Just as Lifetime will air a documentary about Wendy Williams’ recent struggles with physical and mental health issues, news came out today that the popular talk show host of The Wendy Williams Show, has been diagnosed with dementia and aphasia.
Wendy’s erratic behavior eventually caused the popular show’s demise, and she then disappeared for more than a year, fueling much speculation among her fans. She has now opened up about her various physical and mental issues in a Lifetime documentary. “Where is Wendy Williams?” will be aired on February 24.
The Wendy Williams Show was canceled in 2021 due to a mixture of behavioral and mental health issues. At one point, Wendy fainted live on air. At another, Williams’ speech became slurred and uncoordinated while entertaining an audience. In one notorious incident she humiliated a guest on air by being judgmental of her life choices.
As one employee recalled the incident, “She gets on and she starts rambling about ‘I’m really fine, it’s going to be fine,’ and it’s like, ‘What are you saying?’”
They add, “People were sort of freaked out. She was saying things like, ‘Oh, I can’t wait, I’ll be back with you really soon,’ but it was obvious to anyone watching that she was not going to be back really soon,” another producer recalled.
And then things got even worse, and the show was canceled. Tabloids asked, “what is going on?” As it turned out, she was diagnosed with severe Graves’ disease and addictions that were impairing her physical and mental health. In addition she was dealing with the painful subject of marital infidelity and an impending divorce.
PEOPLE reports that now the former talk show host’s loved ones share details about her recent struggles, ahead of Lifetime’s new documentary, Where Is Wendy Williams? However, the diagnosis that was made public today puts an entirely different spin on her many troubles.
Filmed between 2022 and 2023, the documentary, premiering Feb. 24, covers that difficult period of Williams’ life.
Williams, who was given a court-appointed legal guardian overseeing her finances and health decisions as a result of her crisis, is shown to be incapacitated by alcohol addiction and struggling with her mental health, memory and ability to effectively communicate.
In the doc her sister Wanda Finnie and niece Alex Finnie tell PEOPLE that Wendy Williams is now climbing out of that dark period and is doing better both physically and mentally.
“I spoke with her yesterday and I speak with her very regularly when she reaches out to me. She is, from what I understand, in a wellness, healing type of environment,” says Wanda of the unknown facility that Williams is in to address cognitive issues.
However, they also say that they have no communication with Williams’ guardian, and so, “We cannot reach out to her, but she can reach out to us. And she is in a healing place emotionally. She’s not the person that you see in this film.”
Her niece, who is an executive producer on the project, emphasizes that the film has been of great help. “I’m proud of my aunt for taking control of her narrative because my aunt has always been such a public person and has been an open book, and we’ve all seen the images over the last few months and really few years of what has been like a spiral for my aunt….So for her to actually put her voice in here and take ownership of what’s happened, where she’s at present day… I think it’s powerful.”
