Daytime talk show legend Wendy Williams called into The View from the assisted living facility where she remains confined by as part of her conservatorship following a dementia diagnosis. And in the interview, which aired Friday morning, she revealed for the first time exactly why she dropped that “help” note from the window in an attempt to get out.
“I was having a little angina,” Williams said. “Where I live at this memory unit on this floor, i just needed a breath of fresh air. I needed to see the doctor, and then while I was at the hospital I also got blood drawn for my thyroid. But more importantly, being at the hospital, it was my choice to get an independent evaluation on my incapacitation, which I don’t have. How dare they say I have incapacitation? I do not.”
Williams, 60, has been outspoken about her confinement due to a strict conservatorship since 2022, a legal arrangement that gives control of her daily living and finances to a court appointed guardian. Williams was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia and aphasia in 2024, which her guardian, an elder law attorney named Sabrina Morissey, claims left Williams “cognitively impaired, permanently disabled, and legally incapacitated.”
Williams has been fighting back against that claim in the press, however, in a series of interviews where she appears to be of sound mind—including on Friday’s The View. “It’s been over three years...it’s time for my money and my life to get back to status quo,” Williams told the show’s hosts. She’s said in past interviews that she was misdiagnosed and alleged “emotional abuse” over the course of her conservatorship, which currently has her placed in an assisted living facility in New York City on its “memory” floor.
Earlier this week, Williams briefly escaped from that facility to a hospital by dropping a note from her window that read, “Help! Wendy!!” Police arrived to escort her to the hospital on Tuesday, from which Williams phoned in to Good Day New York and revealed she’d passed a “mental capacity test” with “flying colors.” Williams has described her current facility as a “prison,” where she’s not even allowed outside.
Public concern has only grown for the former host, including with longtime friend and former employee, The View co-host Sunny Hostin, who thanked Williams for “giving me my start” in media on Friday. Hostin cast doubt on Williams’ diagnosis even prior to this week’s interview. “If Wendy sounded like she had no memory, she was ill, she was on some type of drugs or if she seemed extra lethargic, I would say that,” Hostin told Nightline last month. “Wendy sounds better than she ever has, than when I first met her.”
Morissey addressed how competent Williams sounds in her recent interviews when she told Vanity Fair, “Can she speak? Yes, she’s a professional speaker. But when I speak to her, and it’s not scripted and it’s not repetitive, do I see issues with her speech? Yes, I do, but the public isn’t having conversations with her the way I do.” Morissey added, “I can’t let whatever happens in the public affect how I respond to her and how I continue to help her.”
Roberta Kaplan, the who attorney represented Williams in her lawsuit against A+E, told TMZ in January that Williams has good days and bad days due to her dementia diagnosis, and not to be swayed by her competency in public appearances.
