Updates on Wendy Williams' Health and Guardianship

[JamesG]

"The Wendy Williams Show" Renewed Through 2017
Jun 4, 2013
by Nicholas White


Wendy Williams now has a little extra something to smile about.

Williams' quickly growing syndicated daytime talk show, "The Wendy Williams Show", was renewed through the 2016-17 TV season on Fox stations, its production company, Debmar-Mercy, announced Tuesday.



The long-term renewal deal means that the show will be back for a sixth, seventh and eighth season.

"Over the last few years, 'The Wendy Williams Show' evolved into the ideal lead-out to our morning news blocks," Fox programming executive Frank Cicha said in a statement. "Like our news, the show delivers a day/date immediacy that serves as a blueprint for where we want to be the rest of the day."

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Wendy-Wi...d-1066291.aspx

[JamesG]

"The Wendy Williams Show" Renewed by Fox Stations through 2019-2020 Season
by Nellie Andreeva
January 19, 2016


"The Wendy Williams Show" comes from humble beginnings — a rare daytime talker not headlined by a household TV name that started with a six-week trial run on the Fox stations in summer 2008.

Fueled by strong demo numbers, Debmar-Mercury’s show hosted by radio personality Wendy Williams was cleared for a nationwide launch in fall 2009. It quickly took hold, and now it has received another three-year renewal by the Fox stations.

Combined with renewals on stations belonging to Media General and Cox, "Wendy" has already been cleared in more than 50% of the U.S. entering NATPE.



"It’s for three more years? I thought it was longer!" Fox TV Stations’ SVP Frank Cicha said.

That could happen as Debmar-Mercury’s parent Lionsgate recently extended Williams’ personal contract through 2022.

http://deadline.com/2016/01/the-wend...on-1201685995/

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http://deadline.com/2016/02/bet-red-...ub-1201698653/

Wendy’s Style Squad will start with the Grammys, followed by the BET Awards, but there will be no Academy Awards special. “The purpose of the specials is to celebrate our viewers," says a BET rep. "Our viewers are African American and unfortunately the Oscars is not reflective of our community. We hope next year that will change.”

[JamesG]

"The Wendy Williams Show" Renewed for Two More Seasons
by Kirsten Chuba
Sept. 16, 2019


Wendy Williams will be staying on daytime TV through 2022.

On Monday, the same day "The Wendy Williams Show" kicked off its 11th season, producers Debmar-Mercury announced that her syndicated daytime talk show has been renewed for another two seasons by Fox Television Stations.



"I’m so excited to launch our 11th year by letting the world know I will continue to do what I love to do so much — and for a very long time," Williams said in a release announcing the news.

"I want to tell Fox and all of our stations today how much their support and confidence means to me. They should know we will never stop working very hard to bring our dedicated Wendy Watchers and audience ‘co-hosts’ the freshest national daytime television!"

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/li...easons-1239646

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Top 10 Wildest Moments From 'The Wendy Williams Show,' Ranked

‘The Wendy Williams Show’ was arguably one of the most controversial yet beloved talk shows. Here are the top 10 wildest moments on the show.

[JamesG]

It was announced that Williams' was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia. Bruce Willis has same thing.

https://deadline.com/2024/02/wendy-w...ia-1235834260/

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Originally Posted by JamesG

It was announced that Williams' was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia. Bruce Willis has same thing.

https://deadline.com/2024/02/wendy-w...ia-1235834260/

“Wendy Williams Show ”Producer Has Lost Every 'Glimmer of Hope' Star Will Return to TV: 'Very Sad' (Exclusive)

Liz McNeil, Stephanie Wenger
Sat, February 24, 2024 at 5:00 AM PST

'Wendy Williams Show' producer Suzanne Bass tells PEOPLE it seems "impossible" for Williams to return to the air following her primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia diagnosis

The Wendy Williams Show former co-executive producer Suzanne Bass has a somber outlook on Wendy Williams' ability to return to television.

After the former talk show host’s medical team announced she was diagnosed with her primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia on Thursday, Bass tells PEOPLE that it seems unlikely that Williams will be able to be back on the small screen.

"Since Wendy's been off the air, there's been a huge void in both daytime TV and pop culture,” she says. “I think there's always been a glimmer of hope for a comeback for her, but since this diagnosis, that seems impossible. It makes me very sad."

