The Biggest Bombshells from Lifetime’s Where Is Wendy Williams? Documentary Currently Under Litigation

A new documentary changes Wendy Williams’ key question — “How are you?” — back at her.

Filmed between August 2022 and April 2023, Lifetime’s Where is Wendy Williams? catches a dark period in the life of the former presenter, which intensified after the cancellation of the talk show of the same name due to alcohol addiction and several health problems. (The project was recorded after her court custody began.)

“There were times when everyone in this family wondered if they would make that call [that she was dead] was going to come in the middle of the night,” Williams’ sister, Wanda Finnie, 65, tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story. (Williams’ family said they were unaware of the star’s new diagnosis at the time of the interview.)

Wanda’s daughter Alex, 33, added: “It was shocking and heartbreaking to see her in this state.”

Wendy Williams and her niece Alex in Where’s Wendy Williams?.

For life

Two days before the release of the first part of the documentary on Saturday, Williams’ care team revealed that the 59-year-old television personality had been diagnosed with progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).

Williams’ family claimed they were kept in the dark about her diagnosis and had limited contact with her since she was placed under her legal guardianship in May 2022. Williams has been at the facility for treatment since April 2023, and while the family says they cannot call her, she can call them.

The same day Williams’ diagnosis was announced, her guardian filed a lawsuit against Lifetime’s parent company, A&E Television Networks, seeking to stop the documentary from airing.

Wendy Williams seeks ‘personal space and peace’ amid ‘overwhelming’ response to dementia diagnosis (Exclusive)

An appeals court rejected that attempt Friday afternoon, after which Lifetime confirmed in a statement to PEOPLE that “the documentary Where is Wendy Williams? will air this weekend as planned.” Williams spoke out in a statement to PEOPLE later that day, saying she was “immensely grateful for the love and kind words I received after sharing my diagnosis.”

“Let me just say, wow! Your response was overwhelming. The messages shared with me touched me, reminding me of the power of unity and the need for compassion,” she said. “I hope others with FTD can benefit from my story… I still need personal space and peace to thrive. Just know that your positivity and encouragement is deeply appreciated.”

The documentary is divided into four episodes of one hour each, which are broadcast over two nights. Read on for the biggest bombshells discovered on the first night Where is Wendy Williams? on Saturday.

Wendy opens up about her alcohol abuse: ‘I love vodka’

In the first episode of the documentary, Williams candidly declares, “I love vodka.” She adds that her sister Wanda “hates that I like alcohol” and her son Kevin Hunter Jr., 23, “hates alcohol.”

In scenes shot during the beginning of the documentary in August 2022, Williams appears to be drunk, and a month later she goes to wellness.

Wendy Williams struggled with alcohol during her show: ‘She’d be drunk on air,’ source says (Exclusive)

After a two-month stay in the institution, Williams continues filming. Footage was shown of her drunk, and after the producers asked her what she was thinking, she began to cry, only to reveal moments later that her tears were due to her choice of clothes and wig.

In another episode, Wendy’s manager and jeweler Will Selby finds a mostly empty vodka bottle in her home and asks Williams if she had a drink at lunch, to which she replies, “Y— you.”

“I need help,” admits Selby. “I can’t do this alone.”

Wendy Williams and her manager Will Selby in Where’s Wendy Williams?.

For life

Alex says she Googled Williams’ name with dread every day for a year and a half, fearing she would find something “we can’t come back from.”

At several points, Williams tries to order an alcoholic drink while at dinner, and each time Selby intercepts by telling the waiter to give her a mocktail instead. Selby says he found the bottles in Williams’ bathroom cabinets and closets.

When asked why he likes to drink, Williams says, “Because I can. Just because I care.”

Wendy Williams with her son Kevin Jr. in Florida.

When Williams was in Florida with her family, Kevin Jr. she says he kept her sober, made her eat a vegan diet and work out with a trainer.

“I helped her get better once by throwing out all the alcohol, [and two] keep her busy, whether it’s going to the beach, exercising,” he says.

“I feel like being down here with her family was the best situation for her because she couldn’t self-sabotage,” he adds. “If there was ever anyone who should help her through this, it should be those around her, her loved ones, her family.”

Wendy Williams’ family members say they weren’t told about her new dementia diagnosis (Exclusive)

At the end of the second episode, Kevin Jr. he says he fears his mom “could die” without the right help.

Wendy says she can only feel about “6 percent” of each foot because of her lymphedema

Williams starts to cry when she mentions her lymphedema, which her family says she was diagnosed with in 2019. She says she “should be in a wheelchair.”

