When I was watching Lifetime, wendy williams If you were uncomfortable with the docuseries that premiered over the weekend, you're not alone.
“Where's Wendy Williams?” premiered over the weekend and featured numerous scenes of the former talk show host being unstable, belligerent, confused and even drunk. Her manager regularly found liquor bottles hidden around her apartment, a behavior that producers say made him nervous during filming. But they say they did not know at the time that Williams suffered from dementia. The public learned about it late last week..
“We all became very concerned about her safety. To be honest, we were very worried that she was going to fall down the stairs for a variety of reasons,” she said of the series. said executive producer Erica Hanson, who can be seen and heard talking to Williams at certain moments.
Hanson said she and the filmmakers turned off the cameras immediately after her son told her that Williams had dementia.
“We decided to stop filming as a team. We kept hoping that she would get better, but it became clear that she wasn't and that she really needed help. '' said Hanson.
“Where's Wendy Williams?” debuted Saturday, two days after her care team released a statement saying she had been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia. frontotemporal dementia, has the same disease as Bruce Willis.Two episodes were subsequently aired Lifetime lawyer successfully dodged Attempt by Williams' parents to stop broadcasting.
In the review, Variety called series “It's an exploitative display of her cognitive decline and mental health,” Atlanta radio DJ Dannie Buchanan said in a video on Instagram. “I couldn't finish it…It was so hard to watch. It was very painful to see her like that.”
Throughout the documentary, Williams appears unsteady on his feet and has difficulty walking without assistance. Her emotions range from sweet, to suddenly irritated, to belligerent, to crying, to irritable. The former talk show host has admitted to drinking alcohol multiple times. “I love vodka,” Williams, 59, said in her first episode.
She has been openly addicted to cocaine and was living in a “sober house” in 2019. Whenever someone brings up the topic of her drinking in front of her camera, Ms. Williams ends the conversation.
In April 2023, a film crew followed Williams to Miami to visit his son Kevin Jr. and other family members. During the trip, Williams' son told the filmmakers that his mother suffered from a form of dementia caused by alcohol.
“We didn't know about the diagnosis until Kevin Jr. told us about it,” said Bree Bryant, Lifetime's senior vice president of unscripted programming.
After returning from Miami, crews arrived at Williams' apartment and found him sobbing on his bed, appearing to be inebriated. This was the turning point. Hanson was filmed talking to Williams' manager Will Selby about her condition before filming for Williams was completely halted. Shortly after, she was admitted to a treatment facility by her guardian.
“We were always wondering, 'Should we be here? Shouldn't we do that? How can we delicately tell this story? ” It touched us all deeply. It really was,” Hanson said.
The project was intended to be a follow-up to Lifetime's 2021 “Wendy Williams: How Terrible!” Documentary and biographical film “Wendy Williams: The Movie.'' Bryant said that both the network and Williams have enjoyed the partnership and have agreed to film Williams' next chapter.
Hanson said the goal was to document women changing their lives, facing obstacles and coming out the other side. Williams' self-titled “Daytime” Talk show will end in 2022 Due to ongoing health issues due to Graves' disease, she was unable to film. Williams' guest host, Sherri Shepherd, hosted his own show.
This image released by Lifetime shows Wendy Williams, the subject of the Lifetime documentary “Where Is Wendy Williams?'' (Calvin Gale/Lifetime, via AP)
“We wanted to film a woman at a real turning point in her life, with Wendy doing her podcast, embarking on a new career, and recovering from a very difficult divorce,” Hanson said. “Once we started filming, it went in a completely different direction.”
Producers, like Williams himself, say what is filmed and aired is ultimately honest and unfiltered.
“This is a painful truth, a very sad truth,” added executive producer Mark Ford. “But Wendy is one of the most fundamentally honest storytellers in media history. Why doesn't this documentary recreate that incredible legacy of openness?”
Bryant said there has been “no talk” about doing more films with Williams in the future. “Our only concern at Lifetime is that she had a platform to tell her story, and that we felt we did so responsibly, and that she recovered and I hope she can spend time with her family.”
The filmmakers say they hope the series will encourage people to take a closer look at guardianship. Because Williams' finances and medical care are managed by a third party, her family says they cannot see her or have a say in her treatment.
“We want people to understand why we aired and produced this program, and we hope that the intent is to shine a light on the difficulties and secrets of the conservatorship system,” Ford said. said.
