The scene was chilling. On the new Lifetime documentary Where Is Wendy Williams? the beloved former talk show host is lying in her rumpled bed inside her Manhattan apartment when her manager, Will Selby, confronts her with an empty vodka bottle.
“Did you drink this all today?” he asks. Wendy, 59, offers a weak, “Yes,” then rethinks and snaps, “No.” Later, she pleads to the camera, “We all drink, why can’t I?”
It’s just one of many raw moments in the controversial documentary, which takes viewers inside Wendy’s house of horrors. “You see her health deteriorating, but also her descent into what seems like madness,” an insider exclusively tells In Touch. “It’s painful to watch. Very dark things happened in that home.”
Ironically, the doc was intended to show Wendy’s comeback from the 2022 cancellation of The Wendy Williams Show. Instead, says the insider, “cameras caught a woman lost, alone and in a tragic downward spiral.” By the documentary’s conclusion, Wendy’s apartment was emptied (she’s currently at an undisclosed medical facility), but, says the insider, “the images of what happened there won’t soon be forgotten.”
Two days prior to the premiere of the doc, Wendy announced through her team that she had been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and dementia.
“On behalf of Wendy Williams Hunter, her care team is sharing this very personal update with her cherished fans, friends, and supporters to correct inaccurate and hurtful rumors about her health,” the February 22 statement began. “As Wendy’s fans are aware, in the past she has been open with the public about her medical struggles with Graves’ Disease and Lymphedema as well as other significant challenges related to her health.”
The statement continued, “Over the past few years, questions have been raised at times about Wendy’s ability to process information and many have speculated about Wendy’s condition, particularly when she began to lose words, act erratically at times, and have difficulty understanding financial transactions. Receiving a diagnosis has enabled Wendy to receive the medical care she requires.”
In the documentary, Wendy’s son, Kevin Hunter Jr., revealed that his mother’s dementia was alcohol-induced. “[Doctors] basically said that because she was drinking so much, it was starting to affect her headspace and her brain,” Kevin Jr., 23, explained.
An insider exclusively tells In Touch that Wendy’s drinking began after her 2020 divorce from Kevin Hunter and the death of her mother. “Her world fell apart and she lost it,” the insider notes.
Two years later, Wendy’s bank petitioned to have her placed under a guardianship, claiming she was “the victim of undue influence and financial exploitation.” Kevin Jr. later refuted the bank’s claims, saying, “The court tried to frame it as though I was making all these charges for my own happiness.”
The guardian, later revealed to be New York lawyer Sabrina Morrissey, effectively cut Wendy off from her family. Throughout the doc, everyone from her son, nephew, sister and brother complain that they can only speak to her by being “patched through” by Morrissey and offer their concern that the star is being manipulated.
“Kevin feels he’s more than competent to do it,” a second insider exclusively tells In Touch. “He’s better than these people who are in her life now.”
