All good things must inevitably come to an end. After 25 uber-successful seasons, CBS’s Judge Judy will come to an end following the 2020/2021 season. Judy Sheindlin, AKA Judge Judy has presided over the simulated courtroom on her show for over 2 decades now.
Judy, a mother of five, is currently developing a new show Judy Justice that will stream on Amazon’s ad-supported IMDB TV. She’s also working on developing a drama series for CBS based upon her life called Her Honor.
Sheindlin revealed that she would be stepping away from her iconic reality court show on Ellen back in March. Of course just because the series is finally coming to a close doesn’t mean it will be going off the air. CBS still fully intends on rerunning the show in syndication for the next several years at least.
The last new episode of Judge Judy will air sometime in the Spring of 2021 and Judy Justice has yet to announce a date for its premiere but rumor is that it will aslo probably premiere in the spring of 2021.
Why Now?
So the burning question that you’re all dying to have answered is why after 25 years has Judge Judy decided to not renew her contract? After all, she is one of the highest-paid TV personalities in the world. Her net worth is estimated at $440 million and her yearly salary had ballooned over the years to $47 million.
And it’s not like Judge Judy was hurting in the viewership department. It’s estimated that 6.8 million viewers on average tune in to each new episode. At it’s peek, Judge Judy was seeing over 10 million daily viewers and enjoyed the highest Nielson ratings for a daytime television series for 5 years straight.
25 years isn’t anything to balk at either. In marriage terms that means the show is celebrating its silver anniversary.
As it turns out, Judge Judy isn’t saying goodbye for any particularly alarming reasons. After a quarter-century, she’s just itching to try something new out. She is especially excited for the launch of her upcoming 2 shows and seeing as she has been apart of the production of over 10,000 episodes, there is no shortage of material for CBS to rerun.
Nothing Else Like It
Sure there are other reality courtroom shows, but Judge Judy is the reigning queen of the genre. All the other shows, be it Judge Mathis or Divorce Court, seem like knock-offs of the original. Well technically, the People’s Court was the original reality court show but everybody knows that Judge Judy is the quintessential court show.
You have to have some super special forumula to stay on the air for 25 years. Very few shows can make that claim. And Judge Judy, as we already mentioned has been one of the highest-rated daytime television shows of all time. It even managed to pull in more viewers than Oprah.
Judge Judy Sheindlin has deeply enjoyed her commercial success and not just because of her hefty paycheck – although that must be nice too – but because she feels like her show helps teach people the value of responsibility.
She has always held that the underlying theme of her show is responsibility and accountability. She has been for many years an outspoken critic of a welfare state. Also, she wants people to pull themselves up with hard work and perseverance and not just live off of handouts and pity. Although you’ll see in a second the underlying irony to that seemingly senseible sentiment.
When defendants come on her show and start making excuses, Sheindlin’s no-nonsense, pithy attitude come outs and she gives them a good tongue lashing.
Hypocrisy At Its Finest
Okay, so her message about accountability and responsibility is certainly admirable, but at the end of the day, Judge Judy’s moral lessons don’t hold any water. After she makes her ruling and tells the guilty defendants that they need to pay up for the damage they’ve done, the producers of the show proceed to write a check to pay for the damages, and everyone that appears on the show gets a $250 appearance stipend as well.
Couple that with all expenses paid travel and it essentially amounts to criminals being paid for their indiscretions, pampered with a vacation, and relieved of their responsibility to make things right.
Yes, the producers help the defendants to avoid anything resembling accountability. So it may look good on TV, and Judy is able to get her message out there but at the end of the day, she isn’t really practicing what she preaches.
But that’s perfectly okay, it seems that Sheindlin has earned her right to moralize as much as she wants.
Before she landed her gig as a judge on television, Judy was the supervising judge of the Manhattan Family Court in New York City. One of her most troubling cases back then was ruling whether she thought a teenage mother was guilty of murder after her baby was discovered dead in a toilet. That was the situation where she first started preaching about responsibility.
Humble Beginnings
If you had told a young Judy Sheindlin that she would one day be the queen of afternoon television, she would have told you you were crazy.
She grew up in a middle-class household in Brooklyn. Her time in high school was pretty unremarkable. She described her mother as a meat-and-potatoes type of lady and the idea of ever appearing on TV was just a fantasy. She knows that she destines to be a working girl. Her life sure looked like it was unfolding to be quite ordinary.
