Centuries in the past, these accused of gossip, primarily ladies, had been locked into steel headpieces that restrained the mouth. Imagine what these medieval haters would take into consideration Wendy Williams.
The host first began rattling off her opinions into tens of millions of American residing rooms in 2008. But The Wendy Williams Show kicked off its thirteenth season in October 2021 with out Williams as its host. And after months of delays and visitor hosts, in September 2022 her slot was changed by Sherri, hosted by Sherri Shepherd, the previous The View co-host who had been Williams’s hottest fill-in.
Now, after greater than two years out of the highlight and just lately disclosing that she has been identified with major progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia, Lifetime — which beforehand produced each a dramatization and a documentary in regards to the speak present host’s life — is releasing the documentary Where Is Wendy Williams? The movie, which premieres on February 24, seems to comply with Williams by way of that tough interval and options interviews together with her, her household, and different associates. The documentary is slated to give an inside take a look at her psychological and bodily well being points, in addition to the drama surrounding her monetary guardianship. On Instagram in 2022, Williams known as out Wells Fargo, accusing the financial institution of “keeping her away” from her cash.
“Where is Wendy Williams?” is definitely a query her followers have been asking for some time now, as they discover her fairly irreplaceable. At the tip of her present’s run, Williams ranked among the many prime daytime speak present hosts, after Ellen DeGeneres, who ended her present in May 2022, and the ladies of The View. While Shepherd has obtained constructive suggestions, the shortage of a goodbye from Williams has been met with concern and blended emotions.
For over a decade between smirking laughter and sips from her mug, Williams calmly eviscerated superstar goings-on, razing their mishaps to the bottom to lay on the toes of her dwell studio viewers. She stored her authentic mission by way of altering occasions and thru her personal struggles. Even early on, her penchant for displaying no mercy was documented by the New York Times in a 2008 article that described her as able to being “startlingly mean-spirited.” This is what helped her amass a legion of followers, and in addition what irritated her critics for thus lengthy; towards the tip of her speak present gig, the infractions piled up.
The tide has turned on the sort of lurid gossip Williams traffics in; simply take a look at the best way the popular culture information cycle of the early aughts is being reevaluated. Still, her mixture of bravado and vulnerability stored her on our screens. Who is that this lady anyway, and who let her onstage?
Wendy Williams constructed her profession on saying issues different individuals wouldn’t say
Williams, born in New Jersey, obtained her begin in radio within the late Nineteen Eighties. She labored her method up by way of DC- and New York-based stations and, by 1993, had earned a Billboard Radio Award, honoring her because the R&B Major Market Radio Air Personality of the Year. She gave her listeners candid recommendation and shared the small print of her personal life dramas. Williams was identified for her fiery, unapologetic character. According to a 2005 New York journal profile, throughout her run at WBLS, her interns had been instructed not to communicate to her except spoken to. She bounced round totally different stations into the 2000s, discussing pop and rap stars on-air. She’s additionally struggled publicly: with being fired and ostracized, with a dishonest husband who was additionally her supervisor, with substance abuse points and her power sicknesses.
Williams made a reputation for herself by getting immensely private together with her listeners, which is maybe why her fanbase is so enamored together with her. Marie Nerestant, a 43-year-old in New York City, has been a Wendy fan since highschool. Now, she watches The Wendy Williams Show each single day whereas her children are at college.
“She speaks her truth,” Nerestant instructed me about why she is drawn to Williams’s commentary. “She says what everybody wants to say, but is too afraid to say.” This, she theorizes, is why so many individuals are postpone by Williams.
“She has her flaws, and she’s not afraid to say it. She has Graves’ disease. She has lymphedema. She went through a terrible divorce. She’s said everything. What else does she have to prove to anybody?”
Wendy hasn’t solely spoken her personal reality, although — and a fair proportion of celebrities have taken challenge with Williams over the course of her profession. In the ’90s, she had a behavior of “outing” numerous rappers and pop stars, making claims that Sean Combs, Whitney Houston, and others had been homosexual. These accusations weren’t taken calmly. Houston’s pal Robyn Crawford admitted that the pair deliberate to confront Williams over the gossip. Williams has additionally implied that Combs despatched a woman group from his file label to assault her and intimated that he obtained her fired from Hot 97. Tupac even threw a diss at her in his music, after she made claims about his time in jail.
Despite the drama, Williams’s brashness attracted tv execs, and in 2008 she was requested to do a trial run of her personal syndicated speak present. It was a sweeping success. Immediately the present resonated, particularly with ladies between the ages of 18 and 54. Fox and BET jumped on the prospect to broadcast this system, and the remainder is historical past.
Her attraction to many Black ladies and homosexual males was essential to her success, regardless that it’s controversial that they need to be most offended by her. And that’s the unusual magic of Wendy Williams.
Aside from her speak present, Williams has completed standup, acted in motion pictures, written books (fiction and nonfiction), and appeared in a Broadway manufacturing of Chicago. Just this previous January, she concurrently launched a biopic and a documentary by way of Lifetime. In the autumn of 2020, she was revealed as a performer on The Masked Singer, costumed as a giant mouth, which is, effectively, fairly on the nostril.
