Wendy Williams‘ authorized guardian claimed that the discuss present host was unable to consent to her participation in Lifetimes’ The place Is Wendy Williams? documentary that aired final month, in line with an unsealed lawsuit obtained by Rolling Stone.
Sabrina Morrissey, appearing as Williams’ guardian, filed the go well with in February simply days earlier than the docuseries aired. Morrissey filed the go well with, which was sealed till Thursday, in New York in search of to dam the undertaking’s launch — although it aired as deliberate on Feb. 24 and 25.
Within the grievance, Morrissey claimed that Williams, referred within the go well with as W.W.H., had signed the contract for the documentary in January 2023, simply 4 months earlier than she was identified with dementia, rendering her incapable of consenting to the undertaking. Williams’ group introduced the analysis two days earlier than the documentary aired.
“W.W.H. is contending with very critical medical points which have rendered her successfully incapacitated,” the grievance mentioned. “She needs to be allowed to hold out her life and obtain required care with peace and dignity, and to work, to the extent she is succesful, in a nurturing, supportive and dignified surroundings. She was not, and isn’t, able to consenting to the phrases of the documentary Contract, and nobody appearing in W.W.H.’s finest curiosity would permit her to be portrayed within the demeaning method wherein she is portrayed within the Trailer for the documentary.”
Morrissey mentioned the defendants — Leisure One Actuality Productions and Lifetime’s mother or father community A&E — had been “unconscionably exploiting” Williams “for perceived leisure worth” and the “prurient curiosity of tv viewers.” She added, “This blatant exploitation of a weak lady with a critical medical situation who’s beloved by hundreds of thousands inside and out of doors of the African American neighborhood is disgusting, and it can’t be allowed.”
In a press release to Rolling Stone, a spokesperson for A&E mentioned they “look ahead to the unsealing of our papers as nicely, as they inform a really completely different story.”
An legal professional for Leisure One didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Williams hosted her eponymous daytime discuss present on Fox for over a decade from 2008 till 2021, together with her well being a rising query amongst followers within the closing years of the present’s run. A Rolling Stone evaluate of the doc referred to as the sequence “a devastating watch.” “Seeing the colourful, hilarious, and iconic determine not be herself is a troublesome tablet to swallow,” Brittany Spanos wrote.
Days after the documentary aired, the The place Is Wendy Williams? producers mentioned in an interview that they wouldn’t have shot the doc had they identified concerning the dementia analysis.
“After all, if we had identified that Wendy had dementia going into it, nobody would’ve rolled a digicam,” producer Mark Ford advised The Hollywood Reporter.
Fellow producer Brie Miranda Bryant added: “The analysis that was introduced was not the knowledge that any of us had going into it. So, folks had been watching the journey with info that we didn’t have in these first two hours, and I believe that’s a part of the confusion and the upset and outrage.”
