Shemar Moore's Transformation Is Hard To Ignore

There are few actors who've experienced the kind of longevity on television as Shemar Moore. When looking back on his career, it's clear that he was among the celebs you never realized got their start on "The Young and the Restless." Since being cast in that show back in the 1990s, Moore went from being a daytime star to becoming a familiar face on primetime television, spending over a decade on "Criminal Minds," one of television's most popular and long-running crime dramas.

Yet being a part of the formidable ensemble cast was just the beginning, paving the way for a starring role in "S.W.A.T.," an action-packed CBS cop show that ran for eight seasons and defied the ever-present spectre of cancellation more than once. Looking back at his storied career, it's evident that Moore's journey to the top of the Hollywood food chain has been as hard-fought as it's been fascinating. Read on to find out why Shemar Moore's transformation should not be overlooked.

Shemar Moore was born in 1970, in Oakland, California. An only child of mixed ethnicity, Moore was raised mainly by his mother, Marilyn Wilson-Moore, who worked as a teacher. "Interracial relationships were trendy but they weren't accepted," Moore told People of the '60s, when his parents met. "There was a lot of racial tension and my mother didn't want to raise me in that. She got a job in Denmark and we left." In the years that followed, his mother took jobs in other far-flung countries, which meant that his father was largely absent from his life. "Nothing about my life was ordinary," Moore observed. "And then I went to Bahrain and lived there for three years. So, Denmark and Bahrain were our two mainstays as I was growing up," he told Ability Magazine.

At 6 years old, his mother took a teaching job in Boston after living in Greece and Ghana for some time, which proved to be a big difference from his native California. "When I lived here, I got my first taste of Boston — the snow, the Red Sox, and playing in my first Little League team," Moore said to Boston Globe.

They next returned to California, settling in the Bay Area. As a teenager, Moore proved to be a baseball prodigy, whose 93-mph fastball led him to be drafted by both the Baltimore Orioles and the Boston Red Sox. His mother, however, insisted he get an education first. "He was not going to complete college without having at least one degree," Wilson-Moore told the Globe.

After Shemar Moore graduated from high school, a baseball scholarship led him to Santa Clara University. When tendonitis hampered his baseball skills, Moore majored in communications and looked toward a career in broadcast journalism. However, that scholarship didn't pay all his bills, and Moore wound up getting into modeling to make some extra cash. At first, it was primarily for catalogs, including the likes of Sears, Macy's, and International Male. "Little by little, I was making strides in the model-commercial side," Moore told the Boston Globe. 

However, he was quick to point out that he never made it to the upper echelons of the modeling world. "I was never a supermodel on the runways of New York City," Moore told The Mercury News. "It was a job-to-job struggle, getting things like the back-to-school specials for Mervyns." Meanwhile, the more Moore modeled, the more he realized that if he kept at it, he'd eventually hit a dead end. Instead, he decided he wanted to pursue a career as an actor.

Thanks to the strength of Shemar Moore's modeling portfolio, he won an audition for the role of photographer Malcolm Winters on "The Young and the Restless" in in April 1994. By no means was winning the role a fait accompli for the aspiring thespian. "There were six of us on April 6 auditioning for the part of Malcolm Winters," Moore told Soap Opera Digest. "When I was done, we sat in a waiting room and the casting director came out and said, '["Young and the Restless" co-creator William Bell] has made a decision. You can go home now and call your agents.'"

Moore ran down the street to find the nearest payphone. "I called my future first agent, because he wasn't gonna sign me unless I got the job, and that was when I learned that I got the job," Moore recalled. "The point is, it changed my life overnight."

Six days later, Moore was on the set of one of television's most popular daytime soaps at just 24 years old. He subsequently learned that he owed the job to his co-star, Kristoff St. John, who played his big brother — and with whom he'd exchanged lines during his audition. According to Moore, Bell turned to St. John and asked which of the six actors he liked the best. "And he said, 'I want the scared kid in the baseball hat and the sunglasses to play my brother because he doesn't quite know what he's doing, but he's got good instincts and I know he can do it,'" recalled Moore.

Shemar Moore was still finding his footing as an actor on "The Young and the Restless" when, in 1995, he was approached to serve as guest host on "Soul Train." With the venerable music show's longtime host Don Cornelius having stepped down in 1993, a new host was needed, and that guest-hosting gig turned into a stepping stone to becoming the show's new host.

