How’s Wendy Williams doing? Not as bad as her guardian alleges, or at least that’s what she asserted as she called in to “The View” last week.
The boisterous former talk show and radio host returned to the daytime space Friday in a different capacity. Williams, who made a living by dishing on the latest celebrity gossip, was on the other side this time. She called in to “The View” to dismiss narratives about her mental condition and shed more light on the guardianship that allegedly landed her in the memory unit of a New York care facility and away from public view.
“I’ve been doing important things all of my life, and these two people don’t look like me, they don’t dress like me, they don’t talk like me, they don’t act like me, and I venture to say they will never be me,” Williams said of her guardian and the judge allegedly keeping the guardianship in place. “I need them to … get off my neck. I can’t do it with these two people again. I can’t.”
She added: “I need a new guardian and then I’ll get out of [guardianship].”
“The View” was the latest to hear from Williams after she was hospitalized last week. New York police confirmed to The Times that officers on March 10 responded to a welfare check at the 500 block of West 35 Street. That’s the address for the assisted living facility where Williams reportedly dropped a handwritten note pleading for help out a window.
Police confirmed to The Times that “EMS responded and transported a 60-year-old female to an area hospital for evaluation.” TMZ published video of Williams, 60, arm in arm with an officer as police escorted her to an ambulance. A day later, Williams called multiple TV and radio shows about her latest headlines. She touted the positive results of her mental evaluations to “Good Day New York” host and friend Rosanna Scotto and joked off claims that she is incapacitated in her latest call into “The Breakfast Club.” Her interview with “The View” on Friday was no different.
“I sound like me. I’m finally out. I’m finally able to speak,” Williams told the hosts.
She added: “I wish I was allowed to actually put on nice clothing and come see you in person, but I cannot.”
In the recent streak of revelations from Williams, several stand out. Here’s a refresher of the twists and turns that led to them, from financial concerns to the appointment of the guardian allegedly overseeing her restrictive care.
Hot topics: Competency tests, she who will (mostly) not be named and ‘Jedi mind games’
Williams presented several throughlines in her conversations with the press this week, including assertions that challenged narratives about her allegedly diminished mental capacity.
In the past, the former radio shock jock was open with the public about her physical health. On-air during the “Wendy Williams Show,” the host informed fans how her Graves’ disease and lymphedema diagnosis affected her appearance and physicality. But in 2024, years after her series ran its course, a major reveal about her mental capacity came down without so much as a word from Williams.
Representatives announced in a news release that Williams was diagnosed with progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), the same affliction that led action star Bruce Willis to retire from Hollywood. Later in 2024, Williams’ guardian Sabrina Morrissey claimed in legal filings that the former TV host had become “cognitively impaired and permanently incapacitated” by her dementia. Williams, who spoke out against those claims in January, said this week she has test results to prove otherwise.
She recalled her recent hospital visit to “The Breakfast Club,” telling its co-hosts that she did various tests to evaluate her competency. Williams explained that she was asked simple things including her date of birth and the identity of the current United States president.
“Oh please, he’s a friend of mine who was on the show and also beyond,” Williams told the “Breakfast Club” regarding the latter. She seemingly referred to President Trump, who appeared on her talk show multiple times.
Williams told “Good Day New York” anchor and friend Scotto that she passed her tests “with flying colors.”
Additionally, Williams alleged she is confined in the memory unit of her luxury living facility, where monthly care rates begin at $13,200. She asserted that other people living on the same floor are much older than her and, unlike herself, have issues with their memory. Williams also told “Good Day New York” she is “not allowed to go outside” and that she only has access to a landline since her guardian “has been having my phone for years now.”
Throughout her recent interviews, Williams seemed careful not to identify her guardian by name, instead calling her “the guardian” and “my guardian person.” On Friday, Williams confidently asserted on “The View”: “I don’t want a guardian. I don’t want Sabrina period.”
Elsewhere on Williams’ recent press streak, caregiver and healthcare advocacy executive Ginalisa Monterroso accused the star’s guardian of playing “Jedi mind games” with the narratives about the host’s condition.
“She really just wanted the world to believe that Wendy was incapacitated,” Monterroso said Tuesday on “The Breakfast Club.”
Monterroso added: “Her big mistake was she didn’t realize who Wendy Williams was. She has a platform like ‘Breakfast Club’ and she’s very well connected, and there are people who will back her up.”
How did the guardian come into the picture?
Sabrina Morrissey is an attorney with New York-based firm Morrissey & Morrissey, LLP, which specializes in estate planning, administration and litigation and, yes, guardianship. Morrissey is “passionate about representing elderly clients and protecting them from fraud and abuse,” according to her online profile.
In the months before the lackluster end of “The Wendy Williams Show” in 2022, Wells Fargo requested, and eventually established, a guardianship over the host citing fears of financial abuse. Morrissey was assigned to Williams’ case but wasn’t too familiar with the purveyor of petty, according to a report by Vanity Fair.
