From addiction to racism to heartbreak, Wendy Williams has been through it all and come out the other side — but could her tea-spilling days finally be over?
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00:00From addiction to racism to heartbreak, Wendy Williams has been through it all and come
00:04out the other side. But could her tea-spilling days finally be over?
00:08Wendy Williams had to overcome a lot on her climb to the top. When she was in elementary
00:12school, her parents convinced her that she was overweight and placed her on a strict
00:15diet that had a long-term impact on her mental health. She also experienced racism during
00:20her high school years. As she told The New Yorker,
00:22"...I never went to the prom because that was before you could ask a black girl to the
00:25prom. But I saw the boys looking."
00:27While promoting her lifetime biopic, Wendy Williams the Movie, Williams said that she
00:31had been date-raped by the late R&B singer Sherrick when she was in college, pointing
00:35out that incidents like these were all too common. She told People magazine,
00:39"...those types of things happen to girls all the time, and they've been happening a
00:42lot — to a lot of our mothers, grandmothers, great-great-grandmothers, and their great-great-grandmothers
00:47too."
00:48Drug addiction and alcohol abuse became an issue for Williams before she got famous,
00:52and continued to plague her even after her radio show took off.
00:55"...I lost over a decade of my life being hooked on cocaine."
01:00She managed to get sober at the age of 29, however, which changed everything for her.
01:04In 2003, she told The New York Times,
01:06"...I think the biggest achievement in my life was getting off cocaine. No matter what
01:10the rest of it is now, and it's pretty good, it would be just a mess if I were still doing
01:13coke."
01:15Williams worked her way to the morning talk slots on WRKS in New York City. She instantly
01:19began to attract attention for her gossip segments, which drew the ire of multiple celebrities,
01:24both Bill Cosby and Russell Simmons trying to get her fired, for example.
01:27"...I didn't get fired because I'm bringing in ratings, but what I did get was Bill Cosby
01:33calling and trying to do me in."
01:36As she mooted between stations, Williams often stirred the pot by claiming that certain rappers
01:40were gay, such as Q-Tip, who was the then-boyfriend of station colleague Angie Martinez. As Martinez
01:46later recalled,
01:47"...I lost my f----- mind. Before I knew it, I was swinging at her. It was a quick scuffle.
01:51It took only a few seconds for me to realize that she wasn't really hitting me back. She
01:54was just trying to get me off of her."
01:56Williams also claimed that Tupac Shakur had been raped in prison, which led to the rapper
02:00hitting back at her with an insulting verse in the song, "'Why You Turn On Me'." Nevertheless,
02:04Williams claimed that she enjoyed the attention the song brought her. She told The New Yorker,
02:08"...I love any time somebody mentions me. Thank you, Tupac."
02:11Williams has always been honest about her personal life. Aside from speaking about her
02:15drug and alcohol abuse on the air, she has also opened up about the miscarriages she
02:18had endured before she and her former husband Kevin Hunter had their son. Speaking on the
02:22PBS special American Masters' The Women's List, she said,
02:25"...I fought tooth and nail to be a mother. I suffered several miscarriages, including
02:29two at five months. That's when you have the clothes already picked out, the nursery is
02:33already painted."
02:34Williams went on to say that while she wanted a bigger family, it wasn't written in the
02:37stars for her. But these painful experiences made her love her son Kevin Jr. all the more.
02:42She added,
02:43"...Our Kevin is a hard-won child. I would have loved to have had more children, but
02:46I don't want to test my blessing. Being a mother is for me. It's not for everybody.
02:50It's for me."
02:51The TV personality also revealed that motherhood had presented plenty of challenges, including
02:55trying to stop her son from using drugs. Kevin developed an addiction to synthetic marijuana
02:59in his teens and needed to attend rehab. By the time she sat down for her interview for
03:03the PBS special, however, he had managed to kick the habit and was, in her words, on the
03:08good side of good.
03:09After making a living out of celebrity drama, Williams suffered through a relationship disaster
03:13of her own when her second husband, Kevin Hunter, cheated on her with another woman.
03:17"...Infidelity is one thing. A full baby is a whole nother topic. Okay?"
03:23Hunter fathered a daughter with the woman, which was something that Williams could not
03:26forgive. She told People magazine,
03:28"...Kevin had a major indiscretion that he will have to deal with for the rest of his
03:31life, an indiscretion that I will not deal with. I'm a very forgiving person, but there's
03:35one thing that I could never be a part of, and that one thing happened."
03:38Williams found out that Hunter was cheating on her after she hired a private investigator
03:42to follow him, having become suspicious of his behavior. This is how she found out that
03:46Hunter's mistress was carrying his child. Their 20-year marriage broke down soon after,
03:50and Williams filed for divorce.
03:52She also severed professional ties with Hunter, who had been her manager for many years. He
03:56was axed as an executive producer on The Wendy Williams Show, and the nonprofit organization
04:01the two ran together was unceremoniously dissolved.
04:04Around this time, Williams decided to move into a sober house as a preemptive move. Speaking
04:08to The New York Times Magazine about the scandal, she said,
04:10"...I knew what was about to happen, and I was like, let me go someplace where you're
04:13not allowed to have a whole bottle of wine. When you see your husband's mistress with
04:17a burgeoning belly and you're a blabbermouth on TV with a successful show, you know what's
04:21about to happen. I needed to go someplace quiet."
04:24Williams scared both her crew and her audience when she suddenly fainted during a Halloween
04:28episode of her show in 2017.
04:30When the commercials ended, Williams was back on stage and explaining what had happened.
04:42That was not a stunt. I'm overheated in my costume and I did pass out."
