Wendy Williams. Photo:
Patrick McMullan via Getty
Wendy Williams is speaking out about her life in a treatment facility.
In her first interview since a bombshell Lifetime documentary premiered in February 2024 — days after her team revealed that she had been diagnosed with progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) — the former television host opened up about being treated for the disputed diagnosis. A source with knowledge confirmed to PEOPLE that Wendy is at a luxury care facility with around-the-clock medical care.
Williams, 60, called into the Breakfast Club to speak with DJ Envy and Charlamagne Tha God, and guest host Loren LoRosa, from her treatment facility.
During the interview, Williams said she was not happy with being forced to take medication — 7 pills daily — without being told why.
“Where I am, okay, you have to get keys to unlock the door to press the elevator to go downstairs. Second of all, these people here, everybody is like a nursemaid so to speak. They come in and give your pills and then you leave,” Williams said. “I’ve had two pills my whole life. There are seven pills, I have no idea what this pill is doing. I haven’t been to a pill person in a matter of a long time. To the point where, ‘Excuse me doctor, can you tell me what this pill is for?’ ”
Williams continued: “For the last three years, I have been caught up in the system. This has been three years. I’ve been caught up in this system.”
The former radio and television host was placed under court-ordered guardianship in 2022. The arrangement was put into place after Wells Fargo froze her accounts because her then-financial adviser claimed that she was of “unsound mind,” PEOPLE previously reported. New York lawyer Sabrina Morrissey was then named Williams’ legal guardian.
However, Williams’ family has since spoken out against Morrissey, calling into question the guardianship and her execution of the legal order. Williams’ sister Wanda Finnie told PEOPLE last year that “all was cut off” between the former TV personality and her family after the guardianship began in April 2022.
As recently as last summer, Williams’ family told PEOPLE they are “unable to speak on her current condition and location due to ongoing litigation and the fact that they have largely been denied contact.”
Wendy Williams. Lars Niki/Getty
Williams’ call-in interview with the Breakfast Club was the first time she openly spoke about the dementia diagnosis, which her care team announced two days before the Lifetime documentary was released. Last November, PEOPLE reported that Morrissey alleged in a court filing that Williams has become “cognitively impaired, permanently disabled and legally incapacitated” as her alleged early-onset dementia has progressed.
“Listen, this system is broken, this system that I’m in,” Williams said during Thursday’s interview on the Breakfast Club. “This system has falsified a lot.”
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Williams’ niece, Alex Finnie, joined her aunt on the call and spoke out against the guardianship.
“This is the reality. This has been our lives. But specifically her life,” Williams’ niece said. “She can call us but we can’t call her. That’s been the reality since 2023. That room she is sitting in, she’s there every day, all hours of the day, every week, every month. She’s not getting proper sunlight. I went to New York in October to visit her, and the level of security and the level of questions that there were in terms of who am I, why am I here, what’s the purpose, it was absolutely just horrible.”
