‘Where Is Wendy Williams?’ Ends With More Unnerving Questions Left Unanswered
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It’s hard to believe that Wendy Williams has been off TV for nearly three years. Without having to seek her out, daytime television’s best no-bullshit gossip is still inescapable. Old clips from The Wendy Williams Show’s successful 13-year run still go viral at every turn, racking up millions of views on every social media platform they grace.
But as her legacy nurtures itself, Williams has been in the thick of a medical, legal, and personal crisis. The four-part Lifetime docuseries Where Is Wendy Williams? attempts to explain what’s been going on. Instead, it leaves even more unnerving questions unanswered.
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The latest series picks up where 2021’s What a Mess doc left off, kind of. As her show was nearing its sudden end, Williams shared with the world the details of her divorce and burgeoning mental health crisis. Where Is Wendy Williams? starts off from the perspective of Williams mounting a comeback, and it’s clear across the entire series that in whatever limited mental capacity she has left, she still believes that comeback is imminent. Her manager, Will Selby, hovers around Williams’ shadow throughout the entirety of the film, doing little to help as she stumbles into her opening interview, where the always crass and straight-talking media figure seems to have become a more aggressive, sensitive, and disconnected version of herself. Like the majority of Williams’ scenes that were captured over a year of filming.
The filmmakers quickly pivot from Williams’ dreams of getting back in front of her audience to what the hell is going on in the current day. They ask about her health issues, financial situation, relationship with her family, and alcoholism. None of her answers paint an optimistic portrait: Her feet are numb from severe lymphedema, and her family struggles with her love for alcohol (and her clear unwillingness to change any of the habits that could be killing her). Meanwhile, she has no access to her fortune, as a mysterious, nameless court-ordered guardian has been put in charge of her money and, by the end of filming, seemingly every decision in Williams’ life.
The legal guardian is specter over the entire series, never being name-checked and seeming to be even a mystery to Williams’ own family, who slowly lose the ability to contact the star directly by mid-2023, when filming ends. The guardian, revealed to be a lawyer named Sabrina Morrissey, filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against Lifetime’s parent company A&E to stop the series from airing.
While Williams’ guardian carries the brunt of the blame, it becomes increasingly clear that the hangers-on who work on the former radio personality’s team are, at best, negligent caretakers and, at worst, enablers. Selby, a jeweler, was hired in 2022 as her manager and seems inept at how to handle the severity of the situation. And while publicist Shawn Zanotti often faces the brunt of Williams’ aggressive outbursts, she sits idly by as her client orders drink after drink. In one particularly depressing scene, Zanotti tries to persuade her client to attend the Oscars, to which the clearly declining Williams asks, “What’s the Oscars?”
At least her family seems to be a bit more level-headed and on a mission to wield the documentary for good, even if, on paper, it feels uncomfortable and exploitative to watch. Her nephew, Travis Finnie, and niece, Alexis Finnie, are compelling interview subjects who offer the most reliable narratives in the often convoluted and poorly constructed series. Alexis’s discomfort when Zanotti, a woman she had never met before, interrupts her conversation with her aunt helps spin the film into something more urgent as she and Travis rally the rest of the immediate family.
Williams’ son, Kevin Hunter Jr., also speaks candidly about watching his mother’s tragic health decline and the experience of losing legal guardianship over her. He reveals that Williams’ dementia diagnosis had also been given in 2021 and says that the doctors told him that it is alcohol-induced.
Williams’ sister, Wanda, is mentioned throughout the series, often through the lens of Williams feeling her sister’s disappointment in her continued drinking. She finally appears in the final episode, doubling down on the family’s mission to not only fight for legal guardianship over Williams’ health and finances but also to move her to Florida, where she can live closer to her family.
The most heartbreaking scenes are with Williams’ father. Not only did his wife, Williams’ mother, pass in 2020, but now he is watching his 59-year-old daughter struggle with dementia and aphasia at quite a young age. When she mistakenly calls her brother Thomas by the name of Kevin, either referring to her ex-husband or her son, the look of devastation in his eyes is crushing.
By the end of the series, the state of Williams’ life feels like it’s left almost purposefully confusing. Selby insinuates that the legal guardian has taken full control of his client’s life, but he also seems to be one of the few people who is in direct contact with Williams. Her family cannot directly contact Williams, but she can contact them; at one point, the host interrupts her sister Wanda’s interview to give an update. They also claim that she seems to be getting physically healthier and a bit back to her old self. In recent interviews, the family points out that they have not seen Williams in person in a while but that she has been in a treatment facility to help with her cognitive issues.
The series is a devastating watch. Seeing the vibrant, hilarious, and iconic figure no longer be herself is a tough pill to swallow. And while stories like Williams’ are important to bear witness to, no matter how uncomfortable they make us, it’s hard to shake that sinking feeling that she has fewer people who are actually in her corner than she deserves. When the time comes for the court to assess her guardianship again, hopefully, a clearer path to Williams’ overall wellness will reveal itself. In the meantime, all anyone can do is hope that those tasked with it now actually put her needs first.
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