Shemar Moore: The Man Behind Derek Morgan, Hondo, and Baby Girl Frankie
Shemar Franklin Moore was born April 20, 1970, in Oakland, California — and by the time he turned 30, he’d already won a Daytime Emmy, hosted Soul Train, and become one of daytime television’s most recognizable faces. By the time he turned 50, he’d spent eleven seasons as Derek Morgan on Criminal Minds and was carrying his own CBS procedural as lead. At 52, he became a father for the first time. Three things define him to different audiences. Soap fans know Malcolm Winters. Crime drama fans know Derek Morgan. And anyone who follows him on Instagram knows Frankie.
Born in Oakland, Raised Everywhere Else
His mother, Marilyn Wilson, was a teacher with a mathematics degree — practical, mobile, and apparently willing to move continents for work. When Shemar was six months old, she took him to Denmark. Then Bahrain, where he attended a British private school until he was about six or seven. Then back to California, eventually settling in Palo Alto. His father, Sherrod Moore, was African American with Cherokee heritage; his mother was Irish and French-Canadian, originally from Roxbury, Massachusetts. Moore has spoken openly about his biracial identity throughout his career, sometimes to controversy, but the mixed cultural background — Denmark, Bahrain, a British private school, then Palo Alto public schools — gave him a worldview that reads clearly in how he carries himself on camera.
At Gunn High School in Palo Alto he was a pitcher and outfielder on the baseball team. Good enough to earn an athletic scholarship to Santa Clara University, where he majored in communications and minored in theater arts. His plan, by his own account, was professional baseball. A shoulder injury ended that. He graduated in 1992 with a BA, started modeling to pay bills, and signed with DNA Model Management in New York City. The modeling was never a detour — it was the door.
The Young and the Restless, 1994–2005: Where It Started
His first TV credit came in 1994 on CBS’s The Young and the Restless, where he played Malcolm Winters — a photographer, Neil Winters’ half-brother, charming and complicated in the way that keeps soap audiences devoted for years. He stayed eleven years, won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2000, and picked up multiple NAACP Image Awards along the way. While on the show he guest-starred constantly: Living Single in 1995, The Jamie Foxx Show in 1996, Chicago Hope in 1998, Moesha in 1999. In 1999, he also became the third permanent host of Soul Train, hosting 111 episodes before leaving in 2003. He left The Young and the Restless in 2005, returned briefly in 2014 and 2019, and made another guest appearance in 2023 — and then again in 2026, which is a long run for any character on any show.
Criminal Minds: 251 Episodes, One Nickname That Became a Business
In 2005 Moore joined the CBS crime drama Criminal Minds as Special Agent Derek Morgan — a physical, fiercely protective member of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. He stayed for eleven seasons and 251 episodes, leaving in 2016 of his own choosing. He returned for one episode in October 2017. The role made him a household name across demographics that don’t typically overlap: crime procedural regulars, younger viewers discovering the show on Netflix, and an international audience that turned Criminal Minds into one of CBS’s most globally distributed series.
What most casual viewers don’t know: Morgan’s recurring nickname for Penelope Garcia was “Baby Girl.” Moore used that phrase to name his clothing company, Baby Girl LLC, which donates its profits to multiple sclerosis research. His mother Marilyn was diagnosed with MS in 1998. He and several Criminal Minds castmates attended fundraising events for MS research throughout the show’s run. In 2016, actor Keith Tisdell — a guest star on Criminal Minds — stole more than $60,000 from the company. He was charged with grand theft and ordered to repay the money rather than serve time. The company kept going.
Leaving Criminal Minds in 2016 was his decision. “I’m proud of the way things ended for Derek Morgan,” he told TV Guide at the time. What that decision likely cost him in salary — he was reportedly earning around $200,000 per episode in the later seasons, and the show ran three more seasons after he left — is a separate question. He has never publicly second-guessed it.
S.W.A.T., 2017–2025: Eight Seasons as Hondo
In February 2017, CBS announced Moore would lead a new procedural based on the 2003 film and 1975 TV series S.W.A.T. He played Sergeant Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson for eight seasons. The show’s series finale aired in May 2025. That same month, CBS announced S.W.A.T. Exiles, a spinoff with Moore reprising the Hondo role. His daughter Frankie, two years old at the time, visited the S.W.A.T. Exiles set in October 2025 — he posted the video on Instagram with the caption “Daddy – Daughter day!! Frankie’s first set visit to @swat.headquarters and she came ready to put in work.”
The S.W.A.T. run matters because it wasn’t an ensemble role. Morgan had been part of a team with Gubler, Thomas Gibson, A.J. Cook, Kirsten Vangsness, and others. Hondo was the lead. Moore carried a network procedural for eight years as the principal character — the kind of sustained run that separates working actors from actual TV stars.
