'Like prison': Wendy Williams slams legal guardianship

(CNN) — Wendy Williams is fighting back against reports that she is impaired after having been diagnosed with progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia.

The former talk-show host spoke with the “The Breakfast Club” on Thursday, where she denied that she needs the level of care she’s currently receiving.

One of the show’s co-hosts, Charlamagne tha God, whom Williams said she has known for 20 years, introduced her as a guest and said Williams is “being taken advantage of.”

“I am not cognitively impaired,” Williams said. “But I do feel like I am in prison.”

Williams explained that she is “in this place where the people are in their 90s and their 80s and their 70s” and pointed out that at the age of 60, she is still “sexy and gorgeous.” Regardless of the age of the residents where she is staying, “There’s something wrong with these people here on this floor,” Williams said.

Representatives for Williams announced last year that she was diagnosed with progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia in 2023. The conditions can impair cognitive function, communication and speech in impacted individuals, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

Williams spoke extensively with “The Breakfast Club” on Thursday. She expressed her frustration that the facility where she is currently living doesn’t “allow you to leave or have visitors.”

“You can’t even leave and take a walk if you wanted to,” Williams said.

She was joined by her niece Alex Fannie, who said her aunt is living “in a luxury prison.”

“She’s sitting in that room that she’s sitting in, she’s there every day, all hours of the day, every week, every month, she’s not getting proper sunlight,” her niece said. “I went to New York in October to visit her. And the level of security and the level of questions that there were in terms of, ‘Who am I? Why am I here? What’s the purpose?’ I mean, it was absolutely just horrible.”

Her aunt, Finnie said, is prevented from calling family, friends or accessing the internet.

Williams said she feels “trapped in a conservatorship” and has spent several birthdays alone, which she compared to “emotional abuse.”

Williams was placed in a court-ordered financial guardianship in 2022. CNN has reached out to her legal guardian, attorney Sabrina Morrissey, for comment.

Roberta Kaplan, another attorney for Williams, said her client still requires care.

“Wendy Williams suffers from frontal lobe dementia, a degenerative brain disease that has no cure. As a result, a state court found her to be legally incapacitated, meaning that she is not capable of making legal and financial decisions on her own,” Kaplan said. “Unfortunately, because of her diagnosis, Wendy’s condition will only get worse with time and she will require care for the rest of her life. But as anyone who has had a family member with dementia knows, Wendy has both good days and bad days. It is truly a shame that there is so much voyeuristic attention to this right now.”

Williams hosted her popular daytime talk series “The Wendy Williams Show” from 2008 to 2022. She faced multiple health issues toward the end of the show’s production.

Williams passed out while hosting an episode in 2017, later explaining that an electrolyte imbalance had caused her to collapse. She took a medical leave from production in 2018 to deal with Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disorder, on her doctor’s orders. In 2019, multiple guest hosts filled in for Williams for several weeks as she recovered from a fractured shoulder.

Williams was unable to host her show throughout the 2021-2022 television season, before it was ultimately canceled.

Finnie was critical of the conservatorship system and questioned if an updated medical evaluation might allow for her aunt to regain some of her independence.

“I’m not asking for a whole lot,” Fannie said. “All I’m saying is just treat the woman with dignity. And give her the freedoms that she deserves.”

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