From Wendy Williams's radio days to her purple chair to daytime television, she has always said what's on her mind: raw, honest, and uncensored. But her most recent tabloid aggrandizement isn't a juicy bit of gossip she's passing along but her own life breaking apart in a tragic and achingly human manner.
On Lifetime's riveting new special, TRAPPED: What Is Happening to Wendy Williams? Journalist Diane Dimond, However, there was a quiet crisis on Wendy's 60th birthday, another significant change in her care. Wendy, who has been living in a care facility, made her way to the rooftop bar on July 18 and partied with the booze, Dimond said, more than a sip and, therefore, enough to count as a full-blown relapse.
"She got herself drunk," Dimond says in the documentary. "She had a relapse." "That whim, which had the air of spontaneity, had vast consequences. Wendy was recently transferred from a relatively open care unit into a secured memory care wing with fewer freedoms.
What makes this story sting all the more is hearing Wendy confess, as only Wendy can, in her signature blunt manner, during a phone interview on The View, that she doesn't feel the same about her husband of two decades back in March.
"Yes, I did celebrate," she said. "But that's it, no more alcohol, no more, thank you.
It's a rare vulnerability we don't see from someone who built her empire on bold takes and tabloid truth. But something else is at play beneath the surface, something Wendy doesn't seem to be in control of.
A person is considered under court-approved guardianship if they cannot make legal decisions. Her family says they have been mostly shut out. Wendy rants again, decidedly unhappy with those in charge of her life and health.
"These two people don't look like me, they don't dress like me, they don't talk like me, they don't act like me," she said on "The View. "They will never be me."Once the woman who had the spotlight, she's now fighting for something far more elemental: autonomy.
"I want a new guardian," she said. I can't do it with these two people again."
Wendy's saga is increasingly an allegory not so much of fame but of something heartbreakingly ordinary: growing old, having an addiction or two, not understanding your family, and losing a grip. For many people watching, it's not just a celebrity scandal but a reflection of what so many families silently endure. But in the thick of the dark chapter, Wendy tells fans she's re-dedicated herself to soberness. The relapse, she says, is a thing of the past.
"I don't drink any alcohol."
It's not the comeback story we wanted, but perhaps it's the one she's still writing, one tough day, one accurate word, one hopeful step at a time.
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