Wendy Williams is ‘permanently incapacitated’ due to dementia, her guardian says

Wendy Williams‘s legal guardian, Sabrina Morrissey, shared a grim update on the former the presenter’s battle with dementia in a recent court case.

Morrissey, an attorney, said the 60-year-old writer is now “permanently incapacitated,” in the filing obtained by The independent. Williams was officially diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia and primary progressive aphasia in May 2023.

Williams is described as “a renowned entertainer who has tragically been affected by early-onset dementia and as a result has become cognitively impaired and permanently incapacitated” in the suit.

“In January 2022, after becoming aware of a pattern of disturbing events regarding (Wendy’s) welfare and finances, Wells Fargo took the highly unusual step of initiating guardianship proceedings on its own initiative in the Supreme Court of New York, New York County (the “Guardianship Proceedings “) to seek the court’s appointment of an independent guardian for (Wendy’s) financial affairs,” the filing continues.

Morrissey’s legal team included a plea asking the court to protect Williams’ privacy by redacting some aspects of her “health, family relationships and finances” already detailed in the suit.

The guardian’s legal team said, “We respectfully request that the court grant plaintiff’s request for limited redactions to protect non-public information from the guardianship proceeding that has been placed under seal by the court overseeing that proceeding.”

Williams’ legal battle began in 2022 when Wells Fargo froze her bank accounts. The bank then filed a petition for temporary financial guardianship” over her, arguing that she was of “unsound mind”.

In February, Morrissey unsuccessfully tried to prevent Lifetime from publication of the documentary Where is Wendy Williams?. The appeals judge ruled that it would be an “impermissible prior restraint on speech that violates the institution’s First Amendment.”

Williams’ guardian continued to file a lawsuit against Lifetime and the production companies — Entertainment One Reality Productions, Lifetime Entertainment Services, A&E Television Networks, Creature Films and Mark Ford — days later before amending her complaint in September. The case was then moved to the New York Supreme Court in October.

On Nov. 22, Williams’ attorneys filed a demand for a jury trial. The independent has reached out to Lifetime and Creature Films for comment.

Throughout the documentary, Williams appears unsteady on her feet and has trouble walking without assistance. Her emotions fluctuate between sweet to suddenly irritable to belligerent to tearful or frustrated. Many times the former talk show host admits to drinking. “I love vodka,” Williams says in the first episode.

In a review, Black called the series “an exploitative display of her cognitive decline and emotional well-being.” Danie Buchanan, a radio DJ in Atlanta, posted a video reaction on Instagram, saying, “I couldn’t finish it … It was so hard to watch, it was so hard to see her like that,” she said.

Williams has been public about his cocaine addiction and was living in a “sober house” in 2019.

Filmmakers said back in February that they were unaware of the star’s dementia diagnosis while filming most of the scenes.

“We decided to stop filming as a team. We kept hoping that she would get better, but it became clear to us that she wasn’t and that she really needed help,” said executive producer Erica Hanson.