Wendy Williams wants 'to move on with my life' despite guardianship: How she got here

How’s Wendy Williams doing? Not arsenic atrocious arsenic her guardian alleges, oregon astatine slightest that’s what she asserted arsenic she called successful to “The View” past week.

The boisterous erstwhile speech amusement and vigor big returned to the daytime abstraction Friday successful a antithetic capacity. Williams, who made a surviving by dishing connected the latest personage gossip, was connected the different broadside this time. She called successful to “The View” to disregard narratives astir her intelligence information and shed much airy connected the guardianship that allegedly landed her successful the representation portion of a New York attraction installation and distant from nationalist view.

“I’ve been doing important things each of my life, and these 2 radical don’t look similar me, they don’t formal similar me, they don’t speech similar me, they don’t enactment similar me, and I task to accidental they volition ne'er beryllium me,” Williams said of her guardian and the justice allegedly keeping the guardianship successful place. “I request them to ... get disconnected my neck. I can’t bash it with these 2 radical again. I can’t.”

She added: “I request a caller guardian and past I’ll get retired of [guardianship].”

“The View” was the latest to perceive from Williams aft she was hospitalized past week. New York constabulary confirmed to The Times that officers connected March 10 responded to a payment cheque astatine the 500 artifact of West 35 Street. That’s the code for the assisted surviving installation wherever Williams reportedly dropped a handwritten enactment pleading for assistance retired a window.

Police confirmed to The Times that “EMS responded and transported a 60-year-old pistillate to an country infirmary for evaluation.” TMZ published video of Williams, 60, limb successful limb with an serviceman arsenic constabulary escorted her to an ambulance. A time later, Williams called aggregate TV and vigor shows astir her latest headlines. She touted the affirmative results of her intelligence evaluations to “Good Day New York” big and person Rosanna Scotto and joked disconnected claims that she is incapacitated successful her latest telephone into “The Breakfast Club.” Her interrogation with “The View” connected Friday was nary different.

“I dependable similar me. I’m yet out. I’m yet capable to speak,” Williams told the hosts.

She added: “I privation I was allowed to really enactment connected bully covering and travel spot you successful person, but I cannot.”

In the caller streak of revelations from Williams, respective basal out. Here’s a refresher of the twists and turns that led to them, from fiscal concerns to the assignment of the guardian allegedly overseeing her restrictive care.

Hot topics: Competency tests, she who volition (mostly) not beryllium named and ‘Jedi caput games’

Wendy Williams, pictured successful New York successful September 2017, called successful to aggregate greeting shows past week to contradict claims astir her health.

(Greg Allen / Invision / Associated Press)

Williams presented respective throughlines successful her conversations with the property this week, including assertions that challenged narratives astir her allegedly diminished intelligence capacity.

In the past, the erstwhile vigor daze jock was unfastened with the nationalist astir her carnal health. On-air during the “Wendy Williams Show,” the big informed fans however her Graves’ illness and lymphedema diagnosis affected her quality and physicality. But successful 2024, years aft her bid ran its course, a large uncover astir her intelligence capableness came down without truthful overmuch arsenic a connection from Williams.

Representatives announced successful a quality merchandise that Williams was diagnosed with progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), the aforesaid affliction that led enactment prima Bruce Willis to discontinue from Hollywood. Later successful 2024, Williams’ guardian Sabrina Morrissey claimed successful ineligible filings that the erstwhile TV big had go “cognitively impaired and permanently incapacitated” by her dementia. Williams, who spoke retired against those claims successful January, said this week she has trial results to beryllium otherwise.

She recalled her caller infirmary sojourn to “The Breakfast Club,” telling its co-hosts that she did assorted tests to measure her competency. Williams explained that she was asked elemental things including her day of commencement and the individuality of the existent United States president.

“Oh please, he’s a person of excavation who was connected the amusement and besides beyond,” Williams told the “Breakfast Club” regarding the latter. She seemingly referred to President Trump, who appeared connected her speech amusement aggregate times.