"I do know it takes time to diagnose conditions like this,” she adds. “I'm saddened by it all. Because people are constantly saying, ‘Wouldn't it be great if Wendy makes a comeback?’”

Most of all, she says, “I'm more sad about her health, not that she can't make a comeback. To have this sort of diagnosis, there's some finality to it.”

Bass recalls the possible early signs of Williams’ struggles when she worked on her talk show, which ran for 13 seasons from 2008 to 2022.

“You can go back and see the show, and there's really long periods of quietness where she's not speaking,” she says. “And you're thinking ‘What's happening? There were early signs [of something wrong] where you're grasping for words, having a hard time collecting your thoughts and remembering things. Maybe that's what was happening back then.’”

Bass says she has only spoken with Williams a few times since the television personality’s exit from the talk show in 2022. After Williams struggled to “remember things” during their calls, Bass couldn't help but think of her own mother, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

“The last few times I spoke with Wendy, I remember thinking that she reminded me of my mom," she shares.

“My mom has Alzheimer's," she explains. "Dementia is a form of it in her case. I just remember calling my brother and saying, ‘Oh my God. I just talked to Wendy. She reminds me of Mom.’”

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Where Is Wendy Williams? leaves even more unnerving questions

Instead, it leaves even more unnerving questions unanswered. The latest series picks up where 2021's What a Mess doc left off, kind of. As her show was nearing its sudden end, Williams shared with the world the details of her divorce and burgeoning mental health crisis.

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Wendy Williams is “cognitively impaired and permanently incapacitated," her guardian declares

An attorney for guardian Sabrina Morrissey wrote in a memo to a judge on Nov. 12 that the popular former daytime talk show's condition has worsened. Williams, said the letter, "an acclaimed entertainer who, tragically, has been afflicted by early-onset dementia and, as a result, has become cognitively impaired and permanently incapacitated."

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• 00:00 The Rise
• 07:54 Dangerous Game
• 12:24 Drama Queen
• 14:40 Diddy
• 18:21 The Wendy Williams Experience
• 24:50 Talk Show Star
• 30:23 Wild Wendy Moments
• 39:41 Health Scares
• 44:16 Controversies
• 50:52 Disappearance
• 53:00 Conservatorship
• 56:11 Dementia

[JamesG]

Wendy Williams Disputes Cognitive Impairment Diagnosis: “I Feel Like I Am In Prison,” She Tells Charlamagne Tha God Podcast
by Greg Evans
January 16, 2025





Former talk show host Wendy Williams, whose legal troubles and health battles were documented in a controversial TV documentary and is now confined to an assisted living facility, spoke out strongly reiterated her displeasure with her situation, saying on Charlamagne Tha God‘s Breakfast Club podcast today, insisting “the system is broken.”

“I am not cognitively impaired but I feel like I am in prison,” Williams said. “I’m in this place with people who are in their 90s and their 80s and their 70s. These people, there’s something wrong with these people here on this floor. I am clearly not.”

Williams described herself as in her 60s and “sexy and gorgeous.”




“Listen,” Williams said, “this system is broken, this system that I am in. This system has falsified a lot. For the last three years, I have been caught up in the system.”

Williams was joined in the phone conversation with her niece Alex Finnie, who described Williams’ living condition as “what some people would call a luxury prison. It’s small, she has a bed, a chair, a TV, a bathroom, and she’s looking out one window at buildings across the street.”




Williams’ niece described her aunt’s reality “since 2023: She’s sitting in that room that she’s sitting in, she’s there every day, all hours of the day, every week, every month, she’s not getting proper sunlight. I went to New York in October to visit her. And the level of security and the level of questions that there were in terms of, ‘Who am I? Why am I here? What’s the purpose?’ I mean, it was absolutely just horrible.”




Both Williams and Finnie said that Williams is allowed to make phone calls but outsiders are not allowed to call in to her.

“I can call you but you can’t call me,” Williams said. “I don’t even know what kind of phone I have. I can’t sit on the phone and look at things and scroll through things. I can’t do that. I do not have a laptop. I do not have an iPad.”

https://deadline.com/2025/01/wendy-w...st-1236258457/

[JamesG]

Wendy Williams Speaks Out On 'The View' About Her Well-Being And Guardianship






Wendy Williams: 'It's Time For My Money And My Life To Get Back To Status Quo'