“Since I was six years old, all I wanted was to be famous.”
That's what Wendy Williams – aka America's most controversial talk show host – says in the new, highly dramatic trailer for an upcoming documentary.
And in the end, one can't help but conclude that Williams paid a tragic price for that longing.
The once fearless and feared radio shocker and warrior queen of daytime television is shown several times drunk, bursting into tears, struggling to walk and claiming she has no money.
At one point, her manager, Will Selby, tries to remove a half-empty liquor bottle from her bedroom. “Leave the bottle there,” she shouts.
It is the first time Williams, 59, has been seen in public in more than a year.
Given that she earned $10 million per season as host of The Wendy Williams Show, which lasted 14 series before its abrupt cancellation in 2021, the news that she's broke — if true — is special shocking.
The once fearless and feared radio shock jock and warrior queen of daytime television was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia and primary progressive aphasia.
Given that she earned $10 million per season as host of The Wendy Williams Show, which lasted 14 series before its abrupt cancellation in 2021, the news that she's broke — if true — is special shocking.
Williams has amassed an army of loyal fans for her caustic interpretations of pop culture and her endless on-air battles with celebrities – at the height of her fame, she averaged more than 1.6 million US viewers per day.
Now, Williams is turning the spotlight back on herself in “Where is Wendy Williams?,” a two-part Lifetime documentary airing later this month.
“I don’t have any money and I’m going to tell you something,” she says, staring into the camera. “If it happens to me, it could happen to you.”
Later, someone outside the line of fire asks her if she has seen a neurologist. “To find out if I’m crazy?” asks Williams. “Mmm-hmm.”
Her son Kevin Hunter Jr., 23, notes, “Mom did a great job always making it seem like everything was fine, but in reality something was wrong.”
On Thursday we learned the sad truth.
Williams' “care team” announced in a press release that she was diagnosed last year with frontotemporal dementia and primary progressive aphasia – specifically, the same conditions that afflict Bruce Willis.
In 2022, Williams was placed under financial conservatorship by a New York judge – after she was found to be an “incapacitated person” and the culmination of a life plagued by decades of cocaine addiction, alcoholism and complications from Graves. Disease – an immune disorder.
News of her dementia diagnosis came just a day after an explosive interview with some of her family in People magazine in which they claimed they didn't know what the hell was going on [with Williams]' and that only her court-appointed guardian knows which health facility she is currently in.
“The people who love her can't see her,” Williams' mother and sister told the magazine.
Over the years, Williams has happily shared with her audience many of her personal challenges, such as her fluctuating weight, her obsession with plastic surgery, a series of miscarriages and the humiliating breakdown of a marriage to her former manager Kevin Hunter.
But back then she was a multimillionaire with an extremely successful show that regularly even exceeded Ellen DeGeneres' ratings.
Apparently things have gotten a lot worse since then.
She was so vocal as a child that her teacher parents developed a code to get her to quiet down at social events: “TL” or “TF,” for “too loud” or “too fast.”
She struggled with her weight from a young age – a crippling insecurity that was only exacerbated by her parents' pressure to control her eating – and found solace in music and celebrity magazines.
Williams has amassed an army of adoring fans for her acerbic takes on pop culture and her endless on-air battles with stars – at the height of her fame, she averaged more than 1.6 million US viewers per day.
Now, Williams is turning the spotlight back on herself in “Where is Wendy Williams?,” a two-part Lifetime documentary airing later this month.
Growing up in the predominantly white beach town of Asbury Park, New Jersey, most of Williams' friends were white – and she preferred rock music to hip-hop.
“I was a multicultural woman who happened to be black,” she later recalled.
In 2021, she revealed that she had been “raped” during college – where she first took cocaine – and later suffered the same fate at the hands of late '80s R&B singer Sherrick after interviewing him on the radio . “Things like this happen to girls all the time,” she said.
When she realized that radio was a quicker route to the fame she craved than television, she chose the former.
Her first job in radio was in 1986, when she worked as a DJ for a small station in the U.S. Virgin Islands. But she preferred to stir up controversy rather than set records.
Meanwhile, with more money, her cocaine abuse escalated into a complete addiction – which lasted at least a decade.
According to her own statements, her trust in the “white lady,” as she called it, was so great that she regularly stopped on the side of the road while driving between appointments and snorted up to three grams per day.