Williams’s daytime gig, nonetheless, was greater than sufficient job for many. Her usually tireless schedule meant that everybody with cable has probably come throughout her sooner or later or one other. Stay-at-home moms, kids residence sick, sufferers in medical doctors’ ready rooms, and the like have all crossed paths with Wendy. Her superstar gossip phase, aptly titled “Hot Topics,” dissected the newest leisure information and may need been the purest expression of the Wendy Williams persona. She talked, and the viewers listened.
Williams’s followers love her, however they don’t at all times agree together with her
The intimacy of The Wendy Williams Show was its important power; Williams lounged in her purple armchair not simply earlier than her viewers, however as in the event that they had been sitting on the identical desk collectively. When she gossiped, notoriously unscripted, it felt like chatting with a pal. She known as her followers her “co-hosts.”
While a bunch like Ellen DeGeneres speaks to celebrities the best way a pal would, Williams spoke to and about them as if she weren’t additionally a star. She had no challenge prying or having visitors on the present that she had beforehand gossiped about. She separated herself from the superstar tribe and put herself on the degree of the viewer, ignoring the strain that may exist between her position and her personal fame.
The format of The Wendy Williams Show by no means modified a lot over time. Neither did its host, who remained usually brutal towards celebrities. According to her followers, that is a part of the attraction — but in addition, not at all times their favourite factor.
“I prefer when she keeps it light,” says Tracy Turner, a 54-year-old fan who watched Wendy a number of occasions per week. For eight years, Turner had been tuning in to see what Williams has to say, whether or not it’s for her recurring superstar lookalike phase or giving recommendation to viewers members. What Turner is much less interested by is when the commentary turns just a little nasty, as in Williams’s unsolicited “advice” on the rocky relationship of Love & Hip-Hop stars Safaree Samuels and Erica Mena.
It appeared like a randomly fired shot, however in Turner’s opinion, there are some individuals who Williams simply doesn’t like, and it affected her protection of them. “She used to come for the Kardashians, but then she met them, and then she changed the narrative,” Turner stated. While Williams’s opinions might flip-flop — a lot to the annoyance of a few of her followers — additionally they mirrored a really human impulse. Her emotions are allowed to change, no matter how forcibly she expressed them, even for, as Turner factors out, generally indiscernible causes. These shifts made her that rather more unpredictable, which is compelling to those that have watched the character of her fame change over time. When your viewers doesn’t take you one hundred pc severely, it makes you a lot more durable to cancel.
What follows is a quick synopsis of Wendy Williams’s most-cancellable hits: There was her explosive dialog with Whitney Houston in her radio days, the place she requested Houston how her drug use affected her household (Williams has detailed her personal points with cocaine). Houston hung up on her. On the radio in 2006, Williams leaked that Method Man’s spouse had most cancers earlier than a few of the couple’s circle of relatives members even knew. She’s had to apologize for claiming that homosexual males “should leave skirts and heels to women.” When Terry Crews spoke out about being sexually assaulted, she stated he was “not brave.”
In 2018, she complained in regards to the Me Too motion and defended R. Kelly, who had lengthy been accused of and was convicted of sexual abuse in 2021. She later modified her thoughts, calling him “sick” and condemning his actions. She misgendered a trans athlete and made ill-informed, transphobic jokes.
In July 2021, Williams implied that the wedding of actress and vegan influencer Tabitha Brown, who just lately was ready to assist her husband financially so he might retire from the LAPD, was doomed to fail, and reminded Williams of her personal state of affairs together with her ex-husband Kevin Hunter.
“That was out of anger. I don’t think she meant what she said,” Nerestant stated. Perhaps Williams’s feedback got here from a spot of projection due to her personal romantic pains, Nerestant instructed, however stated Williams was out of pocket nonetheless. “I didn’t agree with what she said. She was reaching a little bit, but she’s hurt and she’s still hurting. It’s just a process that she has to deal with.”
Over the years, Williams repeatedly mocked Britney Spears, however in a twist that was so out of left discipline it was comedic, she declared “death to them all!” in reference to Spears’s conservators. The clip has since been scrubbed from her YouTube channel however lives on in TikTok audios.
Williams’s most up-to-date and arguably worst offense was a takedown of 19-year-old TikTok person Matima Miller, identified to followers as Swavy. Williams delivered the information of Miller’s homicide by evaluating her follower depend to his and proclaiming that she had “no idea who this person is, and neither does one person in this building.” It was a stomach-turning, mindless blow to his household, who are usually not well-known by any means. The listing of controversies goes on and on.
Despite Williams’s usually crude commentary, advertisers by no means appeared dissuaded (Chevrolet as soon as dropped her for complaining about traditionally Black faculties and universities, however that’s about it), and viewers tuned in all through her run. She was merely a pure at being on tv. She glided from phase to phase as if she was simply catching up together with her viewers — did you hear so-and-so did this? What do you all take into consideration this, that, and the opposite that what’s-his-name was caught doing final week?