Williams told “Good Day New York” anchor and person Scotto that she passed her tests “with flying colors.”

Additionally, Williams alleged she is confined successful the representation portion of her luxury surviving facility, wherever monthly attraction rates statesman astatine $13,200. She asserted that different radical surviving connected the aforesaid level are overmuch older than her and, dissimilar herself, person issues with their memory. Williams besides told “Good Day New York” she is “not allowed to spell outside” and that she lone has entree to a landline since her guardian “has been having my telephone for years now.”

Throughout her caller interviews, Williams seemed cautious not to place her guardian by name, alternatively calling her “the guardian” and “my guardian person.” On Friday, Williams confidently asserted connected “The View”: “I don’t privation a guardian. I don’t privation Sabrina period.”

Elsewhere connected Williams’ caller property streak, caregiver and healthcare advocacy enforcement Ginalisa Monterroso accused the star’s guardian of playing “Jedi caput games” with the narratives astir the host’s condition.

“She truly conscionable wanted the satellite to judge that Wendy was incapacitated,” Monterroso said Tuesday connected “The Breakfast Club.”

Monterroso added: “Her large mistake was she didn’t recognize who Wendy Williams was. She has a level similar ‘Breakfast Club’ and she’s precise good connected, and determination are radical who volition backmost her up.”

How did the guardian travel into the picture?

Sabrina Morrissey is an lawyer with New York-based steadfast Morrissey & Morrissey, LLP, which specializes successful property planning, medication and litigation and, yes, guardianship. Morrissey is “passionate astir representing aged clients and protecting them from fraud and abuse,” according to her online profile.

In the months earlier the lackluster extremity of “The Wendy Williams Show” successful 2022, Wells Fargo requested, and yet established, a guardianship implicit the big citing fears of fiscal abuse. Morrissey was assigned to Williams’ lawsuit but wasn’t excessively acquainted with the purveyor of petty, according to a study by Vanity Fair.

Williams told “The View” she was initially unfastened to the guardianship with the content that it would assistance her support her finances. Williams alleged successful a February interrogation with TMZ that her big lad “overstepped his boundaries” and “was inappropriately utilizing my wealth without telling maine crap astir it.” He had antecedently denied those allegations successful 2023.

New York courts sealed ineligible documents pertaining to Williams’ guardianship proceedings, but Morrissey’s relation became nationalist cognition successful February 2024 amid the premiere of the Lifetime docuseries “Where Is Wendy Williams?” The bid explores her beingness nether guardianship which has mostly chopped her disconnected from her family. The four-part docuseries besides gave an wrong look astatine Williams’ struggles with sobriety.

Williams’ FTD and aphasia diagnoses were not the lone clouds looming implicit the merchandise of “Where is Wendy Williams?” Days earlier the premiere, Morrissey sued Lifetime genitor institution A+E Networks and accumulation institution Entertainment One (also known arsenic eOne) and filed a impermanent restraining bid to support the docuseries from hitting airwaves. A justice denied her petition and decided the task could aerial arsenic intended.

Morrissey has alleged, among respective different accusations, that the Lifetime task (on which Williams served arsenic an enforcement producer) “exploits [Williams’] aesculapian information to represent her successful a humiliating, degrading mode and successful a mendacious light,” according to ineligible documents. In a February 2024 interrogation with The Times, “Where Is Wendy Williams?” enforcement shaper Mark Ford said, “We ne'er would person brought this communicative to aerial if we didn’t deliberation it would person a affirmative ending for Wendy, her household and the satellite astatine large.”

The Lifetime docuseries “Where is Wendy Williams?” premiered successful February 2024.

(Lifetime / A&E Networks)

As litigation implicit the docuseries continued, Morrissey made much claims astir Williams’ health, including that she was “permanently incapacitated” and could not consent to being filmed. Those allegations were “meritless,” the series’ squad said successful a November countersuit against Morrissey. The producing squad besides claimed it was unaware of Williams’ dementia diagnosis “until adjacent completion of the documentary.”
The Times has learned “Where Is Wendy Williams?” is unavailable to watercourse owed to litigation. Proceedings successful this lawsuit are presently connected clasp pending different neurological valuation of Williams.

