Days before the four-and-a-half-hour special chronicling the ex-TV
host's physical and mental decline is set to air, Sabrina Morrissey
filed a lawsuit seeking injunctive relief.
Sabrina Morrissey filed the sealed lawsuit for injunctive relief on
Thursday in New York County Supreme Court. The suit says that Morrissey —
whose identity as the individual appointed by the court in 2022 to look
after Williams had been unknown publicly and to Williams’ family — is
“acting in her capacity as Temporary Guardian.”
The complaint, which sought a temporary restraining order, names A+E
Networks, the parent company of Lifetime, and Entertainment One Reality
Productions, which produced the four-and-a-half-hour documentary set to
air over two nights, this coming Saturday and Sunday.
On Friday, Appellate Justice Peter H. Moulton vacated a temporary restraining order
signed ex parte, ruling that such an order would be “impermissible
prior restraint on speech that violates the First Amendment of the
Constitution.”
Moulton continued to keep the case documents sealed, but a court date on the matter has been set for Tuesday, Feb. 27.
Lifetime’s executive vp, publicity, public affairs and social media Kannie Yu LaPack confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that Lifetime appeared in court on Friday, but she did not share any details on the proceedings. Yu LaPack also said that the Where is Wendy Williams? “will air this weekend as planned.”
Filmed between August 2022 and April 2023, the two-part Where Is Wendy Williams?
chronicles the former shock jock turned daytime sensation as her health
and mental state spiral downward. Williams’ representatives disclosed
on Thursday that she has been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia;
Williams also has the autoimmune disorder Graves’ disease and
lymphedema, which is the buildup of fluid in soft body tissues; along
with her alcohol addiction, these ailments are documented in the
Lifetime film.
Williams is an executive producer on the raw documentary, originally
conceived as a behind-the-scenes look at the relaunch of her career via a
new podcast. The production crew began to follow the former host of The Wendy Williams Show
in late August 2022, but given her physical and mental state, the focus
pivoted to her struggles with addiction and autoimmune disorders.
In a moment from the documentary shared exclusively with People,
Williams sits down with her friend Angela “Blac Chyna” White — the
former reality TV player known for her romantic relationship with Rob
Kardashian. White, 35, had stopped in to Williams’ New York apartment,
where the two had a heart-to-heart in which Williams removed her wig,
revealing her real hair. Later in the clip, she takes off her shoes to
expose her feet, showing White just how her lymphedema has damaged them.
Morrissey was appointed caregiver for Williams amid her public
downfall; the TV personality’s then-financial adviser alleged in late
2022 in a New York court that she was of “unsound mind,” leading the
bank Wells Fargo to petition to have Williams placed under temporary
financial guardianship.
Williams remains in a facility under Morrissey’s care today and is
still unreachable by anyone other than the heretofore publicly unknown
woman. A call placed by The Hollywood Reporter to Morrissey was not immediately returned.
Feb. 23, 12:13 p.m. This story has been updated with a comment from Lifetime. Feb. 23, 1:45 p.m. This story has been updated with the appellate court ruling in the case.
EXCLUSIVE: A two-year-old Chihuahua cross named Minnie is being hailed a hero after saving the life of her elderly owner.
When the Kingston great-grandmother was struggling to breathe, the clever canine pressed her medic alert button, calling paramedics.
The former talk show host has been living under a legal guardianship
since 2022 — and now her family is shedding light on the situation in
this week's PEOPLE
By Brianne Tracy, Janine Rubenstein, and Danielle Bacher
Wendy Williams in 2019. Photo:Lars Niki/Getty
Wendy Williams's family is working to regain control of her future.
Since May 2022, the former Wendy Williams Show
host, 59, has been living under a legal guardianship that oversees both
her finances and health. And for the past 10 months, she's been in an
unknown facility to address cognitive issues.
Williams' family says her court-appointed legal guardian (whose identity
remains private) is the only person who currently has unfettered access
to her. They say she can call them, but they cannot call her
themselves.
"How did she go from this aunt or sister that we love and is healthy one
minute to this person who’s in and out of the hospital?” Williams'
sister Wanda Finnie asks in this week's PEOPLE cover story. “How is that
system better than the system the family could put in place? I don't
know. I do know that this system is broken. I hope that at some point,
Wendy becomes strong enough where she can speak on her own behalf."
PEOPLE's Wendy Williams cover story.
