US TV personality Wendy Williams says she's being denied her freedom

The incident originated with a note thrown from a fifth-floor window of a luxury assisted living facility in New York City. According to U.S. media reports, the note read "Help Me!! Wendy!!". This event has sparked concern about the current state of Wendy Williams, a well-known American television host.

After receiving the report, police went to the facility to conduct a welfare check and took a 60-year-old woman, who resided in the facility's memory care unit, to the hospital. This woman is Wendy Williams, once a beloved television personality in the United States, whose long-running talk show once rivaled Ellen DeGeneres in daytime syndicated ratings.

However, three years ago, Williams' life seemed to suddenly collapse. Following a series of health issues and a public divorce from her husband, her show was canceled in 2022. Wells Fargo claimed she was "incapacitated" and a "victim of undue influence and financial exploitation," leading to the freezing of her bank accounts. The court subsequently appointed a lawyer as her guardian to oversee her finances and well-being. Williams' spokesperson later stated that the star had been diagnosed with progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).

Williams' team stated, "Over the past few years, questions have been raised at times about Wendy's ability to process information, and many have speculated about Wendy's condition, particularly when she began to lose words, act erratically at times, and have difficulty understanding financial transactions." Williams has been living in the care facility for nearly three years. This week, she was taken to a New York hospital for a series of mental competency evaluations. Subsequently, she called a local television station to tell them that she "passed with flying colors."

Her niece, Alex Finnie, had previously stated that her famous aunt was "being robbed of her freedom." She said, "She is being held, and she is being punished for reasons that other people are saying are the reasons that this needs to be in place." This incident has reignited the debate in the United States about whether the legal guardianship system (known as conservatorship in some states) is rife with abuse. Several female celebrities, including Britney Spears and Amanda Bynes, have been placed under conservatorship and have had to fight the courts to regain their legal and financial autonomy.

As the "Free Wendy" movement gains momentum, her legal guardian has stated that reports about Williams' plight are "untrue, inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading." But Williams' relatives say a system designed to protect vulnerable people is being used to deprive an adult woman of her freedom. Williams herself insists that she has no cognitive impairment and feels like she is in prison. She wants to regain control of her destiny and will never give up the fight.

The Wendy Williams Show, with its chaotic and gossipy segments, had a large following in the United States and ran for 14 years. At its peak, the show averaged over 1.6 million viewers per episode, many of whom were young women. Although the show did not air in Australia, Williams is still widely known because she is very meme-able. The show covered a wide range of topics, from highly entertaining to slightly chaotic and sometimes even offensive, with Williams expressing her views on popular culture and current events.

Williams' health problems have been increasingly worsening, and the diagnoses have been mounting: lymphedema causing painful swelling in her feet, a fractured shoulder, and alcohol abuse. When she was unwell, her show had to find guest hosts, and entire seasons were delayed to allow her time to recover. In the documentary "Where Is Wendy Williams?", her former employees stated that she often had difficulty communicating, and her short-term memory was sometimes impaired. Her driver said in the documentary: "I don't know what's really going on. I think she's losing memory. She doesn't know who I am sometimes."

In 2022, The Wendy Williams Show was canceled. The show had been a mainstay of Williams' life, her identity, and her source of connection. The loss was devastating. But Williams did not know that her biggest battle was yet to come. Williams said that her journey into the care facility began with a simple request to access her bank statements because she suspected a financial advisor of misconduct and was considering moving her money elsewhere. When Wells Fargo refused, Williams claimed she was behind on several bills.

The matter eventually went to court in early 2022, with Wells Fargo seeking guardianship over Williams, claiming she was an "incapacitated person." Through her lawyer, Williams insisted that she was of sound mind. LaShawn Thomas said: "Wendy is saddened that Wells Fargo has chosen to believe the allegations of a former employee who felt disgruntled that she no longer had direct and unfettered access to Wendy's financial affairs." Wells Fargo denied any wrongdoing, saying its priority was Williams' financial well-being.

Williams has never denied living a lavish lifestyle, but she has always maintained that she could spend the money she earned over the years as she pleased. In her documentary about her life, she said she spent $120,000 (AU$190,000) for her son's birthday party and contributed $80,000 towards his rent. But as her health problems worsened, a New York court questioned whether her son was a suitable guardian to take care of her finances. Court documents showed: "While (her son Kevin) apologized for past mistakes and misconduct, the court does not believe he can guarantee her safety and will not voluntarily or unknowingly subject her to financial exploitation."

As a result, the court appointed lawyer Sabrina Morrissey as Williams' guardian. Her representatives said that the star was diagnosed with progressive aphasia and FTD in 2023 and moved into an assisted living facility, where she has lived for nearly three years. FTD is an umbrella term for a group of neurodegenerative disorders that affect the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain, leading to changes in behavior and personality. When she called The Breakfast Club podcast, she said: "I have no cognitive issues, but I feel like I'm in prison."

"I'm at this place, people are 90 years old, 80 years old and 70 years old (….) There are people in here, in this floor, who have things that are really wrong. I am obviously not," Williams said, adding that she cannot leave the facility without permission, and her family cannot visit or call her without approval. "I have no frontal lobe dementia… I'm not an infant," she insisted. Last month, Williams signed an affidavit requesting the termination of the guardianship, stating that she had "regained the capacity to handle my own life." Unable to wait any longer for a judge's response, she took action this week, throwing a scribbled note for help into the street below.

It is unclear exactly how many Americans are living under conservatorship or guardianship, but lawyers estimate more than 1 million. Some have disabilities, others have cognitive issues, such as dementia. But legal experts and advocates have long argued that the system is shrouded in secrecy and difficult to escape, meaning some fully capable adults are unable to control their own destinies. Several states took action to clean up the legal practice after Spears claimed her family used the conservatorship system to control her for nearly 14 years.

In Williams' home state of New York, Governor Kathy Hochul has been asked to consider a major overhaul of the legal guardianship system. New York City Council member Crystal Hudson said in January: "Too many people have been failed by this system, and real reform is long overdue. We need a system that builds confidence—one that guarantees that people who need guardianship live with dignity." Williams' court-appointed guardian has pushed back against the star's claims about her plight and her health.

Her representatives said the care facility where Williams resides has "top-of-the-line health care, a spa, a gym, fine dining, a restaurant, and an outdoor terrace." She also said that it is ultimately up to a judge to decide whether to terminate the guardianship he ordered, and Williams is free to petition the court. For her part, Williams said she wants to regain control of her destiny and will never give up the fight. She said in a phone interview on the talk show The View: "I have been doing important things all my life. These people don't look like me. They don't talk like me. They don't act like me. They will never be me. I need them out of my neck."