Where Is Wendy Williams Now as Family Fights for Her Life in Heartbreaking Docuseries Finale

The embattled talk show host has been in a very public battle about her own money for years now since Wells Fargo froze her accounts and took her to court. There, she found herself suddenly under a guardianship for both financial and health matters. But it's here her family thinks it all started to go wrong.

When it began filming in early 2022, Wendy herself was an executive producer on the documentary, that was set to tell the story of her big comeback as she prepared to launch a podcast. Over the next year, they wound up filming something quite different.

Thanks to the court's involvement in her life, Wendy was not supposed to leave New York City without approval from her guardian. She had only returned to the Big Apple from Miami, where her family lives, to go to court.

Suddenly, she found herself estranged from her family and lonely in New York, only interacting with people who were on her payroll.

At one point, Wendy's niece Alex Finnie came to visit her, and in doing so ran into perhaps the docuseries' most controversial figure, Wendy's publicist Shawn Zanotti.

"This girl came out of nowhere, she thinks she knows my aunt better than me. Nice try. I don't need your fake using behind in the middle of my relationship with my aunt," said Alex after meeting Shawn for the first time at Wendy's apartment.

To her aunt, she said, "I'm just trying to figure out your friend that you're saying is your friend that you're also paying. It's giving a little desperate energy. You are an A-list celebrity. You are bigger than this, you are better than this, you are smarter than this, you are stronger than this."

"The Aunt Wendy that I know that has instilled in me how to navigate tis crazy business we're in, this isn't it," she continued. "People around you getting paid they're gonna tell you stuff to make you feel good. You taught me that. Listen to the people in your life that are not taking a dime, we are not profiting."

Wendy did not take the blunt love well, though she did tell her niece, "Alex relax. I understand." That proved not to be the case, though, as somehow Wendy and Shawn wound up on an unauthorized trip to Los Angeles and an ill-advised meeting with NBCUniversal.

"They have to understand, it can't be here in Miami. It has to be in New York, New York," Wendy said in the car after landing in Los Angeles, confusing where she was at. While that could be chalked up to a normal mix-up, other moments were far more telling.

At one point, Wendy was asked why her talk show ended, with her twisting the narrative to it being her choice. "Because I wanted to see my family and I was done. And I had enough money to do whatever I want," she argued.

When asked if the show's producers wanted her gone or not, she paused before replying, "I don't know what that means." On the way to the meeting, Wendy was asked if she wanted to go to the Oscars, and the woman who was obsessed with entertainment, pop culture and being famous, replied, "What's Oscars?"

One of the docuseries' most complex characters was her manager Will Selby. On-camera, he appeared to be her only genuine advocate in New York, even as he was obviously also on her payroll. As the filming year progressed, he pivoted from keeping Wendy healthy enough to work to just trying to keep her healthy.

When he found out about the trip to LA, he lashed out at both Wendy and Shawn, leading Wendy to declare she wanted a new manager. When producers asked Shawn if she had any interest, the publicist replied, "I mean, I'm her publicist. But I guess I'm essentially doing managerial things at this point, too."

Wendy was confident she would come out of the meeting with a new show, but that didn't materialize. NBC also declined to comment about the meeting, but Will marked the whole trip as a turning point for Wendy's health, which only deteriorated further afterward. According to Will, Shawn kept insisting they'd done nothing wrong.

In all of her appearances, Shawn seemed to be actively oblivious to Wendy's fragile state, and dismissive of media and fan concerns about her well-being. When asked about reports of problems shortly before her show ended, Shawn shot back, "Those were alleged. Just because those people say that's what Wendy did or what happened, that doesn't mean that's what happened."

She dismissed Wendy's erratic behavior and memory issues as "that's just Wendy." Despite knowing about Wendy's alcoholism, and Will's work to ensure she stays sober in New York, Shawn sat quietly by while Wendy drank in Los Angeles.

