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In the year since representatives for Wendy Williams shared that she had been diagnosed with aphasia and frontotemporal dementia, her family has been locked in a public battle with her court-appointed guardian, Sabrina E. Morrissey, who they say has kept her isolated and cut off from her loved ones. And on Thursday, two months after Morrissey claimed in a legal filing that Williams is “permanently incapacitated” by cognitive issues, Williams said in a rare interview that she’s of sound mind and is trapped in her guardianship.
“I am not cognitively impaired,” Williams said during an episode of The Breakfast Club that she called into with her niece Alex Finnie. “I feel like I am in a prison.” Williams and Finnie say that the former talk-show host has been kept at a facility in New York for the past year with little access to the outside world. (Breakfast Club host Lauren LoRosa described trying to visit Williams shortly before the interview was recorded and claims that, though the staff initially seemed to acknowledge Williams was there, they called Morrissey and suddenly told LoRosa there was no one with Williams’s name in the building.) Williams says she is not allowed to use her personal phone or computer and cannot use the elevator without a key. “Instead of this guardian, Sabrina, working with her, it seems like she’s made it difficult for my aunt to live any sort of healthy, independent life,” Finnie said.
Williams also says Morrissey recently told her that she gave away both her cats, and that she may not allow her to fly to Miami for her father’s upcoming 94th birthday. Williams claims she’s been “caught up in this system” for three years and fears she may face retaliation from Morrissey for doing the interview. “My life is my life is my goddamn life.”
Guardianships and conservatorships — terms that are often used interchangeably but whose legal definitions vary from state to state — have come under more scrutiny in recent years, particularly following the 13-year arrangement that gave Britney Spears’s father control over nearly every aspect of her life. Finnie said that her aunt’s “story is a fight that many other people are going through, as well, and they don’t have the resources.” Williams added, “This system is broken.”
The Cut has reached out to Morrissey for comment and will update this post if we hear back.
