National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse: guardian sues

Showing posts with label guardian sues. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 27, 2024

Wendy Williams’ Legal Guardian Shares Heartbreaking Health Update

by Martin Holmes

It’s heartbreaking news for fans hoping Wendy Williams will make a television comeback, as a new health update claims the former talk show host is “permanently incapacitated.”

As reported by The U.S. Sun, the latest health update comes from court documents from attorneys for Williams’ guardian, Sabrina Morrissey, who is battling with Lifetime over the documentary Where is Wendy Williams?

According to the outlet, Sabrina’s legal team refers to Williams as “an acclaimed entertainer who, tragically, has been afflicted by early-onset dementia and, as a result, has become cognitively impaired and permanently incapacitated.”

The filing adds, “In January 2022, after becoming aware of a pattern of disturbing events concerning [Williams’] welfare and finances, Wells Fargo took the highly unusual step of initiating a guardianship proceeding on its own initiative in the Supreme Court of New York, New York County (the ‘Guardianship Proceeding’), to seek the court appointment of an independent guardian for [Wendy’s] financial affairs.”

Morrissey’s legal team has asked the court for certain portions of the case about Williams’ “health, familial relationships, and finances” to be redacted to protect her privacy.

“We respectfully request that the Court grant Plaintiff’s motion for limited redactions to protect non-public information from the Guardianship Proceeding that has been placed under seal by the court overseeing that proceeding,” the papers state.

The latest court battle comes after Williams’ guardian tried to stop Lifetime from releasing its documentary earlier this year. Morrissey’s team filed a restraining order against the TV network on February 20, just days before the doc was released. However, the request was overturned as a judge found stopping the doc would be an “impermissible prior restraint on speech that violates the First Amendment of the institution.”

Morrissey filed an amended complaint on September 16, 2024, against A&E Television Networks, Entertainment One Reality Productions, Lifetime Entertainment Services, Creature Films, and director Mark Ford. The case is now being handled by the federal court. The defendants have filed countersuits against Morrisey.

Earlier this year, Williams’ healthcare team released a statement revealing her diagnosis of primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia diagnosis.

“Aphasia, a condition affecting language and communication abilities, and frontotemporal dementia, a progressive disorder impacting behavior and cognitive functions, have already presented significant hurdles in Wendy’s life,” the statement said.

Williams was last seen in public on August 19, when she stopped by the holistic store Bolingo Balance in Newark, New Jersey, with her son, Kevin Hunt Jr. It marked the first time Williams had been seen in public since March 2023.

Full Article & Source:
Wendy Williams’ Legal Guardian Shares Heartbreaking Health Update

Secrets of Wacky Wendy Williams' Legal Fight Against Lifetime Revealed: Daytime Diva 'Battling to Get Network to Pay Crippling Medical Bills

'Wendy Williams’ Guardian Files Amended Lawsuit Claiming Talk Host Received “Paltry $82,000” For Lifetime Docuseries Wendy Williams’ Guardian Sues Lifetime Over Exploitative Documentary

Monday, September 30, 2024

Secrets of Wacky Wendy Williams' Legal Fight Against Lifetime Revealed: Daytime Diva 'Battling to Get Network to Pay Crippling Medical Bills'

By:Connor Surmonte

Wendy Williams' legal team wants the Lifetime Channel to pay her medical bills, claiming the cable network cruelly laid her mental and medical woes bare for ratings in a TV documentary about her decline.

RadarOnline.com can reveal Lifetime cameras trailed Williams for seven months, recording her downward spiral for the two-part doc Where Is Wendy Williams?

It aired in February and became one of the most watched shows in the network's history – but Williams received just $82,000 for the project, which her lawyers say exposed her.

Source: MEGA

The Lifetime documentary Where Is Wendy Williams? premiered in February.

Her legal team, in its complaint against Lifetime and its parent company A&E Networks, wrote: "This is a paltry sum for the use of highly invasive, humiliating footage that showed her in the confusing throes of dementia, while defendants, who have profited on the streaming of the program, have likely already earned millions."

Williams' attorneys previously tried to block the doc from airing.

The complaint continued: "No person who witnessed (Williams) in these circumstances could possibly have believed that she was capable of consenting to an agreement to film."

They also claimed Williams was portrayed as a "laughingstock and drunkard, implicitly responsible for her own continued suffering".

Source: MEGA

Williams apparently received just $82,000 for Where Is Wendy Williams?

