00:00Please welcome Sherri's great friend and fellow Walk of Famer, Nisi Nash-Betz.
00:18Hello and good morning. I have a little Kleenex in my hand just in case I cry.
00:25Almost 30 years ago, I stepped onto my first comedy stage to do stand-up, and the host said,
00:36give it up for the sassy single Mama Nisi Nash, and that host was the Sherri Yvonne Shepard.
00:47She followed me into the bathroom and said, girl, you funny.
00:53And I looked back at her and said, girl, I know.
00:57And we have been tethered ever since.
01:03I remember us being young girls, dreaming in my Mama's back room
01:10about all of the success and all of the things that we wanted to make happen.
01:20We started auditioning. Now, we were best friends, but also, you know, we were each other's competition.
01:28So, I remember all of a sudden, Sherri just started booking jobs back to back to back.
01:34And I'm like, girl, I'm happy for you, but what are you doing in the room?
01:38And she looked at me with her whole chest and said, girl, I'll just go in there and act like you.
01:46I said, what?
01:49So, by the time I walked in, they thought I was doing her.
01:54We have been going at it ever since.
01:57And the one thing that blesses me, because I've seen beyond the veil, right?
02:04We have had times where we have cried, where we have prayed, where we have been lost.
02:13Sometimes we would call each other.
02:15You pick up the phone.
02:16You say, girl, you need rent money or bail money?
02:19Because it was just one of those days.
02:22And to know that even at her worst points in life, she has given her gift to bring other people joy.
02:36You would never know what it cost her sometimes to make other people laugh and to make them feel, you know.
02:44And I am so, so grateful to call you, friend.
02:48And I don't, you know, I would have never thought that these two girls, Wailing and Ashton and my mama's back room,
02:57would both have stars on a Hollywood Walk of Fame right across the street from each other.
03:05But God knew.
03:07And God saw this day.
03:09And I am so grateful to be here to celebrate you today, friend.
03:13And to know that even when we're dead and gone, we're still going to be right here together.
03:18I love you.
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