Wendy Williams

Wendy Williams Hunter (Wendy Joan Williams; born July 18, 1964) is an American former broadcaster, media personality, and writer. From 2008 to 2021, she hosted the nationally syndicated television talk show The Wendy Williams Show.

Prior to television, Williams was a radio DJ and host and quickly became known in New York City as a shock jock. She gained notoriety for her on-air spats with celebrities and was the subject of the 2006 VH1 reality television series The Wendy Williams Experience, which broadcast events surrounding her radio show.

Williams's other endeavors include authoring several books, appearances in various films and television shows, touring her comedy show, and her own product lines, including a fashion line, a jewelry collection and a wig line. Williams was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2009. On her 50th birthday, the council of Asbury Park, New Jersey, renamed the street on which she grew up Wendy Williams Way.

Early life
Wendy Joan Williams was born on July 18, 1964, in Asbury Park, New Jersey. She is the second of three children born to Shirley (Skinner) and Thomas Dwayne Williams. The couple had a combined three master's degrees; Shirley was a special education teacher while Thomas was a teacher and school principal who in 1969 became the first black school administrator in Red Bank, New Jersey. Following race riots in Asbury Park in 1970, the family moved to the predominantly white, upper middle class suburb of Wayside in Ocean Township, New Jersey. They attended a Baptist church and visited the town of Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, each summer. As a child, doctors recommended Williams be medicated to control her hyperactivity. She suffered from poor body image due to the diet her parents put her on after gaining weight in elementary school. Williams was a Brownie in the Girl Scouts and volunteered as a candy striper. Her parents believed she would become a nurse.

Williams acted as an announcer at her younger brother's Little League Baseball games. She graduated from Ocean Township High School in 1982 among four black students, ranking 360th in the class of 363. Her academic performance contrasted with that of her older sister, who received a university scholarship at the age of 16. As she was able to use "white" diction instead of African-American Vernacular English, Williams's white classmates considered her one of their own and freely used the word nigger around her. She did not get along with the other black students and said their only commonality was smoking cannabis. According to Williams, she did not listen to hip hop music and instead listened to rock bands like AC/DC because they were popular with her classmates. Due to her suburban upbringing, Williams considers herself "a multicultural woman who happens to be Black".

Williams attended Northeastern University in Boston with the intent of becoming a television anchor. Less than a month after starting, she switched from television communications to radio because she could advance her career faster —a move of which her parents disapproved. Williams graduated in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication and, to appease her parents, a minor in journalism. She was a disc jockey for the college radio station, WRBB, where rapper LL Cool J was her first celebrity interviewee. As an intern for Matt Siegel at contemporary hit radio station WXKS-FM, Williams recapped the soap operas Dallas and Dynasty on air. In 2021, Williams revealed that she was date raped while in college.

1986–1994: Career beginnings, WQHT, and WRKS
Two weeks after graduating from Northeastern, Williams began her career as a disc jockey working for the small, calypso and reggae-oriented WVIS in Frederiksted, U.S. Virgin Islands, but disliked the role because she did not learn as much about radio from her colleagues as she expected. Due to low pay and isolation from her family, Williams began sending resumes and demo tapes of herself to other radio stations. She left WVIS after eight months and obtained a position at Washington, D.C.'s WOL, but found its oldies radio format incompatible with her personality. Williams continued sending tapes to other stations and on November 1, 1987, began as a weekend fill-in on New York City's WQHT. After the urban contemporary station hired her full-time to work overnight shifts, she left WOL.

Williams was fired from WQHT after two years and briefly worked overnight shifts at WPLJ before being hired by WRKS. Initially working as a fill-in, WRKS gave Williams a non-compete clause and permanent morning position in May 1990 after WBLS began poaching its employees. She joined Jeff Foxx and Spider Webb as part of the station's "Wake-Up Club". There, Williams began gossiping about rappers and celebrities during a segment called "Dish the Dirt". Those she talked about, such as Bill Cosby and Russell Simmons, called the station and (unsuccessfully) demanded she be fired. As she grew into a popular radio personality, WRKS moved Williams to host the evening drive time slot in April 1991. By 1993, she was the highest-rated host in her time slot in the New York City market and received a Billboard Radio Award for R&B Major Market Radio Air Personality of the Year.

