Lifetime has a new documentary about what happened to former talk show Wendy Williams in recent years, starting with her declining health in 2017-21 to the cancelation of her talk show in 2022, to her attempt to relaunch herself with a podcast that same year. People Magazine’s cover story this week is also about all of that, and it looks like Wendy’s extended family is also still searching for answers for what happened with Wendy. Well, just days before Lifetime’s doc airs this weekend, Wendy’s “team” released her diagnosis: primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia. The same thing Bruce Willis has.
Former talk show host Wendy Williams has been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia, her team said in a statement Thursday. She was diagnosed last year after undergoing several medical tests. Her team said the conditions have “presented significant hurdles in Wendy’s life.”
“Wendy would not have received confirmation of these diagnoses were it not for the diligence of her current care team, who she chose, and the extraordinary work of the specialists at Weill Cornell Medicine. Receiving a diagnosis has enabled Wendy to receive the medical care she requires,” Williams’ team said in a news release.
Primary progressive aphasia is a nervous system syndrome that affects a person’s ability to communicate, according to the Mayo Clinic. People who have it often have trouble expressing their thoughts and can lose their ability to speak and write. Symptoms typically begin before the age of 65.
Frontotemporal dementia, or FTD, refers to a group of diseases that primarily affect the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain, the Mayo Clinic said. It is usually associated with behavioral and personality changes and difficulty with language.
Actor Bruce Willis was diagnosed with aphasia in 2022, which progressed to frontotemporal dementia.
Williams, 59, has previously opened up about her battles with lymphedema and Graves’ disease. In 2017, she fainted in the middle of a Halloween episode of “The Wendy Williams Show,” but recovered and finished the episode. A year later, she announced that she was taking a three-week break following her Graves’ disease diagnosis.
Well, this explains a lot but it also leaves some questions, questions which we probably won’t get answers to. I keep thinking about her alcoholism and drug abuse/relapses in the years before her hospitalization. I keep thinking about the reports of her ex-husband’s physical, emotional and financial abuse too. God, this is sad.
Lifetime also released a clip from the documentary, where Blac Chyna visited Wendy in the treatment facility and Wendy… just does not seem well. Progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia almost presents as something like Alzheimer’s.
#WhereIsWendyWilliams Documentary SNEAK PEEK. Part 1 premieres Saturday 8/7c on @lifetimetv. (Source @lifetimetv @people) pic.twitter.com/fOiTagOzKe
— OMFGRealityTV (@OMFGRealityTV) February 22, 2024
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.
-
- Wendy Williams attends Apple’s “The Morning Show” Global Premiere Event on October 28, 2019 at David Geffen Hall in Lincoln Center Plaza in New York, New York, USA. photo by Robin Platzer/ Twin Images/ Avalon,Image: 540365464, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: Robin Platzer/Twin Images / Twin Images / Avalon
-
- Wendy Williams attends Apple’s “The Morning Show” Global Premiere Event on October 28, 2019 at David Geffen Hall in Lincoln Center Plaza in New York, New York, USA. photo by Robin Platzer/ Twin Images/ Avalon,Image: 540365499, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: Robin Platzer/Twin Images / Twin Images / Avalon
-
- New York, NY – Wendy Williams is seen arriving back at the sober house holding her lunch and getting extra protection from cops. Pictured: Wendy Williams BACKGRID USA 20 MARCH 2019 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
-
- New York, NY – Wendy Williams is seen arriving back at the sober house holding her lunch and getting extra protection from cops. Pictured: Wendy Williams BACKGRID USA 20 MARCH 2019 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
-
- New York, NY – Wendy Williams is seen arriving back at the sober house holding her lunch and getting extra protection from cops. Pictured: Wendy Williams BACKGRID USA 20 MARCH 2019 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
-
- West Hollywood, CA – Wendy Williams gets help to her car after dinner with a male companion at Craig’s in West Hollywood. Pictured: Wendy Williams BACKGRID USA 6 JUNE 2019 BYLINE MUST READ: CLICKSNAP / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
I have Graves and it is really debilitating at times so I feel for her. I get random pains in my joints, inflammation, eye pain ( luckily mine did not budged but I had inflammation behind my corneas). It’s not a nice autoimmune desease. Stress is a huge contributor to it “flaring” out. I quit my stressful job back when I got the diagnosis plus I couldn’t work due to my high and debilitating anxiety , thyroid issues and body inflammation.. all due to my graves.
I feel for Wendy because it’s a very very sad diagnosis and she also had a terrible time with the ex husband which I am sure added to her stress level and erratic behavior.
I am glad she now has her own people and son caring for her. Hopefully her son can fight Wells Fargo to get access to her money to give her the best care now that she has a diagnosis.
Wells Fargo does not have control over her money. That would be the conservator. Is there a suggestion that her conservator is not allowing her money to be used to provide for her care, that she is being provided with inadequate care for her diagnosis or that her son would be making better financial decisions for her than the conservator?
Whatever is happening with her money and her having a conservator assigned doesn’t seem to be working. She was complaining of not having access to get help or the best help with all the money she made. The family was also complaining that the conservator did not had her best interest and failed to provide her with help and protect her from bad influences. Regardless I just hope that now she can get the best care with this terrible diagnosis.
