Wendy Williams has amped up her demands to be free of a restrictive guardianship that she alleges controls every aspect of her life. She was placed in a guardianship three years ago but took her protests to the literal streets last week, pressing a handwritten note to the window of her Hudson Yards luxury high-rise assisted-living facility that read “Help! Wendy!,” resulting in police and medical personnel intervening and sending her in an ambulance for evaluation.

Mathew Rosengart, the attorney and former federal prosecutor who obtained the court-ordered suspension of Britney Spears’s father, leading to her freedom, said conservatorship and guardianships were “designed by state legislatures as last resorts, generally for people who are incapacitated.”

“They should, in fact, be a last resort because, in essence, they strip individuals of fundamental rights and civil liberties, as appears to be the case with Ms. Williams,” Rosengart said.

After a brief hospitalization, Williams was back at her unit at the Coterie Hudson Yards, a luxury assisted-living and memory-care facility, where rooms can cost anywhere from $10,800 to $34,900 a month, wearing a pink fuzzy Versace robe and waving to onlookers. But she has in no way given up her fight for more freedom. Last Friday she called in to The View, saying she wanted her current guardian to “get off my neck.”

“I am not permitted to do anything but stay on this floor, the memory-unit floor, where the people are 90 and 80 and 70,” Williams said to View co-host Sunny Hostin. “Look, I’m 60, and I don’t even know what a memory unit …Why am I here? You know what I’m saying, where people don’t remember anything? So I stay in the bedroom the majority of the time.”

Willams told Hostin she appreciated her giving light to her situation, adding if “I was allowed to come out and put on nice clothes and see you in person, but I cannot.” Below, a breakdown of Wendy Williams’s guardianship and how she’s fighting against it.

Why is Wendy Williams in a guardianship?

The popular talk-show host started to act erratically in 2021. Guest hosts filled in for her 2021–22 season, and her Fox Television show was cancelled in 2022. Her bank, Wells Fargo, initiated a guardianship proceeding February 14, 2022, after it reported having several interactions with Williams concerning her financial accounts.

“Wells Fargo became concerned that W.W.H. was being exploited, subject to undue influence, or experiencing dementia,” according to court papers filed in NY Supreme Court by Wendy’s court-appointed guardian, Sabina Morrissey.

Williams was 59 at the time.

Who is Wendy Williams’s guardian?

Sabrina Morrissey, a New York estate and guardianship attorney, was appointed by the court as Williams’s guardian. Her attorney profile states that she is “passionate about representing elderly clients and protecting them from fraud and abuse” and helps individuals in need obtain the appropriate support and “safeguard their assets.” On February 22, 2024, two days before Lifetime’s Where Is Wendy Williams? aired, Williams’s “care team” sent out a press release announcing that Williams had been “officially diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Aphasia, a condition affecting language and communication abilities, and frontotemporal dementia, a progressive disorder impacting behavior and cognitive functions, have already presented significant hurdles in Wendy’s life.” In addition, the release said Williams suffered from Graves’ disease and lymphedema.

What was shown in the documentary?

Producers had been filming with her for three years, documenting her time leaving the show, her struggles with alcohol, and her erratic behavior. At one point in the documentary, Wendy proclaims, “I love vodka!” and says she was glad she was done with her talk show so she could “show my boobs,” pulling down her top and grabbing her nipples. She’s also seen with her eyes severely bulging, sometimes wearing only a gray bathrobe and without her trademark wig.

Attorneys for A&E said in court papers that it showed a “raw, honest, unfiltered reality” of Williams’s life after she had been placed under guardianship.

After seeing a trailer for the show, Morrissey filed unsuccessfully to prevent the show from airing. She also filed a lawsuit against A&E, alleging Williams did not have the capacity to consent to being part of the documentary and that they knowingly exploited Williams under false pretenses, filming her and profiting from an “unauthorized and repugnant program.”

What has Williams said?

Williams said she feels like a prisoner. She said she isn’t allowed to go outside and that the two times she had been out in 30 days were only to go to her dentist.

“No, no, I’m not allowed to go out,” Williams said when she called in to TMZ  on February 12. “I can call you, but you can’t call me.”

She also said in that interview that she doesn’t have her phone or an iPad to contact her family and friends and that her friends are not allowed to visit. “Where I am is this place where the people are older, you know what I’m saying,” she described the facility. “They are in their 90s and their 80s. I eat lunch and dinner in my bedroom. I don’t eat out there with the people that live here just cause it’s so goddam depressing. There’s a bathroom, there’s a closet, and the TV, which is purchased by me through the guardian person.”

What has Williams’s family said?

Williams’s niece Alex Finnie, who took her to dinner after her medical evaluation on March 12, told TMZ outside the Coterie that she was told the assisted-living facility called the police on her for talking her aunt out.

“Unbelievable,” Williams added.

“Wondering how that coordinates with the statements that the guardian has made that Wendy is able to come and go as she pleases and that there are no family visits that are blocked,” Finnie said.

What is next for her guardianship fight?

Williams was released from the hospital on March 12, and two days later she called in to The View and told Hostin that she passed a mental evaluation “with flying colors” during her hospital stay. Hostin said it was just “a rudimentary type of evaluation.”

“But I think the important takeaway from it is that she did pass that one with flying colors as she described,” Hostin said. “Now where we are at is the guardian agrees that she should have a more robust evaluation done by experts, a psychological evaluation, and the judge has agreed.”

“She doesn’t sound like someone that needs that type of restrictive environment,” Hostin said. “She doesn’t mind having a guardian, but she just doesn’t want this guardian. “

After Williams said in multiple press statements that she was capable of managing her own affairs, Morrissey in court papers requested the court appoint a qualified expert to conduct a supplemental medical evaluation of Williams to determine her capacity. Federal judge Ronnie Abrams agreed and gave the parties until June to get the medical evaluation done.

“These matters can be extremely nuanced and complex, but generally speaking, there are several tacks a lawyer can assess and potentially take in this type of situation, ranging from filing an application with the court to remove a guardian, to seeking a less restrictive guardianship or seeking to terminate it,” Rosengart said.

Hostin said Williams was alcohol free and suggested she could have a sober coach and live in her own apartment. She said Williams seemed “so present” and remarked on “the way she sounded so hopeful.”

Related

• Wendy Williams Escorted From Assisted Living After Dropping Notes for Help
• What We Know About How Wendy Williams Is Doin’

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