Williams — who has struggled with alcoholism and health issues including Graves’ disease (an autoimmune disorder that can cause bulging eyes), and lymphedema
(a condition that causes swelling in her feet) — was appointed her
legal guardian months after Wells Fargo froze her accounts in 2022. The
decision to freeze the accounts was made after Williams' financial
adviser at the time alleged that she was of “unsound mind,” according to
Williams’ court filings.
In January 2022, Wells Fargo successfully petitioned a New York court to
have Williams placed under a temporary financial guardianship,
reportedly because she was at risk of financial exploitation due to
cognitive issues. A spokesperson for the financial services company has
since shared with PEOPLE: "This matter was conducted under seal. Any
claims against Wells Fargo have been dismissed."
Williams’ 23-year-old son Kevin Hunter Jr.,
whom she shares with ex-husband Kevin Hunter, came under scrutiny for
his spending, but he strongly denies that he exploited her in the
upcoming Lifetime documentary Where Is Wendy Williams?
"I’ve never taken [money] without her consent," he says. (Kevin Jr.
declined to comment for this story; Wanda says he is still financially
supported by his mother.)
When the guardian was appointed to Williams in May 2022, her family says
they were kept in the dark as to why the court made the decision. The
court papers have also been sealed.
“All I know is that Wendy and her team walked into the courtroom one
way, and they walked out, and the family is completely excluded,” says
Wanda, 65.
Wendy Williams with her niece Alex in the Lifetime documentary Where Is Wendy Williams?.
Photo: Lifetime
A month after the guardian was appointed, Williams was caught on camera
passed out at a Louis Vuitton store, drunk. She entered a wellness
facility for two months starting in September 2022, but the next March,
after she took a trip to L.A., her manager and jeweler Will Selby says
in the documentary that she was “disheveled” and adamant about drinking.
"I think the film is a great illustration of what, in this one
particular case, life looked like for someone that was under a
guardianship," says Where Is Wendy Williams? executive producer
Mark Ford. "Just because you're under a guardianship doesn't mean that
you're getting 24/7 care, and I think just leaving someone in their
apartment isn't care. When we got to know Wendy's family, it was clear
to us this was a nice family, and the question remained in our minds:
Why is the family not able to be a part of Wendy's life? Why is the
family not able to serve as her guardian? I still don't fully have those
answers."
While Ford says the documentary crew attempted to get the guardian to
speak to them, they were "hung up on every single time" they reached
out.
"So, we weren't able to really ask the questions that we would've loved
to have asked, like, 'What's going on here on a daily basis? And why is
there no food in Wendy's apartment, for example?' Simple things that we
were able to see just because we were there so often," Ford says.
Williams' guardian has not responded to PEOPLE's request for comment.
Wendy Williams being pushed in a wheelchair in September 2021.
Photo: BACKGRID
Producers stopped filming the documentary in April 2023 after they found
Williams in her apartment with her eyes rolled back into her head and
worked with Selby to urge the guardian to get Williams help. Ford says,
“The guardian did come around and was responsive to our pleas ... to get
her into a safer place.”
Right now, the power over when Williams can leave the facility, if at all, remains in her guardian’s hands.
After high-profile cases like Britney Spears’,
the legal guardian and conservator systems in the U.S. are being
reexamined. A New York State Assembly bill was proposed in 2022 to
expedite the hearing process when an appeal is filed in a guardianship.
(Williams’ family is not currently contesting her case.)
Ford says filmmakers proceeded with the documentary to shed light on
Williams’ situation: “We asked ourselves almost every day, ‘Is this
helping Wendy or is this hurting her?’ And in the end we felt like it
was helping her. This is about the guardianship system and how it can be
improved.”
Investigative journalist Diane Dimond — who released a book about the guardianship system, We’re Here to Help: When Guardianship Goes Wrong, in September — says an estimated 2 million people are living under the court's control at present.
"A guardian can be a family member, it could be your best friend, it
could be a perfectly trustworthy commoner, so to speak," Dimond says.
"More and more, I have discovered, after investigating this for eight or
nine years now, judges are overlooking family members, they're
overlooking friends, and they're going immediately to these
professional, for-profit appointees, and they're complete strangers to
these wards of the court. So within that, the ward of the court loses
all their civil rights. They have no more rights to decide anything
about their personal life or their financial life."
Wendy Williams in March 2023.
Photo: T.JACKSON / BACKGRID
Since guardianship proceedings happen in a court of equity and not in
criminal or civil court, Dimond says "there's no due process."
"There's no trial, there's no right to present opposing witnesses," she
says. "Usually, the judge will just take the petition, rubber stamp it,
appoint the guardian or conservator and wash his or her hands of the
case."
