Sherri Shepherd pranks her audience with tearful medical announcement

In honor of April Fools’ Day, Sherri Shepherd is flexing her acting skills.

On Tuesday, the Sherri host paused her show to share a dramatic announcement with her studio audience. 

“This is one of the hardest things that I’ve had to say to everybody,” she began. “I come on this show and I tell y’all everything. I’m very, very transparent about everything.”

As Shepherd continued, her voice cracked with emotion, “I went to the doctor yesterday — and I just wanted to share this with y’all cause it’s gonna come out — I went to the doctor yesterday and I was telling him all these symptoms that I was feeling. They ran all these tests, and he came back and the doctor told me… He said, ‘Sherri, I think that you’re pregnant.'”

The audience responded to the tearful news with scattered applause and audible shock, including Shepherd’s commentator and executive producer, Jawn Murray, who shouted, “Oh lord!”

Behind the host, a photo of an ultrasound and a positive pregnancy test appeared — but by this point, Sherri could no longer commit to her April 1st lie.

“Okay I can’t even do it,” she declared, dropping the act. “I can’t even do it! April Fool’s, y’all!”

Replied Murray, “You should feel my heart palpitations. Can someone bring me my blood pressure medicine, please?”

Laughing it off, the 57-year-old host explained that the prank was a golden opportunity to “get my acting on real good,” but said she had to end it early out of fear that she might accidentally “manifest” a pregnancy.

Meanwhile, Murray pointed to her upcoming role in Tyler Perry’s Straw, alongside Oscar nominee Taraji P. Henson.

“I blame Taraji,” he joked. “Ever since you been hanging with Taraji shooting that Tyler Perry movie, you been crying on spot. I’m mad at Taraji now.”

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Shepherd then made it abundantly clear that the pregnancy announcement was 100% a joke.

“That’s April Fools, I just wanna clarify,” she said. “The reason I came up with it was because I told everyone last week [that] the doctor told me I’m still in perimenopause… Let me tell you something, if they told me I was pregnant, I would curl up in a ball in a fetal position.”

Poking fun at the audience for applauding after the fake announcement, Shepherd added, “And I don’t what y’all clapping for. But I do have to say, the majority of y’all was like, ‘Oh, god!’ So to clarify: Not pregnant. No, no, no.”

Last week, the talk show host voiced her frustrations over “the menopause before the menopause,” opening up about her experience with perimenopause — and her reaction to learning that she can still get pregnant.

“When she said perimenopause, I thought that she meant I was being very demure and mindful — in perimenopause — because I thought I was handling menopause well,” The View alum said. “I don’t know what this is. I [have to] hurry up and get to post-menopause because I’m heated and defeated.”

She added, “There’s just nothing good about it here in this season of my life. So ladies don’t let the age fool [you], ‘cause you can still get pregnant.”

Watch Shepherd’s April Fools’ prank above.