] like, ‘Eek!’”
Hunter, 50, expressed his criticism; recently, he told “Entertainment Tonight” that it was a “travesty” on behalf of the production company to not have Williams included.
“It is the first time in the history of talk shows for this to be done, especially for a show that has been on for more than 10 years,” he shared. “There is absolutely no reason why a bigger celebration that involved Wendy couldn’t happen.”
