Sherri Shepherd wasn't among the people who believed the recent viral TikTok trend that the world was coming to an end on September 23. After the Rapture, a belief that Christians will be taken up to Heaven, while those who do not believe in Christ will be left behind on Earth, began circulating online, the daytime talk show host and actress confessed that she had already learned her lesson the hard way after spending eight days in jail for believing the doomsday prophecy.
"I have been through this before," she joked on the September 24 episode of her talk show, Sherri. "I used to be in a religion that told me that the rapture was coming. They told us to get our house in order. And I said, 'Why? I'm not going to need a house where I am going. I don't need those worldly possessions.'"
Because Sherri was so convinced that the world was going to end, she ignored her financial responsibilities. "I didn't pay my bills," she recalled. "I didn't pay my taxes. I did not pay my traffic tickets because why would I pay anything when the world's about to end? My registration had been expired for two years. I had seriously $10,000 worth of unpaid moving violations."
Sherri admitted that she ignored her traffic citations and mounting unpaid bills, as she didn't believe they were a priority. "Why would I show up to court when the world is about to end and I'm about to get taken up to heaven? Jesus don't care about no parking tickets!"
© Variety via Getty ImagesHowever, after the world kept turning, Sherri found herself having to pay the consequences of ignoring her bills. "The world never ended. I went to jail. And you can tell I was not expecting to go to jail 'cause when the police pulled me over, I was wearing this," she recalled, referring to a throwback photo that flashed onscreen of her wearing a multi-colored T-shirt and matching platform heels.
© ABC via Getty Images"I was on my way to perform at the Comedy Store in Hollywood, and I didn't know, so they picked me up. I went to jail for eight days, and because I fell for the Rapture, I became a hardened criminal."
© Charles Sykes/Bravo via Getty ImThe Rapture began trending after Joshua Mhlakela, a pastor from South Africa, said in a TV interview that he had seen Jesus in a vision, which showed him Jesus returning to Earth on Rosh Hashanah, the New Year in Judaism. The pastor also said that the Rapture would take place on either September 23 or 24.
