Trending:
- Wendy Williams’ health care advocate Ginalisa Monterroso tells PEOPLE that the former talk show host is “excited” for a jury to determine if her guardianship should be terminated
- Monterroso claims Williams “passed” the mental capacity exams during her hospital visit on March 10, adding, “She was alert and oriented, and we were satisfied with that”
- Williams has been outspoken about her desire to end the guardianship
Wendy Williams is ready for her fate to be decided by a jury.
In an exclusive conversation with PEOPLE, Williams’ health care advocate, Ginalisa Monterroso, says the former talk show host, 60, is “excited” for a jury to determine if her guardianship should be terminated following additional mental competency testing.
“This is something that she’s been wanting to say, and she just can’t wait to get her story out,” Monterroso says of Williams wanting to clear the air about being mentally incapacitated. “And at the end of the day, she’s going to have a trial by jury, and it will be the jury who will be making the decision.”
Monterroso notes that the trial — which has not yet been scheduled — will follow additional testing from “an independent neurologist.”
The health care advocate also explains her decision to call 9-1-1 and write a letter to Adult Protective Services on March 10, which led to authorities responding to Williams’ assisted living facility for a welfare check. She was then escorted out of the building, and EMS transported her in an ambulance to a local hospital “for evaluation,” a spokesperson for the New York Police Department told PEOPLE at the time.
“It was just more of a strategic move to just kind of get more evidence, because this case has been stuck,” she explains.
She adds the decision to transport via ambulance was made because they could “at least do a short mini assessment” at the hospital and “have some documentation from somebody else outside of this guardianship that can attest” to Williams not being incapacitated.
Monterroso claims Williams “passed” the mental capacity exams at the hospital, adding, “She was alert and oriented, and we were satisfied with that.”
When asked about Williams’ 2023 diagnosis of primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), Monterroso explains, “Well, there’s different stages of FTD, and we don’t even know if it is actually FTD, because Wendy did drink alcohol. And FTD and alcohol dementia are very similar.”
She notes that alcohol-induced dementia is “reversible,” adding, “You just stop drinking. FTD is very progressive. And so if they’re saying that she had this back in 2023, you would see a decline. You would see something as far as her speech, as far as her thinking, as far as her messaging, there will be a big indication at this point that something’s wrong.”
Monterroso hopes by making the decision to call authorities about Williams’ case that it will bring “awareness to the public that this is very serious and it is a crime to keep somebody isolated.”
Monterroso’s comments echo Williams’ claims that she is not incapacitated amid her continued fight to end her guardianship. “I am fabulous,” she told Page Six on March 21. “I’m better than good, but have been accused [of] being otherwise.”
“I am very much alive,” she continued. “I deserve freedom, darling.”
Williams also made an appearance on Good Day New York and announced that she “passed” the mental competency test at the hospital “with flying colors.” During the interview, she also said the “most important thing” to her was “getting out of guardianship.”
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Over the last few months, the television personality voiced her concerns about the N.Y.C. facility’s memory care unit where she is currently living, calling it “suffocating.”
“I am not cognitively impaired but I feel like I am in prison,” Williams said while appearing on The Breakfast Club alongside niece Finnie in January. “I’m in this place with people who are in their 90s and their 80s and their 70s. These people, there’s something wrong with these people here on this floor. I am clearly not.”
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