Wendy Williams is speaking out against her guardianship. The former daytime talk show host and radio personality has been under a guardianship since 2022, as her care team alleges that Williams’s health has been in decline after she was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia and progressive aphasia. But during a recent call to the popular radio show The Breakfast Club, hosted by DJ Envy, Charlamagne Tha God, and Jess Hilarious, Williams said that she is mentally sound.
“Do I seem that way, goddamn it?” Williams asked the hosts.
“I am not cognitively impaired, you know what I’m saying? But I feel like I’m in prison,” said Williams, speaking about the New York City care facility where she has been living. “I’m in this place where the people are in their 90s and their 80s and their 70s…. There’s something wrong with these people here on this floor.” The 60-year-old said that she has to take seven daily pills at the care facility, and that she has “no idea” what they contain. “It’s to the point where, uh, ‘Excuse me, doctor, can you tell me what this pill is for?’” she said.
On the call, Williams was aided by her niece, Alex, who affirmed Williams’s assessment of the situation. Per Alex, the room where Williams lives at her facility is bare and drab: “She’s looking out one window at buildings across the street,” she said. “That’s her life.” Alex alleged Williams can make outgoing calls but loved ones outside of the facility can’t call her, and Williams said she has spent her past three birthdays on her own. “This is what is called emotional abuse,” said Williams.
Williams hosted the popular and juicy daytime talk show The Wendy Williams Show from 2008 to 2022. She stepped down from hosting due to medical issues stemming from lymphedema and Graves’ disease. Replacement hosts including Sherri Shepherd were brought in after Williams’s departure, but the show was soon canceled, airing its final episode in June 2022. In 2023, Williams was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia and aphasia, and her diagnosis was shared with the public in February of 2024.
In 2022, a four-part Lifetime documentary called Where Is Wendy Williams? began filming Williams’s allegedly declining health—including multiple scenes in which the formerly sharp and irreverent talk show host appears to be erratic and out of sorts. Williams’s court-appointed guardian, Sabrina Morrissey, subsequently sued Lifetime’s parent company, A&E Television Networks, Lifetime Entertainment Services, and others to block the documentary’s release, alleging that Williams, who served as executive producer on the docuseries, could not legally consent to filming due to her condition. Months later, A&E and Lifetime countersued Morrissey, alleging that Morrissey wanted to bury the doc after she realized that it would critique her role as Williams’s guardian.
On the call, Williams told The Breakfast Club that she and Morrissey watched Where Is Wendy Williams? together when it aired, taking notes on the program. “She was the one who wanted to do that, you understand what I’m saying?” Williams said. “What do I think about being abused? Look, this system is broken, this system that I’m in. This system has falsified a lot.” During their conversation, she referred to Morrissey as “that person that you talk about who is holding me hostage.”
Ultimately, Williams said that she wishes to end her guardianship and move to Miami to be closer to her family, particularly her father. “I am exhausted thinking about, What if I can’t see my dad for his birthday? At 94, the day after that is not promised,” she said on The Breakfast Club, audibly holding back tears. “My life is, like, fucked up.”
Although she spent most of the call discussing her own trials and tribulations, in true Williams fashion she also gave her two cents about Diddy and his looming trial for alleged sex crimes. (Diddy has denied the allegations against him.) “Diddy will go to prison for life, people,” Williams said. “You don’t know things that I knew about Diddy back in the day. And you know what? It’s about time. Diddy done.”
Alex added that in the limited times she’s been able to see Williams, her aunt has seemed well and not incapacitated. “That’s why we say she’s in a luxury prison, because she is being held and she is being punished for whatever reason that other people are coming up with as to why she has to be kept in this position,” said Alex. She added that anyone who wants to support Williams can use the hashtag #FreeWendy, sign her change.org petition or donate to her GoFundMe.
Vanity Fair has reached out to Morrissey for comment.
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