According to her family, the former talk-show host has been in a facility for “cognitive issues” since last year.
We are finally getting some answers about where Wendy Williams has been for the last few years. Ahead of a new documentary on Lifetime — Where Is Wendy Williams? — members of Williams’s family spoke to People about what the former talk-show host has been going through since we last saw her.
According to People, Williams has been in a facility to treat “cognitive issues” since April 2023. In the documentary, her son Kevin Hunter Jr. says that doctors have linked Williams’s mental struggles with alcohol use. Williams has a court-appointed legal guardian whose identity is private, and according to her family, they are the only person who has complete access to her.
“The people who love her cannot see her,” says Williams’s sister, Wanda. People reports that while Williams can call her family, they cannot contact her and they don’t even know where she is.
Williams had been struggling publicly for years when she entered the facility. In 2017, she fainted while dressed as the Statue of Liberty during a Halloween episode of her show. She went on to say that it was due to her Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disease that affects the thyroid. In March 2019, she revealed that she had been living in a sober house, and a month later, she filed for divorce from her husband. In 2021, Williams did not return to The Wendy Williams Show. Instead, the show was hosted by a rotating series of guest hosts including Sherri Shepherd, Whitney Cummings, and Michelle Visage. In 2022, The Wendy Williams Show ended without Wendy Williams.
Around the same time, her legal guardian was appointed, a move that still confuses her family. “All I know is that Wendy and her team walked into the courtroom one way, and they walked out, and the family is completely excluded,” Williams’s sister told People. Her guardian is the only person who has control over whether or not Williams can leave the health facility. Williams’s family is not currently contesting the guardianship with the court.
The documentary crew says they stopped filming once Williams was admitted to the facility in 2023, but they did continue working on the project.
