Monday, October 11, 2021

Judge Judy Bailiff Blindsided by Pink Slip


This year Judge Judy Sheindlin ended her longtime court TV show on CBS after contract negotiaions stalled for a new show called Judy Justice on IMDB TV. 

Apparently Judge Judy didn't asked her longtime bailiff, Petri Hawkins Byrd, to come with... 

"My assumption is if you were going on to do something else, that you were at least going to ask me if I wanted to have the opportunity to audition for the role," Byrd tells EW.
After production wrapped in April of this year, Byrd turned his focus to his wife, Makita Bond-Byrd, a longtime Judge Judy producer who was scheduled for brain surgery. "I didn't have time to think about or ask about Judy Justice," says Byrd, whose wife just completed her third round of chemotherapy. (Doctors successfully removed 95 percent of her tumor.) "It wasn't until July that I called the judge and asked, 'Hey, should I look for something else or am I included in the Judy Justice project?'"
"She informed me I was not being asked to come along on the project," continued Byrd, who had served as Sheindlin's bailiff since Judge Judy's premiere in 1996. "I didn't inquire as to why, that's her choice. But she did inform me that fundamentally, I was priced out as the new bailiff on her new show. My salary would have been too much. I was curious: How would she know? She didn't ask me. She didn't give me an opportunity to have accepted a lower salary."