Williams co-hosted American Urban Radio Networks' syndicated Top 30 USA song countdown program in 1993 and USA Music Magazine in 1994. By mid-1994, WRKS had suffered a ratings decline amid competition from hip hop-oriented WQHT, which was owned by Emmis Broadcasting. In an effort to reverse the trend, WRKS moved Williams back to mornings on September 26, 1994, where she hosted a program titled "Wendy and Company". However, Emmis purchased WRKS less than three months later and transferred Williams to WQHT, where she began hosting the evening drive time slot on December 12, 1994. As WRKS was reformatted into an urban adult contemporary outlet geared toward older audiences, they believed Williams would better reflect WQHT's younger demographic.

1994–2001: WQHT, website, move to WUSL
By this time, Williams attended parties to gain information which she would report on air in addition to reading tabloid newspapers. She continued gossip segments and gave relationship advice to teenage girls during "Ask Wendy". Williams's ratings increased dramatically after she read aloud a magazine article about an anonymous rapper confessing to being gay. She became known for speculating about his identity and spread rumors that there was not one, but multiple gay rappers who were not open about their sexuality. Among her insinuations was that Tupac Shakur was raped in prison, which he denied. Williams employed the term "pinky's up" when alleging someone was gay and regularly used the slur faggot, which she considered to be inoffensive. Her comments contributed to an increase of homophobia in hip hop culture.

Williams created a website, www.gowendy.com, as an offshoot of her radio program. Featuring photos and rumors of celebrities, it received up to 100,000 views per day. In April 1997, WQHT suspended Williams for one week after mentioning her website on air, which displayed a doctored image of Bad Boy Records executive Sean Combs naked from the waist down having sex with another man. The station suspended Williams again in September 1997 for online comments insinuating that her colleague Angie Martinez's boyfriend Q-Tip was gay. Upon her return after deleting the post a month later, Williams called the Bad Boy Records girl group Total "broke hoes" after their comments favoring her suspension. WQHT permanently removed Williams and her fans protested outside of their offices. By this time, Williams had received more than 50 letters from the station regarding her "lack of good judgment". She speculated her removal was due to pressure from music industry executives and stood by her comments, stating: "I stopped caring about artists when I realized it's more lucrative to talk about them than with them."

She was fired from Hot 97 in 1998. Williams was hired by a Philadelphia urban station, WUSL ("Power 99FM"). She was very open about her personal life on air, discussing her miscarriages, breast enhancement surgery, and former drug addiction. She helped the station move from 14th place in the ratings to 2nd.

2001–2008: WBLS
In 2001, Williams returned to the New York airwaves when WBLS hired her full-time for a syndicated 2–6 p.m. time slot. Williams' friend, MC Spice of Boston, offered his voiceover services to the show, often adding short rap verses tailored specifically for Williams' show. The New York Times stated that her "show works best when its elements – confessional paired with snarkiness – are conflated". By 2008, she was syndicated in Redondo Beach, California; Shreveport, Louisiana; Wilmington, Delaware; Toledo, Ohio; Columbia, South Carolina; Emporia, Virginia; Lake Charles, Louisiana; Tyler, Texas; and Alexandria, Louisiana, among other markets. Williams left her radio show in 2009 to focus on her television program and spend more time with her family.

Media outlets have described Williams's 2003 interview with Whitney Houston as her most infamous. After Williams asked Houston about her marriage and breast implants, they began a shouting match and Houston said she would have fought Williams if she were younger. In a later interview with Williams, Houston's confidant Robyn Crawford said they planned to confront her years earlier after she talked about Houston on air. Wu-Tang Clan performer Method Man had a personal and publicized conflict with Williams in 2006 after she revealed details about his wife's cancer diagnosis.