The former daytime diva, 60, was a ratings sensation with her syndicated TV talk show from 2008 to 2021, when she went MIA to battle Graves' disease and substance abuse.

And in 2023, Williams was diagnosed with aphasia – a disorder robbing sufferers of the use of language – as well as dementia, and was placed in a wellness facility.

The drama queen diva resurfaced for the first time in 19 months in late August when she was spotted shopping with her son, Kevin Hunter Jr.

An insider said: "Wendy faces long-term care for the rest of her life, and her wealth has dwindled considerably as she's no longer able to work."

Full Article & Source:
Secrets of Wacky Wendy Williams' Legal Fight Against Lifetime Revealed: Daytime Diva 'Battling to Get Network to Pay Crippling Medical Bills'

Wendy Williams’ Guardian Sues Lifetime Over Exploitative Documentary

Sunday, September 22, 2024

Wendy Williams’ Guardian Files Amended Lawsuit Claiming Talk Host Received “Paltry $82,000” For Lifetime Docuseries

By Ted Johnson

Wendy Williams lawsuit — Wendy Williams Getty Images

The guardian for Wendy Williams has filed an amended lawsuit against A+E Networks and eOne over the Lifetime documentary reality project Where Is Wendy Williams? that aired in February, claiming that the TV personality was exploited in her participation and paid just $82,000 for the project.

The guardian, Sabrina Morrissey, also claimed that Williams’ signature on her contract with eOne to produce the series “does not appear to be genuine” and there is “no evidence” that she signed the agreement on January 25, 2023.

Williams, the lawsuit stated, “was incapacitated and unable to consent at the time the Contract or its amendments were executed, even if she had signed it (which she did not).”

Her representatives disclosed earlier this year that she has been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia. Williams had participated in the documentary and served as executive producer.

Read the amended Wendy Williams lawsuit.

The amended lawsuit, filed Monday in New York Supreme Court, follows an unsuccessful effort by Morrissey to halt the airing of the documentary this year. She had sought a court order to stop the project, arguing in February that the project was a “blatant exploitation of a vulnerable woman with a serious medical condition,” and that the talk host had lacked mental capacity to enter a contract to do the show.

A New York judge initially granted the order to prevent the airing of Where Is Wendy Williams?, but that was quickly reversed on appeal.

A spokesperson for A+E Networks and Lifetime said that they don’t comment on lawsuits.

A+E attorneys had argued earlier this year that the series reflected Williams’ “own journey through the guardianship process.” The attorney contended that “only after seeing the Documentary’s trailer and realizing her role in [Wendy Williams ] life may be criticized did Ms. Morrissey enlist the courts to unconstitutionally silence that criticism.”

Morrissey has enlisted Roberta Kaplan and her law firm to represent her in the amended complaint. They are seeking a court declaration that Williams’ contract is null and void, unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, disgorgement of proceeds from the documentary project and an injunction prohibiting additional airings of it, among other things.

“The profits from the Program should go to Wendy Williams, who will need significant funding to provide for proper medical care and supervision for the rest of her life,” the lawsuit stated.

In the new complaint, Morrissey claims that “by willfully taking advantage of a severely impaired, incapacitated person, Defendants have made millions on W.W.H.’s back, while W.W.H. has received a paltry $82,000.”

Morrissey’s attorneys cite early reports of Williams’ “increasingly erratic behavior,” and noted that her “difficulties were often captured on camera” as host of a daily talk show.

“As early as 2021, press reports attributed these changes to early-onset dementia,” the lawsuit stated. “These reports were widely circulated on social media, in the press, and on entertainment talk shows.”

Her show was canceled in 2022 after it became clear that she would not be able to return, according to the suit. Williams was diagnosed in May 2023 with frontotemporal lobe dementia and primary progressive aphasia, the suit stated. But stories had leaked a year earlier that a court had established a guardianship for her.

The lawsuit also cited the influence of David Selby, who represented Williams as her new manager. According to Morrissey’s claim, when the Lifetime documentary series went into production, Selby told her that he would have “full creative control” and that the project would show her in a positive light.

The lawsuit claimed that the contract for Williams’ participation was signed after the project started production, “while she was clearly disheveled, not mentally present, and confused.”

“No person who witnessed [Williams] in these circumstances could possibly have believed that she was capable of consenting either to an agreement to film, or to the filming itself,” the lawsuit stated. The lawsuit alleged that her signature on the contract “bears a printed, not cursive signature purporting to be the signature of [Wendy Williams], but looks nothing like W.W.H.’s signature.”