04:47Fans took to Axe, formerly Twitter, to show their support for Williams after the incident,
04:51with one writing,
04:52"...Wendy Williams overheated in her costume and fainted on her show, but came right back
04:56like a champ."
04:57Williams would later reveal that the added stress of what was going on in her personal
05:00life played a part in the shocking moment. She told The New Yorker,
05:03"...I was in the process of the early stages of my divorce. My son was going to college,
05:07so I was now free to pack up the house, to fight."
05:09In 2018, Wendy Williams revealed that she had been diagnosed with Graves' disease, and
05:14that she would be taking a three-week hiatus from her show to recover. Graves' disease
05:18is an autoimmune condition that often leads to hyperthyroidism, and can cause anxiety,
05:23fatigue, weight loss, hair loss, and heart problems. Williams was already aware that
05:28she had thyroid issues, but the Graves diagnosis was news to her. She told reviewers that Graves
05:33"...squeezes the muscles behind the eyeballs."
05:35This checked out, as many of her fans had pointed out that there seemed to be something
05:38not quite right with her eyes prior to her diagnosis. In typical Williams fashion, she
05:42pushed back against medical advice to take three weeks off from work, saying that she
05:46couldn't afford to be absent for so long.
05:48"...I'll be back in two. I'm not an heiress! Who's going to pay my bills?"
05:53Wendy Williams disappeared from our screens altogether in 2021. At first, the public were
05:58led to believe this was due to her catching COVID-19. Her reps later revealed that she
06:02was dealing with ongoing health issues, adding that she would be back for the opening episode
06:06of her show's 13th season. Before long, news broke that Williams was undergoing a psychiatric
06:11evaluation, and it became clear that she would not be able to continue her show anytime soon.
06:15A handful of celebrities filled in for Williams during the turmoil, bolstering the show throughout
06:20its 13th season.
06:21Reporter Ira Bernstein told The Hollywood Reporter,
06:23"...For the first four, five, six, eight weeks, we think we're putting a Band-Aid on it and
06:28Wendy's coming back."
06:29Bernstein also revealed that it had been difficult to replace Williams on the show because of
06:33her reputation as someone who stirred up trouble. According to her, plenty of people turned
06:37down offers to guest host. She said,
06:39"...Wendy comes with a stink to it. It's the same reason for the 12 years preceding we
06:42struggled to book guests. She was tough on many celebrities, and a lot of celebrities
06:46hate her."
06:47In the end, it didn't matter. By 2022, the network had announced that The Wendy Williams
06:51Show had been canceled.
06:53In 2024, it was revealed that Williams had been diagnosed with aphasia and frontotemporal
06:58dementia, also known as the health condition that forced Bruce Willis to retire from acting.
07:02Aphasia causes personality changes, behavioral problems, and difficulty using or comprehending
07:07language. The 2024 Lifetime miniseries Where Is Wendy Williams? detailed the now-retired
07:12TV personality's health struggles, showing the effects of her conditions.
07:15There's something wrong going on."
07:18Williams displays erratic behavior in a number of scenes, the inclusion of which didn't sit
07:22right with her guardian, Sabrina Morrissey. Morrissey has argued that the creators of
07:26the documentary exploited Williams. According to her, the people behind the show made Williams
07:30an executive producer and used this to take advantage of her. In a complaint filed at
07:34the New York State Supreme Court, she argued,
07:36"...this blatant exploitation of a vulnerable woman with a serious medical condition who
07:40is beloved by millions within and outside of the African-American community is disgusting,
07:45and it cannot be allowed."
07:46Despite Morrissey's efforts to stop the doc, Lifetime was given the green light to release
07:50it. It's a messy, sad situation, and no one came away from it smelling like roses — except
07:55for Williams herself. Sean Zanotti, who was working as Williams' publicist when the show
07:59was filmed, defended her role in the controversial film after she was shown taking Williams out
08:03for a drink, despite her past issues with alcohol. Zanotti claims that she only ever
08:07had Williams' best interest at heart, adding that she was rarely paid for her work due
08:11to the TV star's accounts being frozen over questions about her mental state.
08:15After years of holding courts on both the radio and on television, Williams' time in
08:19the spotlight now appears to be over. In 2024, a legal filing shared by TMZ declared that
08:24she is permanently incapacitated due to her health conditions. The filing by Sabrina Morrissey
08:29states that
08:30"...Williams has been afflicted by early-onset dementia and, as a result, has become cognitively
08:34impaired and permanently incapacitated."
08:37TMZ notes that parts of the filing were redacted to protect Williams' privacy, and that of
08:41her family. Though Williams is now out of the public eye, her diagnosis doesn't mean
08:45she's completely disappeared. She's been seen out and about shopping, and she's also found
08:49time to give interviews, chatting with the Daily Mail in October 2024.
08:53The tabloid reached out to Williams in the wake of the Sean Combs scandal, as Williams
08:57had taken aim at the music mogul decades ago over his behavior. Williams explained,
09:01"...What is really weird is that I have been told by so many people, Wendy, you called
09:04it, including some people from my family who have said the same. She may not be on
09:08TV anymore, but she's still spilling the tea, and her fans are convinced that she would
09:12have had even more to say had she still been on the air."
09:15One fan posted on X,
09:16"...I truly miss auntie Wendy Williams on days like today. No one did Hot Topics like
09:21she did. No one. I can almost hear her going off on Diddy and telling us she told us so."
09:26Another fan said,
09:27"...because she's always known and she tried to tell us many times. I hope she's doing
09:30better."
09:31If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit
09:35the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline
09:41at 1-800-656-HOPE, 4673.