Keesha Sharp

Keesha Ulricka Sharp, born Keesha Ulricka Fleth on June 9, 1973 in Rochester, New York, is an American actress and television director whose career spans over two decades, beginning after she graduated cum laude from The Boston Conservatory and launched onto the stage with the Broadway National Tour of Carousel. She quickly demonstrated a versatile talent, debuting Off‑Broadway in Michael Bradford’s Living in the Wind and mastering eight distinct characters in the interactive comedy Eat the Runt, while also delivering notable performances in productions such as Abyssinia, Aida, Jitney, The Producers, Big Street, Suburb and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone; these early theatrical experiences honed her dramatic range and set the foundation for her later screen work. Sharp’s transition to television was marked by guest‑starring roles on series like Welcome to New York, Third Watch and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, before she secured a breakthrough part as Monica Charles Brooks on the UPN/CW comedy Girlfriends (2002‑2008), a performance that earned her an NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. Following Girlfriends, she continued to build a robust résumé with recurring roles on Everybody Hates Chris and guest appearances on The Game, Cold Case, Melissa & Joey, Elementary and The Exes, while also starring as Sheila Ridenhour. From 2010 to 2013 she was a series regular on the TBS sitcom Are We There Yet?, and in 2015 she portrayed Dale Cochran, the wife of Johnnie Cochran, in the acclaimed FX anthology The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story. In 2016 she joined the cast of Fox’s Lethal Weapon as Trish Murtaugh, a role that garnered another NAACP Image Award nomination, and she later appeared as Thurgood Marshall’s wife in the biopic Marshall. Sharp’s recent projects include securing rights to John Williams’s biography of Eartha Kitt, producing and starring in the planned film, a recurring role in the final season of Empire (2019), and joining Power Book II: Ghost (2022) as a series regular. Off screen, she married fellow actor and singer‑songwriter Brad Sharp in 1997, and the couple share a son named Solomon, reflecting a stable personal life that runs parallel to her dynamic professional journey.