Moore addressed that particular job when he appeared on "The Jennifer Hudson Show" in 2024. "So, I started my career on 'The Young and the Restless,' and then I did this little thing called 'Soul Train,'" he said. It's a gig that many of Moore's fans forget that he'd had. Back in 2020, in fact, one fan tweeted, "I was today years old when I learned Shemar Moore was on 'Soul Train.'"

While 'Soul Train' has long been America's pre-eminent showcase of soul and funk music, Moore has admitted that his own personal tastes are far more eclectic. "I hosted 'Soul Train' but I listen to everything," he told Blackfilm.com. "I got rock in me. I got country music in me. I listen to James Brown, Donnie Hathaway, Cat Stevens, Judy Collins, and Styx."

In addition to branching out with "Soul Train" during his tenure on "The Young and the Restless," Shemar Moore also appeared in other TV shows, including the likes of "Living Single," "The Jamie Foxx Show," "The Nanny," "Chicago Hope," and others. In 2002, he was then cast as a series regular in his first primetime series, "Birds of Prey," which proved to be the real reason Moore left "The Young and the Restless." Airing on the now-defunct WB network, the series sprang from the DC Comics universe and followed a trio of female superheroes keeping Gotham free of crime after the self-exile of Batman. Moore played Jesse Reese, a police detective who assists the vigilantes.

While landing a leading role in a network television series that wasn't a soap represented a progression in Moore's career, the sad truth is that it did not last long. "Birds of Prey" was cancelled after just one season. However, the silver lining in the series' cancellation was that Moore was suddenly free when another opportunity arose — one that would play a major role in his rise through the Hollywood ranks.

After "Birds of Prey," Shemar Moore returned to "The Young and the Restless," knowing he'd always have a home on the soap. In 2005, he was cast in another series, "Criminal Minds," about a team of criminal profilers who get into the minds of serial killers in order to capture them.

The role — as Derek Morgan, a special agent with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit — fit Moore like a glove. That said, Moore also admitted that his actual personality is considerably lighter than that of the character he portrayed. "I have a lot more fun than he does," Moore told TVLine. "So, I tip my cap to the [FBI profilers] who really do what we portray on television, because it's a very dark, dark heavy world that really exists out there ... I honestly would never want to do that for a living, but I tip my cap to the people that do."

Moore remained with "Criminal Minds" for 11 seasons before exiting the series in 2016. Speaking with E! News, he revealed why he felt it was time to depart the series that had been responsible for his biggest career success to date. "I am wanting to see what else is out there for me and what else I'm capable of in my career and also in my personal life," Moore explained. "I'm looking for balance. I want to fall in love, get married, have kids, travel. I want to walk my dogs more. Just get some balance."

If there's one aspect of Shemar Moore that has remained consistent over the course of the three decades (and counting) in showbiz, it's been his commitment to remaining in tip-top shape. From the outside looking in, it may seem that maintaining that buff bod has become second nature for him, yet that's not necessarily the case. "I'm not a machine," Moore said to Men's Fitness. "I get really motivated, then I fall off the wagon and want to eat Chinese food and sit on my couch and gain five or 10 pounds!"

In order to preserve the physique that he's built, he starts each morning by swimming 10 to 20 laps in his pool, and then he hits the gym for an hour. However, Moore's also come to realize that the fundamentals of staying in shape take place in the kitchen, not the gym. "Don't get it twisted, whatever you do in the gym — I don't care how far you run or how heavy you lift — getting lean and mean starts in the kitchen with your diet," Moore told Men's Health. 

What's more, Moore revealed that he eats four to five meals each day, with a focus on increasing protein intake. According to Moore, his meals consist largely of egg whites, lean meat, chicken, and, fish; he also tends to stay away from alcohol and sugar. "If you're diet ain't right, you're going to drive yourself crazy in the gym," he added. "You might get a little stronger, but you're not going to get prettier."

Following his departure from "Criminal Minds," it didn't take Shemar Moore long to zero in on his next project. In 2017, CBS announced that he was attached as the star of a new series, "S.W.A.T." Moore would star as Daniel "Hondo" Harrelson, who runs a heavily trained unit tasked with fighting crime in Los Angeles.

This represented a major step in the upward trajectory of his Hollywood career, jumping from member of an ensemble cast to the lead in his own series. "I'd be lying if I didn't take a lot of pride in being No. 1 on the call sheet — but then again, there's a lot of responsibility, and I've got to lead by example," Moore told Andscape of the weight he felt in his new role. "What I'm even more proud of, by being No. 1 on the call sheet, is that I get to be a leader. I get to lead these actors. I'm also a producer, so I have some say for the good of the entire show, not just for myself."