"When I'm around her and see her drink, I've never seen her drunk in my life," Shawn told the documentary crew -- admitting she'd only been workign with Wendy for about a year. "I told you guys, she knows her limits. She knows when to stop."

At another point, she even tried to control the narrative about Wendy from the documentary crew, to limited success. When asked about media reports about public concern, Shawn replied, "I don't think the public is all scared for her right now. The headlines as we speak right now, if you were to look, they're talking about her being healthy, about her being vibrant, about her wanting to be back into work."

"That's your spin," producers retorted.

"Yeah, those are my-- But--"

"The counter to that," they continued. "the Hollywood Reporter and other pieces, there is public sentiment about what's happening to Wendy. Two yeras ago she was on The Wendy Williams Show … and now she's forgetting words and where we are … Who on her medical team have you spoken to?"

"I've never spoken to her medical team," Shawn admitted. "But I feel that she's okay, and from the time I started working with her to now, she's much better. She's bouncing back.

One of the most heartbreaking aspects of the docuseries was seeing such a larger-than-life personality as Wendy Williams taken down and in decline. Ahead of the series release, her management team revealed her diagnosis of frontotemporal aphasia and dementia, the same diagnosis as Bruce Willis.

On the series, "dementia" was first mentioned by her son, Kevin Hunter Jr., who said he'd been told it was "alcohol-induced." It was the rapidity of her decline under the guardianship that had everyone concerned. Especially after she'd seemed to be doing so well when she was living in Miami and under her son's care.

His position as her power of attorney was stripped when Wells Fargo took her to court in New York City. According to her sister Wanda, the family had initially been involved in the process, with Wanda herself saying she was willing to take the classes to become her caregiver.

"Then, all of a sudden, the wall came down and then there was nothing. Now why that happened, I don't know," Wanda told producers. "You tell me that I am not capable of taking care of my sister."

It certainly appeared as if the care Wendy was getting in New York wasn't addressing the fullness of her decline. One heartbreaking scene was when her longtime friend Blac Chyna came to see her.

As she looked on, Wendy started tell her about the new show she believed she was going to be doing. "I've got both feet. And by the way, I wear two makeups," she told Chyna. Then, taking off her wig, she emphasized, "I wear makeup."

"Still beautiful," said Chyna. Ultimately, Chyna smiled and told Wendy, "I love you," before leaning into her for a hug with the promise that things were going to be good and even great.

During a trip to Miami to see her family, she told her father her new show was premiering Wednesday, and told her son that she and Will were already doing the podcast. "We're doing it now and we're doing it often. It's making money for me and Will," she said.

"She looked confused and she looked skinny," said her nephew Travis of that lunch date. "She looked like she needs a break."

If you don't slow her down, she's not gonna slow down for anybody," echoed Kevin.

Her brother Thomas Williams Jr. agreed, noting, "She's weak, she's vulnerable and she needs to be around people who won't take advantage of that."

When Alex came to visit her aunt, seeing her in a disheveled and confused state, she was challenged at one point to go and look in the refrigerator. Alex had said her aunt usually greets her in an over-the-top way and offers her food from the fridge. According to producers, the refrigerator was empty.

This leads into the questions the family had about the quality of care Wendy was actually getting under this guardianship, and how anyone could think that keeping her this far away from family was for the best.

The implied reason for the decision to remove her from their care was that Wells Fargo and the courts seemed to believe that her son Kevin was dipping his hands a bit too much into her money. He insisted he only ever spent her money with her approval.

According to the family, after that "wall came down," per Wanda, in their involvement, communication with the court-appointed guardian dwindled away as well. "As time passed, that communication turned from very friendly to more, um, just very closed off," Alex said.

"I feel like the guardian hasn't done a good job of protecting my mom," Kevin said "And I feel like Will is a jeweler, at the end of the day, and he's trying to do his best. But at the same time, dealing with my mom is a very intense job that a lot of people can't handle."

