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Wendy Williams’ Family Says They’re Unable To Contact Her, And Only Her Court Guardian Has Access
The Wendy Williams Show
Wendy Williams’ family members are speaking out about the former talk show host’s spiral, and say they haven’t been allowed to contact her while she remains under the control of a court-appointed guardian.
More than two and a half years after she left the Wendy Williams Show and disappeared from public life, rumors continue to swirl about her health problems and struggles with alcohol, and her family is putting some of those rumors to rest in a cover story for People.
“We’ve all seen the images over the last few months — and, really, few years — of what has seemed like a spiral for my aunt,” says Williams niece Alex Finnie told the magazine. It was shocking and heartbreaking to see her in this state.”
The upcoming Lifetime documentary Where Is Wendy Williams? began filming in August of 2022, and was meant to follow the 59-year-old TV personality’s comeback as she launched a podcast. But the comeback never came, and producers instead documented her alcoholism and struggles with Graves’ disease, an autoimmune condition that causes swelling in the feet, called lymphedema, along with bulging eyes.
Williams was an executive producer on the documentary, which stopped filming in April 2023 when she was admitted to a facility to treat cognitive issues.
In the film, Williams can be seen asking her driver to take her past the former Wendy Williams Show studio, forgetting that he had just done so.
I dont know what the hell is going on, her driver says. I think shes losing memory. She doesnt know who I am sometimes.”
In the documentary, Williams’ son says that doctors linked her cognitive issues to her alcohol use.
Williams remains in the facility, where only her court-appointed guardian has free access to her. Williams can contact her family members, but they are not able to contact her, they say.
The people who love her cannot see her,” Wanda, Wendy’s sister and Alex’s mom, said. “I think the big [question] is: How the hell did we get here?”
As her condition declined, leading first to a delay, then the cancellation of her talk show, her financial advisor alerted Wells Fargo that Williams was of unsound mind and at risk of financial exploitation, leading the bank to freeze her accounts.
Although Williams’ 23-year-old son, Kevin Hunter Jr. is still financially supported by her, he denies in the documentary that he ever exploited her condition. Instead, he claimed her court-appointed guardian has stolen money from her, but did not provide evidence.
While she was in Miami with family before her show’s cancellation, Kevin Jr. said he was able to keep her away from alcohol and provided a vegan diet and a personal trainer to help get her back on track. When family sought to extend Williams’ Florida visit, her show’s producers allegedly said no.
I said [to the producers], No, shes not coming back up because she needs to get better,” Kevin Jr. says in the documentary. I made sure that business was always on the back burner and that health was the number one priority.
After working through a series of guest hosts, The Wendy Williams Show was cancelled in June 2022.
“Wendy loved doing the show,” a producer told People. “Losing it just broke her.”
Williams’ niece Alex says the first sign of trouble came in 2017 when Williams fainted while wearing a Statue of Liberty costume for a Halloween episode of her show. The fainting spill was later attributed to her Graves’ disease, but producers told People she had already been drinking on the job for some time.
Then, in 2019, Williams divorced her husband of 21 years, Kevin Hunter, after it came to light that he had a baby with another woman.
“[Wendy’s mom] Shirley, may she rest in peace, would always remind me that your aunt would trade everything that she has — every dime, every car, every wig — to be able to have a strong loving household and a loving husband, Alex said. That was ripped from her right after her son had to go off to college [in 2018]. Emotionally, it was just a lot. It was too much for her world.
“It put her back into that dark space, Williams’ brother, Tommy, said.
The next year, in November 2020, Williams’ mother died.
When our mother passed, who was her greatest advocate and strongest support system out of anybody in this family, she never grieved,” Wanda said.
The documentary’s producers said they stopped filming in April 2022 when they discovered her in her apartment with her eyes rolled back into her head, according to People.
“How did she go from this aunt or sister that we love and is healthy one minute to this person whos in and out of the hospital?” Wanda asks. “How is that system better than the system the family could put in place? This system is broken.”
The documentary’s producers say they hope the film shines a light on the guardianship system and how it can be improved.
Where is Wendy Williams? premieres on Feb. 24.
TMX contributed to this article.
