Sarah Palin to be a new 'Judge Judy' in courtroom-based reality show
Never far from a glowing screen, Sarah Palin may be coming to a TV dial near you: She will star in a new Judge Judy-style courtroom reality show in 2017, according to a publicist for a Montana production company.
The former governor of Alaska, who's already starred in her own reality shows since the end of her vice-presidential campaign in 2008, signed a production deal last month with a Montana-based company called Warm Springs, according to Howard Bragman of Fifteen Minutes P.R., a veteran public-relations executive who represents Warm Springs.
Palin's show, still unnamed, would feature Palin in a nationally syndicated daytime show premiering in the fall of 2017.
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But first she has to make a pilot, meet with TV stations across the land and sell it and herself to them. Which shouldn't be too difficult, Bragman says, even though Palin is not a lawyer.
"She's sold millions of books, one of which sold over 2 million copies, she's a proven ratings draw, she has close to 6 million followers on social media, she has a huge audience and you can say that audience corresponds well with a daytime audience," Bragman said Tuesday.
People magazine was first to report the news Tuesday.
Warm Springs includes Larry Lyttle, who is the producer behind courtroom reality shows Judge Judy, starring Judge Judy Sheindlin, and also Judge Joe Brown, starring Judge Joe Brown. Sheindlin plays well on TV as a straight-talking, no-nonsense, stern-but-fair judge presiding over sometimes goofy cases.
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Palin starred in Sarah Palin's Alaska on the TLC network starting in 2010, and in 2014 she launched Amazing America with Sarah Palin, an outdoor-themed show on The Sportsman Channel, but her TV schedule is clear for the moment.
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Instead, she's plunged into the tumultuous 2016 Republican presidential campaign, endorsing Donald Trump in a surprise move since she was expected to endorse Trump rival and tea-party favorite U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
(Palin was stumping for Trump last week when husband Todd Palin was seriously injured in a snowmobile accident in Alaska and she rushed home to be with him.)
The backlash from her endorsement has been a lot of criticism on social media, to which Palin is no stranger. But this time it's coming from other conservative Republicans who reject Trump. Palin was prominent on a list of Trump backers who would be "blacklisted" from the party for endorsing him by other GOP conservatives.
Neither she nor her social-media-savvy daughter, Bristol Palin, have yet taken to their accounts to talk about the TV show, but Palin's Facebook page Tuesday features a post by her fundraising political-action committee, SarahPac, bragging about being blacklisted and inviting others to donate and join the list.