Even if followers didn’t at all times approve of her strategy, they wholly believed in her proper to have a platform, no matter who it bothered. They could also be annoyed by her, however additionally they really feel a kinship, even a sort of possession, over her.
“She just wouldn’t be who she was today without stepping on some people’s toes and hurting some people’s feelings,” Nerestant stated.
The web loves Wendy Williams … sort of
Wendy Williams, the particular person, isn’t very on-line. On Instagram, she merely posts recaps of her present, blurry images of her meals (her commenters don’t hesitate to inform her when the meals appears gross), and the occasional selfie. The account itself isn’t strictly enterprise or private, however it principally operates as a promotional account for the present itself.
Even if Wendy Williams isn’t actually on the web, in some methods she embodies its attitudes. Conversations about celebrities are at all times impolite and outlandish on-line, with or with out Wendy on the air. It is very easy to dogpile on Williams — an individual who has stated some terrible issues and has the nerve not to cower afterward, regardless that she is within the highlight herself. In an interview with the New York Times Magazine again in 2019, Williams was requested why persons are interested by superstar gossip. Her response was easy: “Celebrity lives are something that people can live vicariously through,” she stated. “It takes people’s minds off their own troubles. Everybody has troubles.”
Williams obtained paid to be judgmental, which is what lots of people spend all day doing without cost. Online, we’re all speak present hosts who can hearth off a sizzling take tweet, go on a dwell rant, or create a slideshow of opinions theorizing on a star romance. In reality, many on-line remark sections, threads, and boards use Williams as a software — between person clapbacks and questions, her picture dances, stares, and grimaces in GIF type by way of all of it. Her relevance continues as a result of Williams’s picture has arguably develop into larger and extra vital than her precise present — possibly even larger than Williams herself.
As one TikTok person put it, she comes off as “a caricature of a woman.” Her baritone “How you doin’?” catchphrase is immediately recognizable. There’s the unlucky clip of her fainting on-air whereas dressed because the Statue of Liberty for a Halloween episode. There’s an endless arsenal of pouty, shocked-looking photos of her, and web customers gravitate towards them as response GIFs and pics. There are numerous edits of her physique, warped to make her seem bug-eyed like an alien or contorted to make her torso as skinny as a rail. Her being is primed for virality as a result of there are so few well-known people who find themselves as theatrical or as unnerving.
Her tv viewers was a loyal bunch, however her web viewers is far much less sort. They see her as type of a joke of a determine. Her memeification each proves and reinforces her reputation, however her meme standing is difficult — there’s actual adoration and endearment there, however it’s additionally blended in with informal, unfamiliar “fanship” which sees her as much less of a three-dimensional particular person and extra of, for lack of a greater time period, a human emoji.
On a sociological degree, it’s fascinating and revealing, however it’s additionally considerably harmful when one considers the social implications of constructing a Black lady so separate from personhood. As Beatrice Forman wrote for Vox, the web adoption of memes and slang from Black individuals is “committed so casually and frequently that it feels like the default mode of shitposting.”
It’s no fault of her personal, however Williams’s picture has usually been used as an instrument in that appropriation because the web forges a world constructed within the likeness of Blackness. Her prevalence on Black and homosexual Twitter has parlayed her into wider consciousness, as such issues go. In the general public creativeness, she isn’t an individual however an thought. She is camp. She is, as she as soon as stated of Lil’ Kim, “an icon, a legend, and she is the moment.”
That all got here to a considerably inauspicious finish. Williams had solely taken a number of transient hiatuses earlier than — due to Covid-19 manufacturing stops, to take care of well being points from her Graves’ illness and lymphedema, and to mourn the dying of her mom.
That’s why it was so uncommon when the brand new season of Wendy was postponed.
“I hope it helps to put things in perspective,” Turner stated of Williams’s well being points, prior to the present’s official cancellation. “But there is a place for what she does. She is loved by pop culture.”
Still, it appeared as if nothing might cease The Wendy Williams Show till she determined to finish it. Now that it’s over, it’s onerous to fully hate the participant. We can moralize and debate about whether or not her work served our society, however as with a lot of tv, it simply served to entertain — and Wendy did the job with extra aptitude than most would dare to muster.
In the months main up to the announcement of the present’s ending, there was a lot concern about what precisely was happening with Williams. Despite her sickness, she was seen by the paparazzi vaping in a automotive in New York City in September 2021, and tabloid rumors circulated that she might have fallen out of sobriety. In 2019, after discovering that her ex-husband was having a toddler together with his girlfriend, she checked right into a sober residing residence to stop herself from relapsing. Later, she was admitted to a hospital for a psychiatric analysis. Her brother acknowledged that the anniversary of their mom’s dying might have made the time of 12 months significantly tough for her. When Where Is Wendy Williams? premieres on Lifetime in February 2024, followers might achieve new perception into the struggles she confronted towards the tip of her TV tenure. Until then, although, we are able to solely speculate from our purple armchairs at residence.
Update, February 22, 2024: This story was initially revealed on October 18, 2021, and has been up to date with information of Lifetime’s upcoming documentary, Where Is Wendy Williams?, and Williams’s current prognosis.