@Cel2495 Consider the source. We have no idea what is actually going on. What little we do know is that before the conservator was appointed, she was a mess. I’m not sure what you mean by “working”. There is no cure for FTD, so no conservator can fix that. Her diagnosis, her sobriety, such as it may be, and the treatment she is now receiving, are all post-conservator. Having a conservator does not appear to have stopped her from getting diagnosed and treated. But it has drastically reduced the number of people with their hands in the till. I am always suspicious of family members who complain about third party conservators unless there is evidence of malfeasance, and I have yet to read that she is being deprived of treatment for her FTD.
I was the primary caretaker of my mother with this disease. Can confirm she developed an unhealthy relationship with alcohol after being a light drinker her whole life.
I think to the people experiencing aphasia, it can be very scary, and also very frustrating. They can’t remember things, they can’t articulate themselves at all, they can’t use their words. My mom can’t write her name. Alcohol probably helps numb these feelings.
At least that was my impression.
They deserve all our sympathy, it’s a very very sad disease.
I’ve talked about this on here before, but a few years ago, my husband started acting differently, super tired all the time, seemed to be in a fugue like state during the afternoons, and just generally cranky and a miserable person to be around. It progressed into a complete nervous system freak out where he suddenly couldn’t walk had almost no short term memory, and his nerves went into overdrive. We finally realized if he eats too many carbs or sugar he actually produces his own alcohol. We don’t know if it’s an off microbiome, or just what his body does. I started thinking that it was dementia as well, the symptoms seem similar. To make things more complicated, he did actually develop an unhealthy relationship with alcohol somewhere along the way to deal with the issues. I am kind of sympathetic, he was completely losing who he was and almost assuredly had to be depressed. Luckily, figuring out a diet has pretty much reversed the entire issue though we’re still pursuing a diagnosis. Anyway, I’m not saying it’s the same thing, but yes, those types of symptoms can be very traumatizing and I get why people might turn to substances. He was like a different person.
That’s really interesting @kgeo. For years I’ve been doing a low carb diet, which makes a huge difference in managing my depression. Those diets were used experimentally as early as the 1920s in treating epilepsy & I’ve heard of people today who find they can help with bipolar as well.
Having struggled in the past with mental illness, I very much sympathize with the trauma & need to escape by whatever means necessary.
@Lizzie Bathory That is also interesting. He started having seizures 5 years ago. He’s only had 4, but it’s enough. I’ll be interested to see if he can manage them without medication as he gets further into this new diet.
It’s very convenient that her “team” has made this announcement now just as the documentary is coming out.
These are scary diseases. After I had a family member go through this, I decided I want to go fast, not slow like this. I hope she is safe.
Dementia is one the of the scariest and cruelest diseases anyone can deal with. I have never been a Wendy fan and I have often taken issue with her for numerous reasons but having a family member with dementia…I wouldn’t wish it own my worst enemy. I wish her well and I hope that someone can find a way to keep her evil a$$ ex-husband away from her. Because despite her illness- I still very much believe he is behind a lot of what has happened to her since her show ended.
It’s a _horrible_ disease. My mother has suffered from it for several years, and is now bedridden. 😢😢🥲 I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, for it puts you forever at the mercy of other people and how kind they feel like being that day. 😡 Luckily for my mom, she has good health care at home, and people have been really wonderful.
I didn’t see it mentioned in the article, but she has a guardianship which is different than a conservator.
Oh my goodness that video is devastating. First Blac Chyna is just pouring her heart out saying something so meaningful and loving and then the way her faces just collapses when Wendy responds in such a way that you realize Wendy didn’t even know her or understand what she was saying 💔💔💔.
Why aren’t her niece and the rest of her family allowed to see her though? Isn’t that what the niece has said? She seems to think the team surrounding Wendy doesn’t have her best interest at heart because they give her alcohol to drink (knowing her history with the disease) and they isolate her. If Bruce Willis has the same diagnosis and his family is free to be with him, why can’t Wendy’s family see her?
My MIL had this – aphasia and then progressing to FTD. She was a fun gregarious social woman who lived her last 2 years as a vegetable- unable to talk, move or eat on her own. For a while the only thing she could do was cry. She ended up dying during the pandemic in a facility that only allowed my husband in to see her. It is a brutal disease I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I hope it goes better for Wendy
I’m concerned Wendy could not consent to appearing in this documentary. How can this not be exploitative? Even if it’s well meaning, to show what a neuroglial disease can look like. Based on this video clip preview, she can’t understand why she’s being filmed, or what people were doing there….
this. this is so sad and shouldn’t have been documented like this. im so sorrowful for wendy and others who are in this position (probably a large # of elderly homeless)
Alzheimer’s, FTD, Lewy body dementia and vascular dementia are all just different forms of dementia, meaning neurodegenerative disease that results in progressive cognitive and functional decline. Treatment is supportive for the most part, meaning we address symptoms (like depression, hallucinations, irritability, insomnia) as they occur. There is not currently a way to reverse the disease course, though some medications can slow the speed of decline.
So the same disease as Bruce Willis, yet it didn’t cause him to be a nasty bit of business before being diagnosed.
I get it, her medical situation sucks and, as a human, I empathize. But she was plain rotten to a lot of people and about a lot of things, was written about ON THIS SITE for being a shitty human, but now it’s like all’s well and never happened because she’s ill.
I hope she has people taking care of her and she does well, and I do genuinely wish her well, but I believe I’ll skip further stories about her, as the present doesn’t erase the past.