Morrissey did not instantly respond to The Times’ petition for remark connected Williams’ caller allegations.

The #FreeWendy Movement

Wendy Williams, left, and niece Alex Finnie, who has been a vocal advocator for the extremity of her aunt’s guardianship.

(The Finnie / Hunter Family)

Williams has publically decried the alleged presumption of her guardianship for months present — and she isn’t alone.

Williams’ niece Alex Finnie has been a staunch and vocal advocator for the host’s release. Finnie, who besides appeared successful the Lifetime documentary, has successful caller years openly criticized her aunt’s guardianship. “The longer she’s nether this guardianship, the longer they person the keys to her life,” Finnie told “The Breakfast Club” successful January, “her personal, her financial, affectional ... everything.”

Finnie besides touts the #FreeWendy tag connected societal media, a motion to the increasing question calling for Williams’ merchandise from her guardianship. As portion of the #FreeWendy movement, supporters created GoFundMe and Change.org petition pages and took to societal media to amplify Williams’ claims astir her guardianship. In videos shared to the Change.org petition (which says it has verified much than 25,000 signatories), supporters co-signed claims astir Williams’ independency and allegations astir her isolation. Morrissey denied respective claims successful Vanity Fair astir her allegedly restrictive guardianship implicit Williams. She said, “Nobody’s saying that Wendy can’t permission a building” and that it was Williams who decided not to divided her duplicate cats and spell petless successful her facility, which the speech amusement big mentioned connected “The Breakfast Club” successful January.

Some supporters besides took to societal media to contemplate whether contention plays into Williams’ guardianship. “Two achromatic women person taken conservatorship implicit a self-made Black woman’s empire,” 1 X (formerly Twitter) idiosyncratic remarked successful February 2024. The station shared photos of Morrissey and the New York justice overseeing the guardianship.

Williams’ nationalist revelations past week person lone further galvanized the #FreeWendy force, arsenic immoderate supporters laud her “flawless” interrogation with “The View” and observe that she “sounds perfectly fine.”

What’s adjacent for Williams?

Williams made it wide to “The View” connected Friday: “At this constituent successful my life, I wanna terminate the guardianship and determination connected with my beingness if that’s imaginable astatine all.”

Monterroso, amid Williams’ hospitalization, told “Good Day New York” that she reached retired to New York Police Department and Adult Protective Services requesting an probe into the host’s guardianship. Despite this, Williams said she’s acrophobic the justice and Morrissey mightiness travel down harder connected her for speaking retired amid pending ineligible proceedings.

“It makes maine very, precise nervous,” she told TMZ connected Wednesday earlier admitting, “I don’t cognize what could beryllium tighter than wherever I am.”

Shortly aft that interview, the strict restrictions of Williams’ New York surviving installation — and Morrissey’s claims that Williams tin travel and spell arsenic she pleases — came into question again. The installation reportedly filed a constabulary study accusing Finnie of allegedly evading unit to instrumentality her aunt retired of the gathering for dinner, according to TMZ. Williams and Finnie denied the “unbelievable” allegations. A time aft the alleged incident, paparazzi spotted Williams retired and astir connected a motorized scooter.

While connected “The View,” Williams announced she volition proceed surviving her beingness alcohol-free and looked guardant to a caller section escaped of an allegedly oppressive guardianship. “It’s clip for my wealth and my beingness to get backmost to presumption quo,” she said.

And erstwhile it does, the “fabulous purple chair” from which she dished connected celebrities connected “The Wendy Williams Show” volition beryllium determination with her too.

“It’s successful storage, but erstwhile it comes retired of retention I’m keeping it with maine for my life. It volition decidedly beryllium successful my caller apartment.”

A ineligible typical for Williams did not instantly respond to The Times’ petition for further comment.