Morrissey did not see the contract until months later, according to the suit.

“Indeed, none of the Defendants ever gained the Guardian’s consent for [\Williams’] participation in the film, and there was no way W.W.H. could have consented, as she was incapacitated prior to and during filming,” the lawsuit stated.

People first reported on the new complaint.

Full Article & Source:
Wendy Williams’ Guardian Files Amended Lawsuit Claiming Talk Host Received “Paltry $82,000” For Lifetime Docuseries

Friday, September 20, 2024

Wendy Williams’ Guardian Sues Lifetime Over Exploitative Documentary

The former talk show host’s guardian alleges that she was "viciously and shamelessly exploited" in the documentary.

By Oumou Fofana

Wendy Williams' guardian has taken legal action against several parties and entities involved in Lifetime’s controversial documentary “Where is Wendy Williams?” which dives into the talk show host’s life under guardianship.

According to PEOPLE, Sabrina Morrissey filed a complaint against A&E Television Network, Lifetime Entertainment Services, EOne Productions, Creature Films, and executive producer Mark Ford in the New York Supreme Court on Monday (Sept. 16), accusing them of exploiting the talk show star. Morrissey tried to stop the documentary from airing before it premiered on Feb. 24 and 25 but was unsuccessful.

“As is patently obvious from the very first few minutes of the Program itself, W.W.H. was highly vulnerable and clearly incapable of consenting to being filmed, much less humiliated and exploited," the 75-page complaint read. "When the Guardian discovered that Defendants’ true intentions were to portray W.W.H. in a highly demeaning and embarrassing manner, she immediately sought to protect and to preserve her dignity. But the defendants fought to move ahead... without a valid contract and released without the Guardian's consent."

The complaint argued that the network and defendants exploited Williams and should be held responsible for covering her medical care and supervision for the remainder of her life. "Not surprisingly, the public reacted with disgust and revulsion at Defendants’ blatant and vicious exploitation of W.W.H," it continued. "By willfully taking advantage of a severely impaired, incapacitated person, Defendants have made millions on W.W.H.’s back, while W.W.H. has received a paltry $82,000" from the documentary.

"This case arises from the brutally calculated, deliberate actions of powerful and cravenly opportunistic media companies working together with a producer to knowingly exploit W.W.H., an acclaimed African-American entertainer who, tragically, suffers from dementia and, as a result, has become cognitively impaired, permanently disabled, and legally incapacitated," the complaint added. "Eager to sensationalize and profit from W.W.H.’s cognitive and physical decline, Defendants took advantage of W.W.H in the cruelest, most obscene way possible for their own financial gain, in a manner that truly shocks the conscience."

It additionally claimed that the "defendants not only deliberately destroyed" Williams' "credibility and image," but did so for their own financial gain. It added that the 60-year-old was the "laughingstock and drunkard implicitly responsible for her own continued suffering" and many photos of her in a wheelchair with her legs spread were circulated across the internet, along with footage showing her on camera with a nearly bald head — appearances she would have "never, ever consented or allowed."

Wendy has been under a court-ordered guardianship that manages her finances and health since May 2022. For the past 16 months, she has been residing in an undisclosed facility, receiving treatment for cognitive issues after being diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia in May 2023.

Full Article & Source:
Wendy Williams’ Guardian Sues Lifetime Over Exploitative Documentary

The Wendy Williams Documentary Raises Critical Questions About Guardianship and Incapacity

Wendy Williams' Family Reportedly Still Have No Access To Her Amid 60th Birthday

Wendy Williams Doc Is an ‘Exploitation of a Vulnerable Woman,' Lawsuit Claims

Wendy Williams’ Unsealed Lawsuit Against A&E Cites ‘Exploitation’ And Inability To Consent

Wendy Williams’ Friend Says Guardianship Worse Than Britney’s

Wendy Williams’ dream NYC penthouse sold by guardian for a loss after former TV host deemed ‘incapacitated’

Wendy Williams Lifetime Doc Producers Say They Became ‘Worried’ About Her Care Under Guardianship During Filming

Wendy Williams’ Legal Guardian Asks Courts To Force Kevin Hunter to Repay Overpaid Spousal Support In Bombshell Filing Accusing Him Of Pocketing An Extra $112K

Wendy Williams’ ex-husband seeks two years of unpaid spousal support

Wendy Williams’ guardian claims A+E Networks exploited talk show host in new legal filing

Wendy Williams Owes $568,000 In Unpaid Taxes Amid Conservatorship, Health Crisis