On February 22, the managing team of Wendy Williams, a popular talk show host and radio star, released a statement that she had been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia​ and frontotemporal dementia.
Despite her diagnosis, two days later the first two parts of a four-part documentary were released following her life from August 2022 to December 2023.
“Where is Wendy Williams?” released by Lifetime follows Williams’ life after her TV show was canceled due to issues with her alcoholism and overall poor health. She hosted the show for 13 years until guest hosts took over for a year while she was staying with family members.
The documentary discussed the traumatic events Williams experienced in the four years leading up to the permanent cancellation of her show in June 2022.
She revealed she had Graves’ disease for years which gives her bulging eyes and thyroid complications. She can hardly feel her swollen, ashy brown feet because of lymphedema. She walks slowly and occasionally uses a wheelchair.
She divorced her ex-husband, Kevin Hunter Sr., after his infidelity, and her alcohol abuse worsened so her family placed her in a sober house.
During 2020, her appearance on the show worsened as well. Her mother passed away later that year.
As a former little girl who loved watching “The Wendy Williams Show” with her mom, this documentary is disgusting. It is disgusting that Lifetime would show Williams in such a vulnerable state. The injustice Williams and her family endured is also disgusting.
When she took a leave as host, she stayed with her family in Miami, Florida. Williams’ son, Kevin Hunter Jr., reported that her health improved greatly during this time. “The Wendy Williams Show” wanted Williams to continue hosting, but the family wanted to keep her in Florida. Shortly after, the bank Wells Fargo accused Hunter Jr. of stealing $100K from his mother.
He denied this. Travis Finnie, Williams’ nephew, said between Hunter Jr.’s birthday party, rent, and Uber Eats purchases, Williams spent over $300K for her son.
A New York judge, Lisa Sokoloff, assigned her a guardian: Sabrina Morrissey, whose name is protected in the documentary, to take care of her and control her finances.
Williams’ appearance throughout the documentary is drastically different from her previous years. She is abnormally thin, and there is little to no food in her apartment because Williams has to ask Morrissey for access to any of her money.
Like her final appearances on “The Wendy Williams Show”, she constantly looks jilted, disconcerted, and confused. She forgot many things, zoned out, and had delayed reactions.
From what I gathered in her interviews, Williams likes being famous because of the attention and the love she receives. In her apartment, she was very lonely. This, and her lack of funds, drives her desire to work again. She said that all of her money was for her son. When asked about her family and her alcoholism she often cried and deflected the questions by saying, “I don’t know.” She still smoked and drank heavily in the show.
Strangely, Williams’ manager and publicist, Will Shelby and Shawn Zanotti, believed she was ready to have a podcast.
Finnie said, “It’s clear that my aunt needs help, and the biggest concern is the people around her taking advantage of her situation.”
Something this documentary does extremely well is showcasing Williams’ family’s thoughts and concerns about her situation.
They were unsure which of the vicious news coverage was reality and which was tabloid lies. There were even articles in favor of the guardianship, stating the family could not take care of Wiliams. Williams’ niece, Alexis Finnie, said Morrissey’s contact with them became distant over time.
In the last episode of the documentary Hunter Jr. revealed Williams received a diagnosis for alcohol-induced dementia in 2022. The producing team stated that they were previously unaware.
After the documentary’s release, a producer on the show, Mark Ford, said, “…if we had known that Wendy had dementia going into it, no one would have rolled a camera.”
However, after Hunter Jr. said it, clips of Williams were still rolling.
In April 2023, Shelby and Morrissey placed her in a wellness facility. The family was not aware of her location and had little contact with her. They said she was more self-aware and was doing much better.
Currently, Williams’ judge, Sokoloff, is being accused of rewarding guardianship to individuals who donated to her Supreme Court campaign fund. Morrissey is currently being accused of stealing $30 million from another one of her clients. She also attempted to derail the publication of the documentary.
Thankfully, Williams’ guardianship is up for review sometime in 2024.
It is evident that Williams is a victim of the gross entertainment industry that cares more about the money they can make from her than her well-being. Guardianship seems to be a ploy to have Williams working in the business again. She has joined the list of celebrities whose mental health has declined in the public eye for viewers to enjoy and obsess over.
While the show is a documentary the response is reminiscent of a reality show’s feedback.
Viewers on social media and media outlets are suggesting her situation is her karma for all the disrespect she put out during her career. No matter what Williams said or did during her career, she is still a person, and she deserves proper care.
To be honest, it is not surprising to see that a Black female entertainer is still milked for content, even when she is so clearly unwell. Despite all the joy and light Williams provided for her fans and all she has done for the entertainment industry, she is not respected in her time of great need.
The documentary is commendable for exposing the abuse happening to Williams and the United States’ flawed guardianship system, but it should not have come at the expense of Williams’ privacy. The producers should have kept her appearance out of the show and her interviews aural to leave her vulnerable moments off-screen.