2008–2016: International breakthrough with The Wendy Williams Show, television and film projects
In 2008, Debmar-Mercury offered Williams a six-week television trial of her own talk show. A syndicated daytime talk show hosted by Williams titled Wendy's World was poised to debut in fall 1997, but never aired. On July 14, 2008, Williams debuted her daytime talk show, The Wendy Williams Show, in four cities during the summer of 2008. During the tryout, The New York Times remarked that the show created a "breakthrough in daytime" by introducing the genre of the "backtalk show". After a successful run, Fox signed a deal with Debmar-Mercury to broadcast the show nationally on their stations beginning in July 2009. In addition, BET picked up cable rights to broadcast the show at night. In 2010, BET started airing the show internationally in 54 countries through BET International. The show attracted 2.4 million daily viewers on average, with Williams trading off daily with Ellen DeGeneres as the number one female host on daytime television.

Williams hosted a game show for GSN called Love Triangle (2011) for which she and her husband Kevin Hunter served as executive producers. Williams played a judge on the Lifetime network show Drop Dead Diva (2011) and served as a guest judge on The Face (2013). Williams was paired with Tony Dovolani as a contestant on the twelfth season of Dancing with the Stars; she was eliminated second. Williams later alleged the show's producers portrayed her as an angry black woman, a racial stereotype. Williams appeared in the film adaptation of Steve Harvey's book, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, titled Think Like a Man (2012), and its sequel, Think Like a Man Too (2014). In 2012, it was announced Williams would enter into a "production alliance" with producers Suzanne de Passe and Madison Jones to create movies and television shows aimed at multicultural audiences. These projects will appear under the heading "Wendy Williams presents" and their first project will be VH1 adaptation of a Star Jones novel.

In February 2013, it was announced that Williams and her husband and manager, Kevin, were launching a reality television production company, Wendy Williams Productions. that will produce unscripted content, including reality television and game shows. Williams was an executive producer on the show Celebrities Undercover (2014). Williams also executive produced a biographical film for Lifetime, Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B, which premiered on November 15, 2014. The film attracted controversy due to its casting and depiction of Aaliyah's relationship with R. Kelly. and received predominantly negative reviews from critics. In September 2015, the documentary series Death By Gossip with Wendy Williams premiered on the Investigation Discovery channel, both hosted and produced by Williams. In 2013, Williams was cast to play the role of Matron "Mama" Morton on the Broadway musical Chicago. She began her tenure on July 2 and finished her seven-week run on August 11, 2013. Her preparations for the musical were documented in the TV Guide docuseries Wendy Williams: How You Doin', Broadway?!, which was produced by her own production company, Wendy Williams Productions.

Williams was accused of victim blaming singer Kesha in 2016 after questioning why she did not film the alleged sexual abuse by record producer Dr. Luke against her. Williams later apologized for the remarks and stated "unfortunately a lot of people lie about rape so I was just being skeptical".

2017–2021: Personal and professional issues, end of talk show


Williams's health issues caused her to take multiple hiatuses from hosting her show, including three weeks in 2018 and six weeks in 2019.

During this time, Williams received criticism for several remarks she made on her show. In January 2018, Williams was criticized by activist Tarana Burke after saying an alleged 14-year-old sexual assault victim of R. Kelly gave him consent and that she was tired of the #MeToo movement. Williams stood by her comments, saying "I feel like I know things about R. Kelly that he's told me himself that I promised I would keep in confidence." While talking about actor Joaquin Phoenix in January 2020, Williams used her finger to pull up a part of her lip to resemble a cleft palate, which Phoenix denies having. Although Williams said she found it attractive, critics claimed that it appeared as if she was mocking him. After a Change.org petition in favour of firing her garnered over 70,000 signatures, Williams apologized on Twitter and her show donated to cleft palate charities. The following month, Williams was criticized for making homophobic comments. While talking about the fictional holiday "Galentine's Day", she criticized gay men for wearing skirts and high heels and falsely assumed they aspire to be women. Williams later apologized for her remarks. While talking about the death of Amie Harwick shortly thereafter, Williams made a joke referring to Harwick's ex-fiancé Drew Carey and his job on The Price Is Right, saying that show's catchphrase, "Come on down!", in response to news that Harwick fell to her death.

Williams hosted her show remotely from March to May 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, after which she took a hiatus due to fatigue caused by Graves' disease. She returned to a studio broadcast in September of that year. The next month, Williams competed in season four of The Masked Singer as "Lips" where she was mostly sitting on something due to the weight of the costume and was eliminated after her first appearance.

