Wendy Williams is making new claims about her lack of medical care.
The former talk show host, 60, detailed how her life has changed under a guardianship in a new TubiTV documentary called TMZ Presents: Saving Wendy Williams, released on Wednesday, Feb. 12. Speaking with the outlet’s founder Harvey Levin, Williams reflected on her 2023 dementia diagnosis, saying she can’t remember the last time she was seen by a medical professional.
“When was the last time you saw a doctor?” Levin asked.
“A long while,” said Williams, who was assigned a guardian in 2022, as she insisted that she “couldn’t” even estimate a general time frame because it had been so long.
“I was in Connecticut for a year and I didn’t go see anybody. I’ve been in here for six or seven months and I haven’t seen anybody,” she revealed, referring to the assisted living facility she is currently in.
In court filings, Williams’ guardian has claimed she “is cognitively impaired and permanently incapacitated.” Williams, however, told Levin that she feels “fantastic” and is “not incapacitated.”
Given her history of substance abuse and recent sobriety, New York-based neurologist Leah Croll said that Williams’ alcoholism could have been the reason she experienced aphasia, which is defined by brain damage that impacts an individual’s ability to understand and communicate.
“This is actually an extremely challenging diagnosis to make,” she said of differentiating alcohol-induced brain damage from dementia. “There’s a lot of overlap because alcohol tends to be particularly toxic to the prefrontal lobes of the brain and, of course, those are the parts of the brain that are affected in frontotemporal dementia as well.”
Levin then questioned whether the possibility of a misdiagnosis might call for a new examination following Williams’ sobriety and apparent disappearance of symptoms seen in her recent interviews.
“Certainly,” Croll said, explaining: “This could be a reason for her neurologist and her team to reevaluate what’s going on with her and reassess her cognition at this point.”
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On Feb. 5, Williams’ guardian Sabrina Morrissey filed court documents requesting a “new medical evaluation” after the television personality denied that she was “incapacitated” during an appearance on The Breakfast Club earlier that day.
“I don’t have frontotemporal dementia…it’s disgusting,” Williams said on the radio program on Feb. 5. “That’s a very rare thing for anybody to have.”
“I’m not incapacitated,” she later added. “I am not a baby.”
Morrissey’s request also addressed Williams’ statements indicating she did not want to pursue legal action against A&E Television Networks. In February 2024, Morrissey sued A&E for the Where Is Wendy Williams? docuseries, claiming the network’s documentary “shamelessly exploits [Williams] and portrays her in an extremely demeaning and undignified manner.”
“In these statements, [Williams] has indicated that, in her opinion, she is not suffering from dementia and is not incapacitated,” the filing stated. “We are writing this letter today because, during a radio interview this morning, [Williams] discussed the A&E matter at some length and appeared to indicate that she does not want to proceed with the action.”
Morrissey also claimed she brought the lawsuit against A&E to “recover substantial monetary damages for the benefit of [Williams], which could be used to help pay for [her] significant healthcare needs going forward.”
Citing Williams’ past “formal diagnosis,” Morrissey requested that Williams have “a new medical evaluation that will involve comprehensive neurological and psychological testing by a specialist in the field” following her public denial of the medical condition.
“The issue of whether [Williams] has the capacity to assess what is in her own best interests deserves renewed careful consideration by qualified experts, and should not be left to careless speculation in tabloids, radio, or on the Internet,” the filing stated.
Morrissey concluded by saying she has “no interest” in pursuing further litigation if “in the extremely unlikely event that the new medical examination finds that [Williams] somehow now has the mental capacity to direct” the lawsuit against A&E.
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