She attended American University in DC and after graduating, she enrolled in their law school.
Her attitude has been something that hasn’t changed at all over the years. Even when she was young, she loved to argue. Her dad always thought she would make a good politician.
Sheindlin is Still In Law School
She also attributes her comedic timing to her father. He was a dentist and loved to tell jokes to his patients to lighten the mood. From the time Sheindlin first saw an episode of The People Court, she knew that she could do it better by adding a touch of comedy and her own pithy sass to the mix.
When Sheindlin was still in law school, she got married and moved to New York where her husband worked. She transferred to a law school there and after graduating she took a job as a corporate lawyer. The problem was that she actually hated that job. After two very tiresome years, she quit and became a stay-at-home parent instead.
But that didn’t work for her either. She’s the kind of person that always has to be doing something. She can’t just sit at home and watch TV all day while taking care of her kids. It’s just not her style. So she took graduate classes and attended law seminars in the evenings.
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And keep watching to see why some people can’t stand Judge Judy.
Finding Her Calling
Eventually, someone informed her that there was a job opening as a prosecutor at the family court in Manhattan, so she applied for the job and got it.
Finally, she had found employment that she felt some kind of connection to. Scheindlin describes herself as a law and order kind of woman. Working as a prosecutor at the family court felt like her mission. Ten years after taking the job she was appointed as Judge by NYC’s Mayor Ed Koch. Just four years after that, she was appointed as a supervising judge.
Her workload was steep. She had to manage 9 different judges and hundreds of attorneys. Family court is especially trying as well in the sense that many of the cases that she had to oversee were particularly heartbreaking and gruesome since they involved minors. Funding was sparse, and many judges and attorneys couldn’t keep up. Burnout is a major issue in that line of work.
But Judy, with her tough-as-nails, uncompromising personality was perfect for the job.
Is It All An Act?
A lot of people wonder if Judge Judy is actually the snarky bully like character that mocks and insults the people in her courtroom as she seems on TV. Some have even accused her of putting on an act just to give the ratings a little boost, but in reality, she really is exactly how she seems on TV.
She won’t put up with anybody’s BS. If she thinks that you’re pulling her leg, she’ll call you out for it and make you wish you had kept you’re mouth shut. In fact, it was her temperament and personality that helped her rise to fame in the first place.
A profile was written up about Sheindlin in 1993 in the LA Times that described her as the tart, tough-talking law and order judge. The write-up detailed how she had little patience for stupidity of slowness and how she bullied attorney’s so much in the courtroom that they would literally beg her to listen to them.
The article further described how the only moments of silence in Sheindlin’s courtroom would come when she was telling jokes and how that would briefly make her sound more like a stand-up comedian than a judge.
Of course, it didn’t take long for producers over at CBS to read the LA Times article and get it into their heads that Judy would make for a great television judge. The rest is, as they say, history.
Not Everyone Is A Fan Of Her Attitude
One of the most common complaints about Judge Judy is about how she mocks, insults demoralizes and berates the poor or unfortunate.
There is something ever-so-troubling about seeing a rich well-off judge making an impoverished and unprepared individual feel like garbage while they are trying to present their case. When people are stuck in a cycle of poverty, they might not have the tools to be able to articulate themselves in a more professional manner and mch of their time is spent obtaining basic necessities.
Some may look at Judge Judy as being harsh, cruel, and unsympathetic, but she would likely describe herself as uncompromising and decisive. She doesn’t beat around the bush and hates it when her defendants do as well.
She has had all sorts of complaints lodged against her. Because of her stance on welfare, she has been criticized by minority groups, Some have seen her judgments as coming from a place of privilege Although she would certainly argue that she comes from a place of harsh reality.
Well, here we are, yet again at the end of another facts-packed video. Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed watching this one. If you have, make sure you give it a like and subscribe to our channel. Tap the bell icon to turn on notifications so you can keep up with all of our latest content.
And before you go, drop us a line down in the comments section about whether or not your sad to see Judge Judy come to an end.
With Judy Justice and Her Honor on the horizon, we think it’s pretty safe to say that the world hasn’t seen the last of Judge Judy Sheindlin.