In July 2021, Williams received criticism for her tone while covering the murder of 19-year-old TikTok star Swavy. After comparing their social media followers, Williams stated "I have no idea who this is" and casually informed her studio audience of his death. Williams did not return to her show after that month due to health issues; guests hosted in her absence. She tested positive for a breakthrough infection of COVID-19 in September 2021.

Production of The Wendy Williams Show concluded in 2022 due to Williams's ongoing health issues.

Authorship
Williams is the author of three non-fiction books. She released an autobiography co-written with New York Daily News journalist Karen Hunter in August 2003 titled Wendy's Got the Heat. It focuses on her life, including childhood troubles, drug addiction, and marriages. Published by Atria, it debuted at number nine on The New York Times Best Seller list for nonfiction. The autobiography was reprinted in paperback in August 2004, a month before the debut of Williams' second book, The Wendy Williams Experience, which contains celebrity gossip and interviews. In May 2013, Williams released an advice book, Ask Wendy. Over the years, Williams wrote columns for Honey and Life & Style magazines.

Williams has also written several fiction books, including a trilogy about the life and career of radio shock jock Ritz Harper. She co-authored the first two novels, Drama Is Her Middle Name (2006) and Is the Bitch Dead, or What? (2007), with Hunter. Zondra Hughes co-wrote the third installment Ritz Harper Goes to Hollywood! (2009). Media outlets considered Ritz Harper similar to Williams. In 2014, Williams released a romance novel, Hold Me in Contempt. She said it was co-authored with an English professor ghostwriter.

Music and comedy
Williams interviewed Blu Cantrell in 2003; the conversation was released as a DVD on the singer's album Bittersweet. Williams and Virgin Records released a compilation album, Wendy Williams Brings the Heat: Volume 1, in June 2005 featuring various rap acts, including M.O.P., Jadakiss, and Young Jeezy. It sold 29,000 copies by November of that year according to Nielsen SoundScan.

In 2014, Lipshtick called Williams to participate in their first all-female-based comedy series at the Venetian in Las Vegas. Williams made her sold-out comedy debut on July 11, 2014. Williams' comedy tour was called "The Sit-down Comedy Tour". Williams returned to Lipshtick on October 31, 2014, and November 1, 2014, after she made a sold-out debut in July. Williams hosted her "How You Laughin'" Comedy Series at NJPAC on November 15, 2014, featuring Luenell, Jonathan Martin, Pat Brown, Hadiyah Robinson, and Meme Simpson. In 2015, Williams announced a 12-city comedy tour called "The Wendy Williams Sit Down Tour: Too Real For Stand-Up."

Philanthropy and activism
In 2005, Williams funded a $1,000 scholarship for a black female high school student who sought to major in communications at college. Subsequent recipients in 2006 and 2007 also received internships at WBLS. She led an effort to donate money and school supplies to Asbury Park Middle School in 2009. Williams is pro-choice for abortion.

Following the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Williams visited her hometown of Asbury Park and paid for the hot meals of 300 people, face painting, and balloon animals for children. She supported Barack Obama in that year's presidential election, and promoted an NAACP voter helpline. Williams posed for PETA's "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" campaign in 2012, stating "we should all try to be comfortable in our own skin and let the animals keep theirs." Williams also headlined during Philly Pride that year.

In 2013, she participated in The Heart Truth fashion show to raise awareness for women's breast cancer. Williams supported the 2015 removal of the Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina State House. In 2018, she promoted Be Here (behere.org) while on a 10-city tour with goal to raise $10 million in 5 years for drug and substance abuse victims. Williams attended Los Angeles Pride in June 2019 with Blac Chyna, and rode on a float in July at the WorldPride parade in New York. In September, Williams became an ambassador and honorary board member of the Lymphatic Education & Research Network.

The Hunter Foundation
Williams and her ex-husband created The Hunter Foundation in 2014, a non-profit organization that funded anti-poverty programs and provided resources to people as they transitioned from drug addiction to recovery. During the Holiday season in 2016, the couple hosted dinners for over 1000 for those in need through the foundation. In 2017 the organization donated $1000 for the opening of an emergency food pantry. In 2018, the organization paid for a student's college tution. The Hunter Foundation was dissolved during Williams' divorce in May 2019. Following the dissolution, Williams partnered with SNAX-Sational Brands and Operation Backpack with the objective to raise funds to provide backpacks filled with various school supplies for children in New York homeless and domestic violence shelters.