During a workout with Selby’s friend, Williams tells him “no thanks” three times as he tries to get her to exercise. She says she can only feel about “6 percent” of each foot, which is swollen due to her lymphedema.

Wendy Williams 2021.

BACKGRID

Along with lymphedema, Williams had a long history of Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disorder that can cause bulging eyes.

Wendy’s manager Will Selby says he has noticed she has become “more aggressive”

Selby says he noticed in the first episode that Williams became “more aggressive, more demanding… [but she’s] one of the greatest personalities we have seen in recent times.”

“It’s normal for Wendy to be angry,” Selby adds. “He keeps changing his mind.”

Wendy Williams, 59, diagnosed with aphasia and frontotemporal dementia, according to her medical team

This is clear in the scene where Williams does her nails. Not long after the nail technician painted her, she told her to take it all off.

At one point, Williams calls her publicist Shawn Zanotti “stupid” and tells her she needs liposuction. Zanotti dismisses the comments and says he has a thick skin.

For Williams’ nephew, Travis Finnie, he says he’s noticed a change in Williams over the past 10 years. When he lived with Williams while he was in college, he says she would take her vape pen and a bottle of booze and wouldn’t be seen until 5 a.m. when it was time to go to work. The Wendy Williams Show.

“I just knew he had a problem,” he says.

Wendy says that in the 90s she would get high five days a week

In the first episode, Williams says she would get high “about five days” a week in the ’90s, when she rose to fame as a radio shocker. “I wanted to experience everything,” says why she took drugs.

After meeting now-ex-husband Kevin Hunter, 52, Williams says she stopped using drugs because she “wanted to have a baby.”

Kevin Hunter, Wendy Williams and their son Kevin Jr.

Bruce Glikas/Getty

After two miscarriages, Williams and Hunter had a son in 2000.

“My son Kevin is very important to me,” Williams says through tears.

Wendy says she doesn’t “care” about the child her ex-husband Kevin Hunter fathered during the affair

Williams filed for divorce from Hunter, 52, after 21 years of marriage in April 2019, when it was revealed he fathered a child with another woman.

“I don’t care about him or that baby,” Williams says.

Wendy Williams Family Breaks Silence On Her ‘Shocking And Heartbreaking’ Struggles Over The Last 3 Years (Exclusive)

While Travis says he wasn’t the “biggest fan” of Hunter, he credits him with making sure Williams showed up to work on time.

DJ Boof says he found Wendy unresponsive in 2020

After Williams’ divorce, her deejay DJ Boof says he replaced Hunter as her “protector.”

When the COVID shutdown began in March 2020, Williams did a few virtual episodes of her talk show with Boof, but was mostly isolated in her luxury apartment in New York. He would hold cue cards for her, but says there were “times when she didn’t show any emotion.”

“Doing this is not COVID,” Boof recalls thinking. “[It’s the] the damage of being on alcohol for so long… I had to see the lowest ebb.”

Wendy Williams in March 2023.

T. JACKSON / BACKGRID

In May 2020, Boof says he found her unresponsive at home and she was rushed to the hospital, where she needed several blood transfusions.

“She just wasn’t the same person anymore,” says Boof.

Wendy’s son Kevin Jr. responds to criticism that he spent her money

In early 2022, Wells Fargo froze Williams’ accounts after her then-financial advisor claimed she was “on the mend,” according to Williams’ court filings. The bank successfully petitioned a New York court to place Williams under temporary financial conservatorship.

Kevin Jr. came under scrutiny for his spending of money, but in the documentary he resolutely denies that he took advantage of her: “I never took [money] without her consent.”

Wendy Williams and son Kevin Hunter Jr. attended the ceremony honoring Wendy Williams with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on October 17, 2019.

Michael Tran/FilmMagic

“I always talked to her and she always wanted me to spend her — let’s spend her money,” he says. “She always told me, like, ‘Kevin, if you ever need anything or anything, just ask me, and, like, you know, it could happen.’ She would always communicate with me.”

Williams herself says at one point: “I’m luxurious and beautiful, and I take care of my family.”

Wendy wants to get back on TV

After The Wendy Williams Show was canceled in June 2022, Alex says it took months to make it work for Williams.

Wendy Williams’ family confirm she wants to return to TV after treatment program: Whatever ‘makes her happy’

In another episode, Williams cries on the steps of her childhood home in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and tells Selby, “I really want to get back on television.”

“She’s overcome a lot,” says Selby. “He’s still in this fight.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

The last two episodes Where is Wendy Williams? will air Sunday at 8:00 PM ET on Lifetime.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education