Wendy Williams

Wendy Joan Williams, later known as Wendy Williams Hunter, is an American former broadcaster, media personality, and author born on July 18, 1964. She initially gained widespread recognition as a radio disc jockey and shock jock in New York City, becoming famous for her confrontational celebrity interviews and gossip segments. She later expanded her reach as the host of the nationally syndicated daytime television talk show The Wendy Williams Show, which aired from 2008 to 2021.

Williams was born in Asbury Park, New Jersey, to Shirley and Thomas Dwayne Williams, and was raised alongside two siblings in Wayside, Ocean Township, New Jersey. During her childhood, doctors recommended medication to control her hyperactivity, and she participated in the Girl Scouts as a Brownie and volunteered as a candy striper. After graduating from Ocean Township High School in 1982, she attended Northeastern University in Boston. Although she initially intended to become a television anchor, she switched her focus to radio and graduated in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication and a minor in journalism.

Two weeks after graduating, Williams began her professional broadcasting career at WVIS in the U.S. Virgin Islands, followed by positions at WOL in Washington, D.C., and WPLJ in New York City. She joined New York station WQHT in 1987 and later moved to WRKS in 1990, where she hosted morning and evening drive-time slots and introduced gossip segments such as Dish the Dirt. Returning to WQHT in 1994, she built a strong following through her commentary and advice segment Ask Wendy, though her controversial on-air statements eventually led to her departure in 1998. She subsequently joined Philadelphia station WUSL, where her openness about her personal life significantly improved the station's ratings, before returning to New York radio at WBLS in 2001.

Williams transitioned to television in 2008 when Debmar-Mercury launched a six-week trial of The Wendy Williams Show, which Fox picked up for national syndication in 2009. Beyond her talk show, she established Wendy Williams Productions, executive producing and hosting projects such as Celebrities Undercover and Death By Gossip with Wendy Williams. Her broader endeavors included authoring several books, touring a stand-up comedy show, launching fashion, wig, and jewelry collections, appearing in the films Think Like a Man and Think Like a Man Too, and playing Matron "Mama" Morton in the Broadway musical Chicago in 2013.

Throughout her career, Williams received honors such as a Billboard Radio Award in 1993, an induction into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2009, and the renaming of her childhood street to Wendy Williams Way. Health complications led to her retirement from hosting her talk show in 2021. She was placed under a guardianship in 2022 and was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia in 2023. In December 2025, her legal counsel initiated litigation against her guardianship following a medical evaluation in which a neurologist diagnosed her with alcohol-related dementia and recommended that the guardianship be terminated.