Films: The Brothers, Tyler Perry, and Sonic the Hedgehog
His film work has always lived in the shadow of his television career, and that’s accurate to the reality. His two most culturally significant films are The Brothers (2001), a relationship drama he co-led with Morris Chestnut, D.L. Hughley, and Bill Bellamy, and Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005), Tyler Perry’s theatrical debut as a director, which became a surprise box office hit. He voiced Victor Stone — Cyborg — in several DC animated features including Justice League: War (2014) and Justice League: Throne of Atlantis (2015), picking up a fanbase that wouldn’t have found him through CBS procedurals. In 2022 and 2023 he appeared as G.U.N. Agent Randall Handel in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which between them grossed over $700 million worldwide. He’s also the face of a long-running Paycom commercial campaign, playing an “Unnecessary Action Hero” — a self-aware bit that his fans have warmed to.
Net Worth: What Three Decades on Network Television Actually Adds Up To
Estimates run between $16 million and $22 million, with Celebrity Net Worth landing at $16 million and several other sources citing up to $22 million. The variation reflects genuine uncertainty about the value of his endorsements and real estate, not sloppy research. His income sources are TV salary (primary), modeling residuals and magazine work, brand endorsements including the Paycom campaigns, and property. He owns a home in Los Angeles valued around $5.8 million and a second property in Valley Village worth approximately $2.5 million. His car collection — a matte black Rolls-Royce, a red Ferrari F8, a yellow Mercedes GTR, a burgundy 1974 Ford Bronco, and a Range Rover he refers to as the “daddy mobile” — gets documented on Instagram with some regularity.
For context on the television salary math: at $200,000 per episode in later Criminal Minds seasons, eleven seasons and 251 episodes represents a significant base. S.W.A.T. ran eight seasons on a lead contract. Neither figure is publicly confirmed by Moore or CBS, but the range is consistent with what other CBS procedural leads at similar career stages have reported. He is not among the wealthiest actors in Hollywood — he’s not Kevin Costner or Dwayne Johnson territory — but he has built sustainable wealth over a long career rather than one breakout payday.
His Mother, Multiple Sclerosis, and What Came After
Marilyn Wilson-Moore was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998. She was, by every account Moore has given in interviews over the years, the central person in his life. She died in February 2020 at 76, from complications of MS and a heart condition. He has described the period after her death as one of being “lost” — not dramatically, but genuinely disoriented about purpose. “I lived my whole life to make her proud,” he said on The Jennifer Hudson Show in early 2025. “And when she left, I was in a place of ‘so what, like, what does it all mean.'”
What came next, nearly three years later, was Frankie.
Fatherhood at 52
On January 9, 2023, Moore announced on The Jennifer Hudson Show that his girlfriend Jesiree Dizon was pregnant. He was 52. “I’m Shemar Moore, 52½ years old. My mother is in heaven — it’ll be the three-year anniversary on February 8. And on February 8, I’m going to make one of her dreams come true.” Frankie arrived early. He posted on Instagram on January 25, 2023: “Ya boy is officially a Dad!!!”
He has been consistent, in interviews and on social media, about what the timing meant to him. His mother had hoped he would become a father. He had resigned himself to the idea that it probably wasn’t going to happen. Then it did, three years almost to the day after her death. He has a “Frankie” tattoo in large script on his right outer forearm, revealed in April 2025. His Instagram is, at this point, roughly fifty percent baby content — which his fans appear to find entirely acceptable.
He and Jesiree Dizon separated in January 2025, after five years together. They are co-parenting. When the split became public, Moore posted a video on Instagram asking fans not to direct hostility at Dizon: “She is a phenomenal mother. If you really have love for me, if you’re a fan of me — be kind.” Dizon has two other children from previous relationships, a son Kaiden (now in his late teens) and a daughter Charlie, and Moore has been a stepfather figure to both. He has been clear that Frankie is his only biological child and that he has no plans for a second.
Awards and What They Represent
One Daytime Emmy Award — Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, 2000, for The Young and the Restless. Three Daytime Emmy nominations total. Eight NAACP Image Award wins. A People’s Choice Award nomination in 2016 for his work on Criminal Minds. The Emmy came early in his career when he was still largely a soap opera actor; the NAACP wins span multiple decades and reflect consistent recognition from a community that has followed his work closely. He has not won a primetime Emmy, which is a gap some critics note given the sustained quality of his Criminal Minds performance over eleven years, but network procedural acting rarely gets Emmy traction regardless of quality.
Where Things Stand in 2026
S.W.A.T. ended in May 2025 after eight seasons. S.W.A.T. Exiles is in production with Moore as Hondo, joined by returning cast members from the original series. He reprised Malcolm Winters on The Young and the Restless in 2026 — a guest appearance on the show where he got his start more than thirty years earlier. He is 55 years old, a first-time father with a two-year-old, and apparently more photographed on Instagram with his daughter than in any promotional context for his shows. That is not a complaint from his fanbase. It is, at this point, the Shemar Moore brand: still working, still on CBS, still “Baby Girl” — now literally.
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