Wendy Williams is opening up about her life under conservatorship, shedding light on her frustrations with the restrictive conditions of her assisted living facility.
In a candid interview with NewsNation’s Banfield, the former talk show host described feeling isolated and trapped in a memory care unit, insisting she’s ready to reclaim her freedom.
According to PEOPLE, Williams called into the program to provide an update on her ongoing situation. “Well, I don’t have the freedom to do virtually anything,” she shared.
“As far as where I am, I’m on the fifth floor. They call it ‘the memory unit,’ so it’s for people who don’t remember anything.” Approaching a year in the facility, she feels out of place among residents she believes require far more care. “I’ve met the people who live here and I’ve been here for almost a year now, and this is very suffocating,” she said.
Williams contrasted her capabilities with those around her, noting that other patients need help with basic tasks like showering or brushing their teeth—assistance she doesn’t require.
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She also highlighted the steep cost of her stay: “It’s the memory unit, you know what I mean? Why am I here?” she said. “I have no idea, but I can tell you that it’s $18,000 a month, which is extremely expensive. And what do I have? I have a bedroom, and a bathroom and a window.”
The sense of confinement weighs heavily on Williams, who says she’s been largely cut off from the outside world for three years.
“It’s a long time. I’m ready to get out of here. I’m ready to get out and get out of the guardianship. It’s suffocating, it’s very lonely,” she shared during her Banfield appearance. Her plea echoes sentiments she expressed in a tearful January call to The Breakfast Club: “I am not cognitively impaired but I feel like I am in prison,” she said. “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.”
Adding to her concerns, Williams revealed that the facility controls her medication—some of which she questions. “They administer my medicine, but I’m unsure why some of it has been prescribed,” she told Banfield. Her statements come despite a February 2024 announcement from her medical team diagnosing her with dementia, a condition that surprised fans given her recent lucidity.
Support for Williams has emerged from familiar corners. Suzanne Bass, a former producer of The Wendy Williams Show, recently posted on Instagram about a phone call that left her hopeful. “I hadn’t heard from Wendy in years, until last week, my phone rang and it was Wendy,” she began. “I cried. She cried.”
Bass added, “She sounds fantastic. She sounds the best she’s sounded in years,” before voicing dismay at Williams’ situation: “I’ve been learning every day since then, more and more about her story, what she’s been through, what she’s going through, this horrible guardianship she’s in.”
