Wendy Williams isn’t holding past mistakes against her son Kevin Hunter Jr., and it appears she’d ready to move on from them—even if they are the cause of her unideal living conditions. And now she’s speaking out about.
via: People
PEOPLE recently spoke with Ginalisa Monterroso, a health care advocate for the former talk show host, 60, who was placed under a legal guardianship in 2022 and announced her dementia diagnosis in 2023.
In early 2022, Williams' 24-year-old son and her ex-husband, Kevin Hunter were the subjects of public scrutiny when court filings showed that Wells Fargo froze her accounts after her financial adviser at the time, Lori Schiller, alleged that she was of “unsound mind."
Hunter Jr. was Williams' power of attorney and reportedly took a large sum of money from her account, ultimately raising flags at the bank. The bank successfully petitioned a New York court to have Williams placed under temporary financial guardianship.
While not specifying any names, that bank later said in court filings that it froze the funds because "Wells Fargo has strong reason to believe that [Williams] is the victim of undue influence and financial exploitation."
It said it reached that conclusion based on "reports of the financial advisor, who has recently witnessed telltale signs of exploitation, including [Williams]'s own expressed apprehensions" and from "other independent third parties who know [Williams] well and share these concerns."
Monterroso tells PEOPLE now: "What the misconception is, what people have to understand is that Wendy told the world now that this happened three years ago."
"So that's something that they were able to get through. That will always be her son, unconditional love. And that's pretty much, it was big news to everybody," Monterroso says. "But again, this happened three years ago."
She also notes that Williams recently saw her son when she went to Florida to visit her dad for his birthday.
"He was there. And that's the last part. But I do know that she continued to communicate with him. And that's her honey bunny," she says.
In Lifetime’s Where Is Wendy Williams? documentary, Hunter Jr. denied the allegations, claiming that during the time she was in his care in Florida, she signed off on all financial decisions and has always spent large amounts of money due to her extravagant lifestyle. Details of Williams’ current financial holdings have not been made public.
“I’ve never taken [money] without her consent,” said Hunter Jr. in the documentary.
Most recently, Williams has continued to refute claims that she is mentally incapacitated after she was taken from her assisted living facility to the hospital by ambulance on Monday, March 10. The New York Police Department told PEOPLE at the time that authorities responded to a welfare check on Williams and she was then escorted into an ambulance and taken to a local hospital "for evaluation."
Williams said on Good Day New York the following day that she "passed" the mental competency test at the hospital "with flying colors."
In her interview with PEOPLE, Monterroso said Williams is “excited” for a jury to determine if her guardianship should be terminated following additional mental competency testing.
“This is something that she's been wanting to say, and she just can't wait to get her story out,” Monterroso says of Williams wanting to clear the air about being mentally incapacitated. “And at the end of the day, she's going to have a trial by jury, and it will be the jury who will be making the decision.”
Monterroso notes that the trial — which has not yet been scheduled — will follow additional testing from “an independent neurologist.”
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