Dreamgirls, The Mighty Quinn, It’s A Living, Moesha, and now Abbott Elementary. Sheryl Lee Ralph has conquered Broadway, film and television. But with a new book out, Lee Ralph is spilling details about the highs and lows of her career, including an alleged sexual assault from a daytime TV court personality who she won’t name. Boss Ross is on the case with his opinion on just who it might be!
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Hi, I’m Kevin Ross and this is The Podcast, Sheryl Lee Ralph, And The Case of the Tongue Kissing TV, Judge.
Houston, we have a problem as soon as I read news accounts that Sheryl Lee Ralph detailed being sexually assaulted by a quote famous TV judge unquote. I immediately made a disclaimer on Instagram that it was not me.
I’ve known the multi-talented actress and singer since the nineties when she was involved with the LA based organization, Young Black Professionals. My kappa fraternity brother Tavis Smiley was working for Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley at the time and was charged with gathering this group of talented black yuppies aka buppies and Sheryl Lee Ralph and I were part of that group.
Over the years, Sheryl has been nothing but a class act letting me know she’d been keeping up with my career as well as congratulating me on my success.
I in turn supported on numerous occasions, her Diva Simply singing fundraising event for HIV/AIDS, prevention and awareness. So we’re cool. Right. Ok. Let’s talk about these judicial shenanigans most of the 12 court shows presently running feature women, black women at that. Right now, I’m one of only three men who make rulings from the bench in daytime TV. The others are Michael Corriero from Hot Bench who replaced lawyer Larry Bakman and Greg Mathis from the Judge Mathis Show. In total. There’s only been around 20 men who served as TV judges.
The first of course being Judge Joe Wapner of People’s Court from 1982 to 1993. Then Animal Court from 1998 through 2000. New York City Mayor Ed Koch was also on People’s Court from 1997 to 1999 followed by Judge Judy’s husband, Jerry Sheindlin from 1999
To 2001. All this information along with the additional data I’ll be providing is very important because I’m gonna tell you why allegedly Sheryl Lee Ralph was subjected to a roaming tongue by someone wearing a robe. She actually detailed the encounter on Angela Yee’s podcast Way Up while promoting her book Diva 2.0 and the story ended up being covered in Variety and has since exploded online. This is the, the deal according to Lee Ralph, I could tell quote another time there was a, a famous TV, judge, not Judge Mathis, I love him. He’s a great man.
Another one, I’m at a very public place, handling my business for the television show I was on at the time. Emphasis there. He and I were on the same network. Pay attention to that. This man walked in, grabbed me by the back of my neck, turned me around and rammed his nasty tongue down my throat. Sheryl Lee Ralph says she was outraged, claiming everyone from the network saw it yet. She was asked not to report it or make a big deal of the encounter.
She recalls contacting Marc Moriel Mayor of New Orleans at the time and who’s currently President of the National Urban League and she asked him for support. But the Abbott Elementary Star did not and has not outed the accused perpetrator only referencing the person as a man. Through the process of elimination. However, some are of the opinion, some that Lee Ralph was referring to Judge Joe Brown, the first African-American person to preside over a long running courtroom series along with being the current independent candidate for Mayor of the city of Memphis in Tennessee. In fact Brown, who I first met in 2012 when both our shows were up for Best Court Legal Genre program at the Daytime Emmys has actually responded with an unequivocal denial along with threats to exhaust all his legal options. This is from Judge Joe Brown quote, this is a warning
I might bring in my legal crew and proceed for defamation of character. He said, you see when they put my face next to hers, referring to Sheryl Lee Ralph and they start doing that little stuff there, this becomes innuendo, that’s very destructive to my reputation.
Judge Joe goes further adding that he has a quote long track record of ensuring that women get justice and has spent the last half century protecting womanhood and promoting manhood. So that’s his take on all of this. So who could Sheryl Lee Ralph possibly be referring to if not Joe Brown?
Well, this would have occurred sometime between 1994 and 2002 because that’s when Marc Moriel was Mayor of New Orleans. If Lee Ralph was promoting a show that she was prominently featured in during that period, it could only be Moesha, the sitcom that aired on the UPN network from 1996 to 2001.
Sheryl actually played singer Brandys Stepmom Dee Mitchell in that series. She was one of the leads. Now, during this period, there was no Judge Kevin Ross. Judge Jerry, Judge Alex, Gay Judge David Young, Street Court Judge, Judge Mass, Curtis Court featuring James Curtis had only run one season from 2000 to 2001. As did conservative commentator Larry Elders Moral Court.
Sheryl Lee Ralph said her show was more new when this incident occurred, not at the end of its run. So it appears between 1996 and 1998 is the likely time frame. So when we look at Keith Cutler of Couples Court with the Cutlers personal injury court, with Judge Gino, The Hot Bench, male judges uh the judges from Eye For an Eye in Texas Justice. And let’s not forget Steve Harvey, but they all came later. Much later. Truth be told there were only five court shows featuring men during the period in question,
Judge Wapner, Judge Sheindlin, Judge Mills Lane who ran from 1998 to 2001, Judge Joe Brown who aired from 1998 to 2013, and Judge Mathis who started in 1999 and he’s finishing up his final season in 2023. As I said earlier, Lee Ralph made it clear, Mathis was not the culprit so that narrows down the suspects to four, neither, get this Judges Wapner nor Sheindlin had any connection to CBS, Paramount, UPN or Big Ticket ergo it doesn’t make sense that it would be either of them leaving us with two men remaining.
Check this out, in a telling Twitter post. Judge Joe Brown tweeted, there are false rumors being spread that I mistreated a certain lady 25 years ago. I categorically deny both these rumors and any acquaintance with the lady in question. You wanna know what I found intriguing about that tweet was that in her interview, Sheryl Lee Ralph never mentioned, unlike Judge Joe Brown that this happened 25 years ago or in 1998, but that does add up in terms of a timeline with Marc Moriel being in office and Judge Joe Brown’s debut with Big Ticket Television, the same producing company responsible for Moesha, which was still relatively new. Yes, Moesha was created again in 1996. Big Ticket was a division of Paramount, which ultimately became CBS Viacom, although it wasn’t a network. Now, Mills Lane who died in 2022 also had a judge show with CBS, which means there is a possibility that he was the person who engaged in the inappropriate contact for the record. Sheryl Lee Ralph has not insisted Judge Joe Brown did this to her, but as the story continues to unfold, will she make the disclaimer that it was not him or continue to remain silent?
The inference being what it is as the gavel turns, stay tuned, folks, stay tuned. I’m Kevin Ross and this is The Podcast powered by TheGrio. Follow me @IamBossRoss on Instagram and Twitter. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
