Sherri Shepherd says Milo Ventimiglia was fired from their unaired '90s sitcom
Sherri Shepherd says Milo Ventimiglia was fired from their unaired '90s sitcom
Kathleen PerriconeMon, June 15, 2026 at 11:36 PM UTC
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Sherri Shepherd; Milo VentimigliaCredit: Paras Griffin/Getty; Jason Kempin/GettyKey Points -
Sherri Shepherd has revealed Milo Ventimiglia was fired from Rewind, a 1997 sitcom that was ultimately canceled before it aired.
Rewind starred Scott Baio and Mystro Clark as advertising execs who regularly looked back at to their teenage years in the 1970s.
Ventimiglia was cast as the younger version of Baio's character, "but then they let him go," said Shepherd.
Milo Ventimiglia got his "Welcome to Hollywood" moment not long after launching an acting career.
In 1997, after appearing in one-off episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Saved by the Bell: The New Class, Ventimiglia scored a potential big break when he was cast as the younger version of Scott Baio's character, Rob, on Rewind.
Milo Ventimiglia in 1998Credit: Barry King/WireImage
The sitcom's premise promised a fair amount of screen time: Rob and his childhood friend Harv (Mystro Clark) were advertising execs who regularly revisited their early years by "rewinding" back to the 1970s.
But as it turned out, Rewind was ultimately more of a setback for Ventimiglia, according to a new revelation by costar Sherri Shepherd, who played Rob's secretary.
'Rewind' starred Mystro Clark, Scott Baio, and Sherri ShepherdCredit: Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
"He was originally at the table read, but then they let him go," Shepherd recalled in a recent Instagram video. "I remember he was devastated, and I said to him, 'You are gonna be big.' Now, I didn't know he was going to be that big," she added, referencing Ventimiglia's starring roles on Gilmore Girls, Heroes, and most recently, This Is Us. "He's working all the time."
Rewind didn't end up being a big break for Shepherd either. After taping six episodes of the comedy, it was canceled just two weeks before it was set to air.
At the time, Fox noted Rewind remained a candidate for a midseason slot on its broadcast schedule, however, the sitcom never saw the light of day.
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Thirty years later, the actress got to reconnect with Ventimiglia on her daytime talk show, Sherri, and reminisce about Rewind.
Although his firing wasn't mentioned, Ventimiglia did recall his disappointment in the show being canceled as well as Shepherd's prophetic reassurance.
Christine Taylor also appeared on 'Rewind'Credit: Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
"I was bummed. I was 18 at the time, it was my first job at Warner Brothers," he said on Sherri in February. "'What do I do now? Do I go back to school? Do I go back to waiting tables? … I remember you told me, 'Hey, don't worry about you. You're going to do great. You're going to have a nice career.'"
Shepherd revealed she had never been able to tell Ventimiglia how proud she was of him, since they hadn't crossed paths since Rewind.
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"I saw in you a star," she gushed. "I was so incredibly proud every time I would see you book something. And I would tell people, 'I know Milo!' Nobody believed me. Like, up until you came on the show, nobody believed that I knew you... [Rewind] never came on, so there's no pictures anywhere."
Ventimiglia vouched that not only did he indeed know Shepherd, "she's one of the first actors I've looked up to and given me advice," he told the Sherri cameras, "[and] has propelled my career to where I sit now."
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
