Andy Kropa/Getty ImagesSherri Shepherd took to Twitter recently to thank several friends for their support, soon after she attended a court hearing over a legal case involving a baby born to a surrogate mother she and her husband had hired before their split last year.
The child, a boy named Lamar Sally Jr., was born in August was put in Sally's custody. He says Shepherd, 47, wants no parental responsibility for the child. She has not commented. He filed for divorce in May 2014 and had requested that she have visitation rights. He also wants Shepherd's name to be put on the baby's birth certificate. It currently lists the surrogate, Jessica Bartholomew, as the mother and this has led to some legal issues for her as well.
The three attended a court hearing on Wednesday. Lamar told Inside Edition that Shepherd refused to make eye contact with him or their surrogate. Shepherd has not commented publicly about the hearing.
On Thursday, she tweeted at reality star Todd Chrisley from Chrisley Knows Best, who had last year undergone some family drama of his own.
"I love you @toddchrisley," she said. "You always seem to know when I need your encouraging words. You still got a room ready for me in that house?"
She also thanked another friend.
"So blessed that my dearest friend @CynthiaOccelli came and loved on me... talked me through my craziness," Shepherd tweeted on Thursday. "Hugged her & didn't want to let go."
"I don't know what I would do w/o my sister-friends..." she added. "@CynthiaOccelli just left... she checked me... encouraged me... held my hand #love."
The couple's divorce case is pending and a hearing over their legal battle over the baby has been set for April.
At Wednesday's hearing, Bartholomew talked about the financial problems the case has caused her, Inside Edition reported.
"I do get medical bills for LJ," she had told the outlet in an on-camera interview in January. "I am now listed as a noncustodial parent in California. I have a child support case coming against me now."
The outlet reported that Sally had applied for Medi-Cal, low-cost health care offered to California residents with low income.
Bartholomew told Inside Edition she was paid $25,000 to carry a baby, conceived from Sally's sperm and an egg donated by an another woman, for the then-couple and signed a joint contract with them.
She said Shepherd kept in contact with her during the early stage of her pregnancy and had even given her a diary to use to record pregnancy moments. In the interview, she read from one entry, which stated Shepherd and Sally had attended her 20-week ultrasound, in which they got to see the fetus for the first time.
Shepherd, meanwhile, won another family legal battle last year—a judge ruled in June that she would maintain primary physical custody of her 9-year-old son Jeffrey Jr., whose father is her first husband, Jeffrey Tarpley.
—Additional reporting by Claudia Rosenbaum