In 2023, CBS announced that "S.W.A.T" had been cancelled after six seasons. After an outpouring of complaints from the show's loyal fanbase, CBS reversed the decision days later, renewing the show for a seventh season — which would be its last. That, however, didn't come to pass, with CBS picking the show up again for an eighth season in 2024. The following year, "S.W.A.T." was canceled for the third time. "We are canceled, again. It sucks," said Moore in a video he posted to Instagram, while pointing to the show being previously canceled twice and revived both times. "How many shows get to say that?" he asked.

In 2020, Shemar Moore's career was at an absolute peak when he announced some devastating news: his mother, Marilyn Wilson-Moore, had died. Wilson Moore, who'd been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis several years earlier, was 76 years old. "I miss her more than I ever thought possible and I don't know how to do this life without her," he wrote in an X post.

A few years later, Moore opened up about his grief in a 2024 interview, revealing how much his mother's death had changed him. "When my mother passed, I felt like I effed up," he told People, admitting that he'd been "selfish" in the way that he'd ambitiously prioritized his career over everything else in his life. "I chased my career so hard because I was so — and I still am — determined not to fail," he said. "But in that pursuit of not failing, what are you sacrificing? What are you losing?"

Shemar Moore's life experienced a huge change in 2023 when he made an announcement during an appearance on "The Jennifer Hudson Show," revealing he would soon become a father. "Ya boy is officially a Dad!!!" he wrote in an Instagram post, confirming that he and girlfriend Jesiree Dizon had welcomed a baby girl. "Dreams come true!! The rest of my life is here!"

Two years later, Shemar and Dizon split up. While it may be true that there were some red flags we should have seen in Moore's relationship, the two were resolute in their commitment to co-parenting their daughter, Frankie Melelina Kapule Moore. "They are loving friends and co-parents and always will be," a source told People after the couple's breakup.

As Shemar told First for Women, the death of his mother hit him hard, and regretted that she didn't live long enough to experience becoming a grandmother. "Her spirit was a large part of me reconnecting with my girl, Jesiree, and having this beautiful angel, Frankie," Shemar said. "Now I need to be the best version of myself for Frankie," he adds. "I'm gonna love her with everything I got."

Just when fans of "S.W.A.T." thought they'd seen the last of Hondo after the series was canceled for the third time, Shemar Moore proved them wrong when news emerged in 2025 that he'd be starring in a spinoff series, "S.W.A.T. Exiles." Moore would reprise his role in the new series, which follows Hondo as he's lured out of retirement to lead a new unit of young, untested recruits. As a result, none of his former "S.W.A.T." co-stars would join him in the new series; however, it was subsequently revealed that some of them, including Jay Harrington and Patrick St. Esprit, would return in a guest-starring capacity.

In February 2026, production completed on the inaugural season of "S.W.A.T. Exiles." At the time, there was still some uncertainty about where the series would air, with plans to shop the series around to TV networks and streaming services. This is a highly unorthodox and risky procedure, to produce an entire season of a new TV series without first having a home for it. The rush, however, was because Moore's contract was about to expire, while the series' studio, Sony Pictures Television, felt it would be financially advantageous to return to the "S.W.A.T." soundstages and utilize the already-existing crew. "Busted my ass for 31 years to do what I do, and excited about the future," Moore said of the spinoff in a video he shared via Instagram. "I'm excited that 'S.W.A.T.' gets to keep playing ball."

With Shemar Moore's next chapter still waiting to be written, he's looking toward the future while appreciating his past. When speaking with First for Women, Moore confirmed that he would always be open to resurrecting Malcolm Winter for "The Young and the Restless." He felt the same way about reviving Derek Morgan for "Criminal Minds," which was revived for a sequel series, "Criminal Minds: Evolution," for the Paramount+ streaming service.

"If 'The Young and the Restless' called me today, I would go," Moore said, noting that the same held true for "Criminal Minds." He added, "Because you never forget where you came from. It sounds cliché and maybe cheesy, but it's also true." Of course, when taking an inside look at "The Young And The Restless"' 50 years of production from script to set, it's obvious that the show has continually left the door open for Moore whenever he wants to return.

That said, Moore also admitted that while he was open to returning to either show, it would only be in a casual capacity, not full-time. "Now ... when I'm unemployed, you might get me on 'Young and the Restless' a little longer," he added. "But will I go back for a contract? No, probably not." The reason, he explained, was because he felt the continuing need to push himself further in different directions that would unveil new aspects of his talent that have yet to be showcased. "There's a lot in me that people don't know that I'm capable of," he said. "I know it's in me, but I got to dig deep to bring it out."