Products and endorsements
While working for WRKS, Williams was a spokesperson for a hip-hop clothing brand. In 2006, she became a spokesperson for George Veselles champagne and Alizé liqueurs. Williams debuted a jewelry and shoe line on shopping channel QVC called "Adorn" in 2012. Williams' started a "Save the Twinkie" campaign amidst the parent company's filing for bankruptcy, setting up a Facebook page and promoting the snack on The Wendy Williams Show. The shoe manufacturer's lawyer alleged she never paid the production cost. In 2013, Williams released a wig collection to online retailers. She sold a self-titled clothing line in 2015 on shopping channel HSN and continued the partnership the following year by releasing shoe and winter clothing collections.

Personal life
In 1994, Williams married her first husband, Bertrand "Bert" Girigorie. She said they separated after five months and divorced about eighteen months later. Williams met her second husband, Kevin Hunter, in 1994, and married him on November 30, 1999. Her husband became her agent. She suffered multiple miscarriages before giving birth to their son. In April 2019, Williams filed for divorce due to irreconcilable differences after Hunter fathered a baby with a mistress. Although the divorce was finalized in January 2020, her legal surname remains Hunter.

Health issues and guardianship
Williams has been open about her cocaine addiction in the late 1980s and early 1990s, for which she never received treatment.

In October 2017, Williams fainted on her show from dehydration. Williams was often in the news for the next two years because of her health issues and relationship with Hunter. In February 2018, Williams disclosed that she has Graves' disease which causes hyperthyroidism, conditions she had been diagnosed with nearly two decades prior. Due to the increased pressure behind her eyes, they sometimes have a pronounced bulging appearance. Williams wears wigs in public because her thyroid condition thins her natural hair. She fractured her shoulder in December 2018. In March 2019, Williams said she had been living in a sober house "for some time" and that she has vertigo. Later that year, Williams revealed she had been diagnosed with lymphedema, a condition that causes swelling in her ankles.

Williams's bank, Wells Fargo, froze her accounts in January 2022 and requested a New York Supreme Court hearing to determine whether she was in need of a guardianship due to her health conditions. She disputed the allegations and accused her former manager and a Wells Fargo financial advisor of impropriety. A judge appointed a temporary financial guardian, Sabrina Morrissey, in March, and they were confirmed in May. Williams entered a wellness facility to treat her health issues. She returned to public activity in November and prepared to launch a podcast, though she did not end up releasing it.

According to her representatives, Williams was diagnosed with aphasia and frontotemporal dementia in 2023 and entered a cognitive facility. A documentary chronicling Williams's life since 2022, Where Is Wendy Williams?, aired on Lifetime in February 2024. Morrissey unsuccessfully sued to prevent its release, claiming the documentary exploited Williams.

Achievements
City University of New York professor Tanisha C. Ford credits Williams for creating the format by which other personalities conduct gossip segments of their own. The scholars ThedaMarie Gibbs Grey and Bonnie J. Williams-Farrier contend Williams is among the African American women who, through their television programs, popularized the term "sipping tea". Williams's voice is a popular sound on the social media service TikTok; her quote "That's what she said, and you know what? I— what was that? ...OK ...James" is used in over 100,000 videos. Other phrases such as "Oh she passed away?" and mispronunciation of singer Dua Lipa's name as "Dula Peep" became internet memes. YouTube users uploaded compilation videos of various Williams-isms to the platform, such as her misinterpreting the word "corona" as "cornova".

Williams was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2009. On her 50th birthday in 2014, Asbury Park renamed the street on which she grew up Wendy Williams Way. She was honored with the 2,677th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on October 17, 2019. A wax figure of Williams is located at Madame Tussauds New York. In Washington, D.C., various artifacts related to Williams's career such as a microphone, outfit, and wig used by her are located at a television exhibit in the National Museum of American History. A documentary, Wendy Williams: What a Mess!, and a TV movie, Wendy Williams: The Movie, are based on her life.