‘Get Off My Neck’: Wendy Williams Speaks Out Following Her Plea for Help at Assisted Living Facility

Former talk show host Wendy Williams criticized her court-appointed guardianship in a phone interview with “The View” on Friday, asserting that she’s impaired and should not be in a “memory unit” at an assisted living facility.

“Get off my neck,” she said about her guardian and the judge who instituted the guardianship.

“I need a new guardian, and then, I’ll get out of guardian.”

Williams added that she wants to move on with her life and would never work with them again, NBC News reports.

As CrimeOnline previously reported, Williams’ guardian, Sabrina Morrissey, filed a memo last year stating that Williams had become “cognitively impaired and permanently incapacitated” due to early-onset dementia.

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Williams argued that the guardianship, in place since 2022, restricted her movements.

Ginalisa Monterroso, a medical aid consultant representing Williams during the interview, explained that Williams initially viewed the guardianship as a way to manage her finances, but she now believes it has resulted in unnecessary control over her life.

The interview happened days after police took Williams to the hospital, following her pleas for help on March 10. New York police conducted a welfare check at her assisted living facility, then EMS transported her to a hospital for evaluation.

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Williams said on “The View” that the plea for help happened because she felt “a little angina” and needed fresh air.

“I needed to see the doctors. So that’s why I went to the hospital,” she said. “And then, while I was at the hospital, I also got blood drawn for my thyroid, you know? But most importantly, being at the hospital, it was my choice to get an independent evaluation on my incapacitation, which I don’t have it. How dare they say I have incapacitations! I do not.”

 

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Williams’ health issues became apparent in the later years of “The Wendy Williams Show.” She has also been candid and open about her past addiction to cocaine, which she said she overcame without treatment.

“Look how she overcame it and what she became,” Nancy Grace said on Crime Stories. “I mean, a superstar in the talk industry.”

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Williams was also diagnosed with Graves’ disease, which causes hyperthyroidism.

“How can Graves, which I don’t believe affects your mental ability, and a long ago addiction equal this Draconian conservatorship?” Grace asked.

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“I am not cognitively impaired, but I feel like I am in prison,” Williams said during an interview with “The Breakfast Club” in January, according to People Magazine.

“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.”

Meanwhile, Williams said during “The View” interview she stored her famous purple chair from her show and plans to keep it in her apartment once her guardianship ends.

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Check back for updates.

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[Feature Photo: FILE – TV talk show host Wendy Williams attends a ceremony honoring her with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019, in Los Angeles. Williams has been diagnosed with a rare form of dementia called frontotemporal dementia, or FTD, according to a statement released Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024, on behalf of her caretakers. It affects parts of the brain controlling behavior and language. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File)