Kevin and the family echoed what Will finally began to say toward the end of the docuseries, and that's that Wendy and her handlers' focus needs to not be on getting her back on TV and keeping her famous, but on her health.

"The decision to bring her to Florida was between us and the show; it was a group decision," Travis said of Wendy's first trip to Florida in 2021. "The decision to keep her in Florida extended was a family decision. And that's where the show and the family started to disagree, and the financial advisor."

"When they saw that she was down here too long and our priority wasn't to dust her off and put her back on stage, it was to actually focus on long-term recovery, they started fighting us," he argued.

Kevin said he fought show's producers -- who declined to comment for the docuseries -- saying that it was more important that she get better. Business interests had to go on the back burner. She did not go back to New York until ordered to by the court in April 2024.

"I feel as though she's worked enough," Kevin said. "Her health needs to be the number one priority, not her getting a talk show. I want to put my mom in a situation where working isn't the thing that kills her."

I think Wendy would be better with family than in New York alone," echoed Alex. "Being with people who love her genuinely, without a shadow of a doubt."

"I want to make sure that she's making the most sane, rational, health-first decisions," she continued. "And I just want to ensure the people who are around her are making sure that happens even before her career."

While taking Wendy to Miami to visit family -- and after sweeping her hotel room for alcohol -- Will said that his hope for the visit was for Wendy to see, "Yu have something to live for. You have a child that still loves his mother and wants his mother in his life."

"So I'm hoping she can see that. I'm hoping that the love she gets from them will make her want to do something different," he added. At the time, Wendy was still hyper-focused on getting back on TV and rebooting her career.

Finally, after the third time Wendy's incapacitation impacted filming, the documentary team decided to stop filming with her. That was in April 2023. But the series continued, with Will and the family continuing to offer updates.

At first, those updates were Will finding her in worse and worse shape in her apartment. "Whether she's here or not, I just dont think she cares," he said on camera. "She's locked herself in her apartment, surrounded herself with alcohol and decided, 'This is gonna be my fate.'"

Ultimately, Will reached out to Wendy's guardian and got her into a treatment facility, the location of which remains a secret from her family. Wendy reportedly remains there to this day, and while she does call the family, they suggested they are not able to call her.

They did, however, say that she seems to be doing much better in every metric. She's put on weight, she's speaking much more clearly, and her own focus has shifted from her career back to family and health.

Watching her journey across just a year and a half, the family believes the guardianship system did not work for Wendy. "I think that the guardianship system is broken," said Wanda. "If this is how it works, then it's broken."

"I don't know what 'incapable' means," she continued, referencing the family getting cut out of her care. "From the beginning, you had people from the family saying we would take responsibility with regards to guardianship and personal needs to ensure that she was healthy and taken care of."

"Now, I'm not talking about the money. You put the money over here," she continued. "The people in this family care more about the well-being of my sister than anyone. All I want is for my sister to be healthy."

But after a fortuitous call from Wendy interrupts the interview, Wanda appeared hopeful. Declining to offer details of the call, Wanda instead, said, "It's almost like I'm talking to Wendy from years ago. It's almost like I'm talking to Wendy from the past."

She said that her sister told her, "Family is very important, Wanda. I realize I need to be with my family."

Will, who was also still in regular contact with Wendy, echoed Wanda's take on where the former talk show host is now. "She is as sober as she can be. She is thinking about her future," he said. "I feel like she's in a space right now where she's dropping the work and understanding what's more important to her, and that's her family."

"She loves her son to death and it bothers her that she hasn't seen him in so long. So that's her focus, resting and family," he continued. ". She even told me that eventually she wants to move to Miami."

Of course, he conceded, "Everything with Wendy is a court decision." In New York, guardianships are up for review every year, so Will and the family are hopeful that her case can be reviewed and maybe the family can take over her care. For now, all they can do is wait. And hope.