Wendy Williams is ‘permanently incapacitated’ from dementia, her legal guardian shares

The television personality was officially diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia in May 2023

Wendy Williams’s legal guardian, Sabrina Morrissey, shared a bleak update on the former presenter’s dementia battle in a recent court filing.

Morrissey, a lawyer, said the 60-year-old writer is now “permanently incapacitated,” in the filing obtained by The Independent. Williams was officially diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia and primary progressive aphasia in May 2023.

Williams is described as “an acclaimed entertainer who, tragically, has been afflicted by early-onset dementia and, as a result, has become cognitively impaired and permanently incapacitated” in the filing.

“In January 2022, after becoming aware of a pattern of disturbing events concerning (Wendy’s) welfare and finances, Wells Fargo took the highly unusual step of initiating a guardianship proceeding on its own initiative in the Supreme Court of New York, New York County (the ‘Guardianship Proceeding’), to seek the court appointment of an independent guardian for (Wendy’s) financial affairs,” the filing continues.

Morrissey’s legal team included a plea that asks the court to protect Williams’ privacy by redacting some aspects of her “health, familial relationships, and finances” already outlined in the case.

The guardian’s legal team said: “We respectfully request that the Court grant Plaintiff’s motion for limited redactions to protect non-public information from the Guardianship Proceeding that has been placed under seal by the court overseeing that proceeding.”

Wendy Williams’ is described to be ‘permanently incapacitated’ amid dementia battle (Getty Images for Spotify)

Williams’s legal battle began in 2022 when Wells Fargo froze her bank accounts. The bank then filed a petition to obtain temporary financial guardianship” over her, arguing she was of “unsound mind.”

In February, Morrissey unsuccessfully attempted to prevent Lifetime from releasing the documentary Where is Wendy Williams?. The appellate judge ruled that preventing the documentary release would be an “impermissible prior restraint on speech that violates the First Amendment of the institution.”

Williams’s guardian went on to file a lawsuit against Lifetime and the production companies — Entertainment One Reality Productions, Lifetime Entertainment Services, A&E Television Networks, Creature Films, and Mark Ford — days later before amending her complaint in September. The case was then moved to the New York Supreme Court in October.

On November 22, Williams’s lawyers submitted a demand for trial by jury. The Independent has contacted Lifetime and Creature Films for comment.

Throughout the documentary, Williams appears unsteady on her feet and she has trouble walking without assistance. Her emotions fluctuate between sweet to suddenly irritable to belligerent to weepy or frustrated. Many times the former talk show host admits to drinking. “I love vodka,” Williams says in the first episode.

In a review, Variety called the series “an exploitive display of her cognitive decline and emotional well-being.” Danie Buchanan, a radio DJ in Atlanta posted a video reaction on Instagram saying, “I couldn’t finish it ... It was so hard to watch, it was so hard to see her like that,” she said.

Williams has been public about her cocaine addiction and lived in a “sober house” in 2019. 

Filmmakers said back in February that they weren’t aware of the star’s dementia diagnosis while filming most of the scenes.

“We decided to stop filming as a team. We kept hoping that she was going to get better but it became apparent to us that she was not and that she really needed help,” executive producer Erica Hanson said.