She also took up crack, admitting five years ago: “Crack is crazy – but at a particularly stupid point in my life it did me a lot of good.”
She said the cocaine helped suppress her appetite and gave her the “chemical courage” she needed. She has also described herself as a “functioning addict” whose superiors cynically recognized that she was too valuable to be taken off the air and treated.
Williams says she finally quit smoking in the late 1990s — without going to rehab.
In 1990, she had a morning show on Kiss FM in New York – the first of a series of music stations in the Big Apple and Philadelphia, where her bizarre gossip about celebrities and rappers – her specialty was outing macho performers as gay – sparked heated feuds and Caused trouble by people like Bill Cosby and music mogul Russell Simmons calling for her to be taken off the air.
Around this time, Williams became the subject of tabloid gossip when she began dating Eric B of the rap duo Eric B and Rakim.
She quickly became pregnant but had an abortion. “It was one of the loneliest experiences of my life,” she later said.
More romantic heartbreak would follow. Although she admitted to having a soft spot for “thugs,” in 1994 she married mild-mannered first husband Bert Girigorie, who worked in the sales and marketing department of her radio station.
It was a union doomed to failure – the two reportedly even argued during their honeymoon in Rio de Janeiro. They were divorced after just five months.
According to her own statements, her addiction to cocaine became so severe that she regularly stopped on the side of the road between appointments and snorted up to three grams of cocaine per day.
She also took crack and admitted five years ago: “Crack is crazy.” But at a particularly stupid point in my life it did me a lot of good.'
Williams met her second husband, Kevin Hunter, the same year, but they did not marry until 1999. He became her agent and she suffered three miscarriages before giving birth to their son Kevin in 2000.
A month after his birth, Williams learned that Hunter was having an affair.
Motherhood hasn't tempered Williams' ferocity on the radio.
In fact, she had her most infamous on-air argument with Whitney Houston in 2003, after she questioned the superstar about her troubled marriage to rapper Bobby Brown, her sex life and her breast implants, which Williams clumsily compared to “two baseballs on a stick.” .
Three years later, she sparked even more angst among celebrities when she revealed that Method Man's wife, aka Wu-Tang Clan rapper Clifford Smith, had cancer before the couple could even tell their loved ones.
In 2008, she moved from radio to television to launch The Wendy Williams Show four days a week.
Williams toned down the most salacious content for daytime television, but did not relent in her criticism of other stars.
She was often accused of going too far. In 2016, she questioned why singer Kesha didn't film her alleged sexual abuse by a record producer.
She also repeatedly claimed that Beyoncé was stupid, wished that Britney Spears' family would die, and made fun of Joaquin Phoenix's cleft lip scar.
In 2018, she took one of many swipes at political correctness when she defended child sex offender R. Kelly, saying she was “sick of this Me Too movement.”
But she had more serious problems than angry spectators.
Her health problems first became apparent when she dramatically fainted during a live broadcast in 2017 and regained consciousness after an overly long commercial break.
In 2019, she finally split from her unfaithful second husband Kevin Hunter after he had a baby with another woman.
While in rehab for her drinking, she hired a private investigator to track Hunter – and discovered that he had a home with his mistress just nine miles from her own $2 million family home in Livingston, New Jersey.
She later revealed to fans that she was staying at a sober living facility in Florida and was reportedly being treated for alcohol and pill addiction.
In 2019, she finally split from her cheating second husband Kevin Hunter (pictured) after he had a baby with another woman.
She later revealed to fans that she was staying at a sober living facility in Florida and was reportedly being treated for alcohol and pill addiction.
She also said that she has struggled for years with Graves' disease, which can cause an overactive thyroid (symptoms include the bulging eyes she now suffers from) and lymphedema, which causes swelling arms and legs.
Behind the scenes of her show, the staff described how Williams fell apart.
Producers have had to question their sobriety with their bosses at least 25 times. Insiders said they were discovering “bottles.” [of alcohol] up in the ceiling tiles and other strange places in the office.
During the summer of 2021, Williams spent most of his time in hospitals and doctor's offices.
When her show returned to screens in the fall, it was instead hosted by a series of guest hosts – before abruptly ending in June 2022 due to the eponymous host's absence from the final episode.
“The life I'm living right now is my best life, and I don't feel guilty saying that,” she said in a 2021 interview. “I like who I am, so I have no regrets.”
After news of her dementia diagnosis last year, it appears that her “best life” is unfortunately now behind her.