Wendy Williams’ health battle has taken a turn for the worse. The former talk show host is now “permanently incapacitated” due to her dementia diagnosis, according to her guardian.
In new court documents obtained and made public by Deadline, Williams’ guardian confirms she “has been afflicted by early-onset dementia and, as a result, has become cognitively impaired and permanently incapacitated.”
In May of 2023, Williams was diagnosed with primary aggressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia, just one year after she was placed under legal guardianship. The court-ordered guardianship oversees her health as well as her finances.
The Nov. 12 court filing involves Williams’ guardian Sabrina Morrissey and the “Where Is Wendy Williams?” documentary. Morrissey filed the suit to stop the release of the Lifetime program, which detailed her struggles with health and alcohol abuse since leaving “The Wendy Williams Show.”
Wendy Williams attends SiriusXM Town Hall with Wendy Williams hosted by SiriusXM host Karen Hunter at SiriusXM Studios on July 23, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
The filing includes the claim that Lifetime and the doc’s executive producer Mark Ford “cruelly took advantage of Williams’ cognitive and physical decline by creating and publishing a documentary at a time when Williams was highly vulnerable and clearly incapable of consenting to be filmed.”
Morrissey’s team also states the doc creators “intentionally manipulated and goaded” her “to trigger strong emotional reactions and acquire embarrassing footage.”
Lifetime claims to have acquired “consent, input, and participation” to make the documentary before the talk show host ever had a guardian.
Following the ending of “The Wendy Williams show” after 12 years in 2022 due to her medical condition, Williams was replaced by Sherri Shepherd who now films “SHERRI” in the same studio.