Wendy Williams called in to The Breakfast Club Thursday morning to speak out against her guardianship.
via: Rolling Stone
Williams, in one of her first interviews in years, spoke out against her court-ordered conservatorship and the claims from her own team that she’d been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia and aphasia.
Calling into The Breakfast Club Thursday, Jan. 16, Williams was adamant that her mental condition had not deteriorated at all and said she felt trapped in the care facility where she’s been living: “I am not cognitively impaired, you know what I’m saying? But I feel like I’m in prison.”
A few minutes later, when host Charlamagne the God mentioned the reports that Williams was cognitively impaired and incapacitated, Williams fired back, “Do I seem that way, God dammit?” She added: “Who I naturally am, is who I naturally am, you know what I’m saying?”
Williams has been under a court-ordered guardianship since 2022. In February of that year, it was announced that Williams would be unable to return to her long-running talk show amid reports of her deteriorating health (The Wendy Williams Show officially ended a few months later). In September, she checked into a “wellness facility” with the aim of making a “major comeback.” But nothing ever materialized, and in early 2024, Williams’ care team revealed the dementia and aphasia diagnosis.
That news came right before the premiere of the two-part Lifetime documentary, Where Is Wendy Williams? which explored the past few years of Williams’ life, leading up to the start of her guardianship. Williams’ guardian, Sabrina Morrissey, eventually sued Lifetime and the makers of the documentary, claiming the series was made “without a valid contract” and that Williams was “highly vulnerable and clearly incapable of consenting to being filmed, much less humiliated and exploited.”
Lifetime and A&E eventually countersued Morrissey, alleging she only brought the suit when she realized the documentary would raise questions about her work as Williams’ guardian. And now Williams herself has spoken out against Morrissey on The Breakfast Club, claiming she was the one who wanted Williams to do the documentary.
“She was the one who wanted to do that, you understand what I’m saying?” Williams said of the documentary. She added: “What do I think about being abused? Listen, look, this system is broken. This system that I’m in. This system has falsified a lot.”
Williams’ niece, Alex, also called into The Breakfast Club to back up her aunt’s claims. Alex said she’d seen Williams “in a very limited capacity, but I’ve seen her and we’re talking to her. This does not match an incapacitated person. And 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.”
A lawyer for Morrissey did not immediately return Rolling Stone’s request for comment. On The Breakfast Club, Alex said she and her aunt expected some kind of retaliation over the interview. “We talked about that. You know, my aunt, even with her wanting to come, we talked about all scenarios. I said, ‘You know, we do this, you’re ready for what’s on the other side?’ And as she said, ‘I have to do this. There’s nothing else I could do at this point.’”
*****
It was a great interview, and Wendy definitely needs to be taken out of this guardianship. She sounded like she was aware of what was going on, and would recall things from years ago. That doesn't sound like someone with dementia.
Then again, people with dementia do have their good and bad days. I loved that she had her niece Alex there to assist her when she would be all over the place with articulating her voice, but do I think once we get her free like the #FreeBritney movement does she have the mental capacity to jump back in the TV pool?
Honestly, I don't think so. The Wendy that we loved for the past three decades is long gone, but I think she could do a podcast a few times a week with a co-host.
In addition to her interview over at The Breakfast Club, and hitting Diddy with a stray, she also called Don Lemon and went into further details regarding her guardianship.
You can check out her interviews with The Breakfast Club and Don Lemon below...
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