By Wonderwall.com Editors
3:00am PST, Feb 24, 2024
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Wendy Williams remains in a facility where she's being treated for "cognitive issues" stemming from her alcohol use, members of her family revealed to People ahead of the premiere of her upcoming Lifetime documentary.
"She is, from what I understand, in a wellness, healing type of environment," her sister, Wanda Finnie, reportedly told the outlet. According to Wanda and other relatives, only Wendy's legal guardian knows where the facility is located. The former TV and radio host's sibling also said she speaks to her sister "regularly" but only when Wendy contacts her because Wanda has no access to Wendy's contact information at this point.
The documentary "Where Is Wendy Williams?" airs in two parts on Feb. 23 and 24. Executive produced by Wendy, it was reportedly shot over the course of two years until April 2023, when the star's health situation became too dire for her to continue filming. She was checked into the treatment facility that same month, People reports.
"There were points during the past year when everyone in this family wondered whether that call [that she was dead] was going to come in the middle of the night," Wanda said. "Everybody in this family sat on pins and needles every single night with their cell phones right next to the bed."
Keep reading for more details…
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The former star of "The Wendy Williams Show," 59, last appeared on her eponymous program in July 2021. At the time, she was battling health problems including alcohol addiction and the autoimmune disorder Graves' disease. She was also in serious financial trouble.
The new documentary reveals new details about all of those struggles and more. Initially, it was slated to show her comeback journey to becoming a podcast host after her show was canceled. Executive producer Mark Ford tells People that his team soon realized Wendy's life story was going in another direction.
"She was already battling so much physically, and then it became clear that there were mental and addiction issues she was also battling," he recalls.
"But all through it, she was adamant that she wanted to tell this story. We asked ourselves almost every day, 'Is this helping Wendy or is this hurting her?' And in the end we felt like it was helping her."
At the same time, Wendy's fans indicated on social media they knew she was struggling long before she lost the show. She tested positive for COVID-19 repeatedly during and after 2020.
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Around the same time, questions about Wendy Williams' mental health began to emerge. They apparently continued to be central after she was off the air.
In a trailer for the new documentary, a producer is heard asking Wendy if she's "seen a neurologist," to which she replies, "To find out if I'm crazy? Mhmm."
Speaking to People, Wendy's niece, Alex, suggested the production team and others involved in filming "got into something and didn't realize how big and serious it was."
Alex's mom, Wanda, told the outlet the family maintained an "anti-alcohol" rule when Wendy was visiting them in Florida. As a result, the star "started to push everybody away," according to Wanda.
"Wendy is right when she says, 'Wanda doesn't want me to drink,'" she said. "It wasn't so much, 'I don't want you to drink because drinking is bad,' but drinking for you is not good."
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Wendy Williams wasn't just pushing away her sister, though. Wanda told People the alcohol use and mental health situation also drove a wedge between Wendy and her 23-year-old son, Kevin Hunter Jr., who appears in the Lifetime doc.
"I feel like the guardian has not done a good job at protecting my mom," Kevin says at one point in the documentary's trailer, referencing his mother's financial guardianship. Later in the clip, he says he wants his mom to take a break and stop pushing herself.
"My mom, she always talks about how she wants to work, but I feel as though she's worked enough," Kevin explains. "She has people around her that are 'yes people' and allowing this to continue."
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People's sources have said it was no secret when Wendy Williams' alcohol issues crept into her work on "The Wendy Williams Show."
"She would be drunk on air," one "show source" told the outlet. "Slowly, we started being like, 'What's going on with her?'"
According to People, that continued for "a long time," though it's unclear when Wendy first started drinking at work.
It wasn't until 2017 — when she passed out during a Halloween episode of the show — that her private struggles started to become more public.
"That was the first sign something was really wrong," Wendy's niece told the outlet.
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Suzanne Bass, a co-producer on "The Wendy Williams Show" told People she knew Wendy Williams was "struggling," but "as her situation grew worse, she pushed us away."
By 2019, Wendy was living in a sober house — information she volunteered on the air that March. Her divorce in April, however, apparently set her back as she was working to move forward.
The star's split from Kevin Hunter, her husband of 21 years, came amid news he had fathered a child with someone else.
"[Wendy's mom] Shirley, may she rest in peace, would always remind me that your aunt would trade everything that she has — every dime, every car, every wig — to be able to have a strong loving household and a loving husband," Wendy's niece, Alex, told People. "That was ripped from her right after her son had to go off to college [in 2018]. Emotionally, it was just a lot. It was too much for her world."
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Wendy Williams' brother, Tommy, thinks that although she tried to soldier on, the divorce "put her back into that dark space."
The COVID-19 pandemic came on the heels of that experience, leaving Wendy battling a series of health complications while isolating at home in 2020.
Her onetime co-star DJ Boof said he once found her "unresponsive" in her apartment. She was hospitalized immediately and given "several blood transfusions," per People.
In November — as Wendy began to recover — her mother, Shirley, died.
"When our mother passed, who was her greatest advocate and strongest support system out of anybody in this family, she never grieved," Wanda said of her sister.
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In 2021, Wendy Williams made her finale appearance on "The Wendy Williams Show" before guest hosts took over as she managed her increasing health problems.
Determined to make a comeback with a podcast, she set out to film what would become "Where is Wendy Williams?" In May 2022, she was prescribed a court-ordered legal guardian who was tasked with managing her money and health.
Wendy's relatives told People they still don't know what triggered the guardianship, as "the court papers have been sealed."
Despite all of that, filming continued — until her crew arrived at her apartment to find Wendy's "eyes rolled back into her head," the outlet reported.
According to documentary producer Mark Selby, the team worked with Wendy's manager to get her into treatment. "The guardian did come around and was responsive to our pleas … to get her into a safer place," he recalled.
