We would pour one out for this “native New Yorker,” except, she’s MIA.
Wendy Williams is a radio and television talk show host and personality. She is best known for hosting her TV show “Wendy: The Wendy Williams Show.” Williams’ show ran from 2008-2021 when it abruptly ended due to “cancellation.” It was later revealed that Williams’ show was canceled because of her ongoing health issues.
The Timeline
After Willams’ disappearing for a few years, she came forward in 2024 about her recent diagnosis: aphasia and frontotemporal dementia. This was revealed before she was outed in a Lifetime documentary entitled “Where is Wendy Williams?” Aphasia is a neurological condition that disrupts people’s ability to speak and understand and frontotemporal dementia is a rare form of dementia where nerve cells in the frontal lobe are lost. The life expectancy for somebody diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia is six to eight years after diagnosis.
When Williams’ show ended, she was appointed a court-ordered guardian as her body and mind were rapidly deteriorating. People took notice of this and thought it was unfair that a perfectly capable woman was getting a guardian to look after her. Williams got put in an assisted living facility by her guardian and this is where the “free Wendy” campaign started.
Free Wendy
Fans and watchers of Wendy’s show were distraught and confused. They didn’t know what was happening and they felt as if Wendy’s life was being kept secret because something more concerning was at stake. Fans became more concerned when Willaims’ stated that she was being held in this facility against her will and she couldn’t speak to her friends or family. This is when people started to show up at Wendy’s assisted living facility in Hudson Yards, New York and hold up signs and yell to her window. People even started taking pictures of the frail ex-TV show host and posting them to social media, with the caption #freeWendy.
Our generation advocated so hard that the #freeWendy campaign gained a lot of traction, so much so that officials decided to retest her mental and physical abilities in order to possibly regain freedom from her appointed guardian.
After taking the mental competency test it was revealed that Wendy Williams got a perfect score. Williams even stated,
I passed with flying colors!
After her exam, the court is relooking into her case and she is closer to freedom from her guardian.
Williams stated she just wants her life to return back to normal, so that she can go back to being herself and maybe even return to the industry.
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