Williams told “The View” she was initially open to the guardianship with the impression that it would help her protect her finances. Williams alleged in a February interview with TMZ that her adult son “overstepped his boundaries” and “was inappropriately using my money without telling me crap about it.” He had previously denied those allegations in 2023.
New York courts sealed legal documents pertaining to Williams’ guardianship proceedings, but Morrissey’s role became public knowledge in February 2024 amid the premiere of the Lifetime docuseries “Where Is Wendy Williams?” The series explores her life under guardianship which has largely cut her off from her family. The four-part docuseries also gave an inside look at Williams’ struggles with sobriety.
Williams’ FTD and aphasia diagnoses were not the only clouds looming over the release of “Where is Wendy Williams?” Days before the premiere, Morrissey sued Lifetime parent company A+E Networks and production company Entertainment One (also known as eOne) and filed a temporary restraining order to keep the docuseries from hitting airwaves. A judge denied her request and decided the project could air as intended.
Morrissey has alleged, among several other accusations, that the Lifetime project (on which Williams served as an executive producer) “exploits [Williams’] medical condition to portray her in a humiliating, degrading manner and in a false light,” according to legal documents. In a February 2024 interview with The Times, “Where Is Wendy Williams?” executive producer Mark Ford said, “We never would have brought this story to air if we didn’t think it would have a positive ending for Wendy, her family and the world at large.”
As litigation over the docuseries continued, Morrissey made more claims about Williams’ health, including that she was “permanently incapacitated” and could not consent to being filmed. Those allegations were “meritless,” the series’ team said in a November countersuit against Morrissey. The producing team also claimed it was unaware of Williams’ dementia diagnosis “until near completion of the documentary.”
The Times has learned “Where Is Wendy Williams?” is unavailable to stream due to litigation. Proceedings in this case are currently on hold pending another neurological evaluation of Williams.
Morrissey did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment on Williams’ recent allegations.
The #FreeWendy Movement
Williams has publicly decried the alleged terms of her guardianship for months now — and she isn’t alone.
Williams’ niece Alex Finnie has been a staunch and vocal advocate for the host’s release. Finnie, who also appeared in the Lifetime documentary, has in recent years openly criticized her aunt’s guardianship. “The longer she’s under this guardianship, the longer they have the keys to her life,” Finnie told “The Breakfast Club” in January, “her personal, her financial, emotional … everything.”
Finnie also touts the #FreeWendy tag on social media, a nod to the growing movement calling for Williams’ release from her guardianship. As part of the #FreeWendy movement, supporters created GoFundMe and Change.org petition pages and took to social media to amplify Williams’ claims about her guardianship. In videos shared to the Change.org petition (which says it has verified more than 25,000 signatories), supporters co-signed claims about Williams’ independence and allegations about her isolation. Morrissey denied several claims in Vanity Fair about her allegedly restrictive guardianship over Williams. She said, “Nobody’s saying that Wendy can’t leave a building” and that it was Williams who decided not to split her twin cats and go petless in her facility, which the talk show host mentioned on “The Breakfast Club” in January.
Some supporters also took to social media to contemplate whether race plays into Williams’ guardianship. “Two white women have taken conservatorship over a self-made Black woman’s empire,” one X (formerly Twitter) user remarked in February 2024. The post shared photos of Morrissey and the New York judge overseeing the guardianship.
Williams’ public revelations last week have only further galvanized the #FreeWendy force, as some supporters laud her “flawless” interview with “The View” and observe that she “sounds absolutely fine.”
What’s next for Williams?
Williams made it clear to “The View” on Friday: “At this point in my life, I wanna terminate the guardianship and move on with my life if that’s possible at all.”
Monterroso, amid Williams’ hospitalization, told “Good Day New York” that she reached out to New York Police Department and Adult Protective Services requesting an investigation into the host’s guardianship. Despite this, Williams said she’s concerned the judge and Morrissey might come down harder on her for speaking out amid pending legal proceedings.
“It makes me very, very nervous,” she told TMZ on Wednesday before admitting, “I don’t know what could be tighter than where I am.”
Shortly after that interview, the strict restrictions of Williams’ New York living facility — and Morrissey’s claims that Williams can come and go as she pleases — came into question again. The facility reportedly filed a police report accusing Finnie of allegedly evading staff to take her aunt out of the building for dinner, according to TMZ. Williams and Finnie denied the “unbelievable” allegations. A day after the alleged incident, paparazzi spotted Williams out and about on a motorized scooter.
While on “The View,” Williams announced she will continue living her life alcohol-free and looked forward to a new chapter free of an allegedly oppressive guardianship. “It’s time for my money and my life to get back to status quo,” she said.
And when it does, the “fabulous purple chair” from which she dished on celebrities on “The Wendy Williams Show” will be there with her too.
“It’s in storage, but when it comes out of storage I’m keeping it with me for my life. It will definitely be in my new apartment.”
A legal representative for Williams did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for additional comment.
