In a rare and candid interview on Thursday morning, Wendy Williams broke her silence about her court-mandated guardianship, describing it as a form of imprisonment.
Speaking on the popular “Breakfast Club” radio show, the iconic TV host detailed her current living situation in a care facility and the emotional toll it has taken on her.
Williams didn’t hold back, as per usual, calling the guardianship system “broken” and accusing it of falsifying information.
“This system is broken, this system that I’m in,” she said. “This system has falsified a lot.” The emotional weight of her words was palpable as she described her experience as “emotional abuse”.
Fans couldn't help but draw comparisons to Britney Spears' highly publicised conservatorship battle. Much like Spears, Williams finds herself fighting for autonomy and struggling against a system that she believes has wrongfully confined her.
Adding weight to the interview, Williams’s niece, Alex Finnie, shared that while Williams can call her family, they cannot contact her directly and she has no access to personal devices or the internet.
“My aunt sounds great,” Finnie noted. “I’ve seen her in a very limited capacity, but I’ve seen her, and we’re talking to her. This does not match an incapacitated person.”
Williams's guardianship was put in place in 2022, the same year her talk show, “The Wendy Williams Show”, went off the air.
The guardianship came after Wells Fargo declared her an “incapacitated person” who had been subjected to undue influence and financial exploitation.
Adding to the complexities, Williams’s team revealed she had been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia, affecting her communication and cognitive processing abilities.
Despite these claims, Williams vehemently refuted the notion that she was cognitively impaired. “Do I seem that way, goddammit?” she exclaimed during the interview. “I am not cognitively impaired. But I feel like I’m in prison.”
“The Lifetime” docuseries that delved into Williams’s life under guardianship further fuelled controversy, with her guardian’s attorneys filing a lawsuit against its producers, calling it exploitative.
Williams, however, pushed back, stating that she felt isolated rather than impaired.
The hosts of the Breakfast Club concluded the interview with hopes for Williams’s freedom.
Charlamagne tha God said: “Y’all cannot hide Wendy. Do not hear this phone call and see this all in the news and think you’re going to take away her phone and isolate her.”
Wendy Williams spoke on The Breakfast Club this morning about her conservatorship: “I feel like I’m in prison” pic.twitter.com/vt9aoc91o3
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) January 16, 2025