Under the guardianship, "you can no longer decide where you live, you
can't spend your money, you can't vote, you can't marry, you can't
decide what doctors you're going to see or what friends can come," says
Dimond. "You have no rights. Somebody on death row has more rights than a
person put under a guardianship. I'm not exaggerating because at least
they can hire their own attorney, and they can make phone calls."
Once a person is placed under a guardianship, Dimond says it can be hard to get out of.
"I frankly worry that Wendy will never get out of guardianship because
when a judge establishes a guardianship, it is most often for life," she
says. "If we were a society that really cared about protecting at-risk
people, vulnerable people, then tell me why there's so many people
sleeping out on the streets in New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas,
Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago? We only seem to care about putting people
who've got some money in guardianships, and Wendy Williams has got
money."
Still, Williams' family remains hopeful for the day they can reunite.
"[Wendy's] desire, as I understand it, is to be in Florida with her
family," Wanda says.
Wendy Williams with her son Kevin Jr. in Florida in 2021.
It’s hinted at in the documentary that Williams wants to get out of her
current situation, as Wanda is shown instructing her over the phone to
write down every time her calls go unanswered, presumably to her
guardian.
During recent phone conversations with Williams, Wanda's daughter Alex, 33, says her aunt has been sounding "really great."
"I have not heard my aunt sound this good in years," she says. "To hear
my aunt now in terms of just how clear she is, just how focused she is
on the importance of family and the reality in terms of facing and
understanding where she's at physically and mentally and emotionally, it
is like a 180. I'm always just reminding her when I'm on the phone with
her that she has a world of people here that love you, are supporting
you and want to see you back."
ABC News contributor
Brian Buckmire discusses Wendy Williams’ case under court-appointed
financial guardianship after a judge deemed her incapacitated.
Where is Wendy Williams? In treatment, her family says, but they don't know much more than that. (Calvin Gayle)
Wendy Williams has been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia
and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The television personality was
diagnosed with both conditions last year “after undergoing a battery of
medical tests,” according to a press release.
Aphasia
is a medical condition that can affect someone's ability to speak as
well as to write and understand language, both verbal and written,
according to Mayo Clinic. FTD, a form of dementia that impacts more than 500,000 Americans each year, can affect behavior, personality, language and movement. (Actor Bruce Willis was also diagnosed with FTD
in 2023 after his aphasia worsened.) Both conditions “have already
presented significant hurdles in Wendy's life,” according to the
statement.
The news comes ahead of the release of Where Is Wendy Williams?,the
new Lifetime documentary that looks at the famed TV host’s
disappearance from the spotlight amid personal, health and money woes.
It’s also a question that some of her closest relatives can’t answer.
What is the new Wendy Williams doc about?
Williams, 59, didn’t host the final season of her eponymous talk show from August 2021 to June 2022. She kept postponing her return
to the purple throne she commanded for 12 years and worried fans as she
was snapped needing assistance coming and going from wellness centers.
Williams’s finances were frozen by her former wealth manager at Wells
Fargo, who claimed she was “incapacitated” and “of unsound mind,” resulting in the TV star being put under guardianship.
That’s
where things were when a documentary film crew began filming Williams
in August 2022. The purported goal was to capture her comeback as she
attempted to start a podcast. However, Williams — who has an executive
producer credit on the doc — was plagued by alcoholism in addition to
preexisting health issues (Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disorder and
lymphedema, which causes tissue swelling).
Filming halted in April 2023 when Williams was found in her apartment with her eyes rolled back into her head, producers told People magazine.
Williams was put into a facility to treat cognitive issues, which her
son, Kevin Hunter Jr., said in the film are connected to alcohol use.
In
the trailer for the doc, Williams seems confused and becomes angry when
asked if she drank a bottle of alcohol in a day. Her family members
express concern over her cognitive abilities, as well as her inner
circle and guardian.
Where is Williams?
While
the doc reveals Williams went into inpatient treatment nearly a year
ago, some of the participants — including her sister — have no idea
where she is living today.
Wanda Finnie, Williams’s sister, and
Alex Finnie, her niece, told People magazine that Williams is in a
better place physically and mentally. Wanda had just spoken to her one
day prior and reported: She’s doing “really great”
and is “not the person that you see in this film.” Alex said Williams
had done “a 180” to where she had been physically, mentally and
emotionally.
Yet further into the article, Williams’s relatives
reveal that they don’t know where she’s being treated. They don’t know
what kind of treatments are taking place. They can’t contact her
directly. They only hear from Williams if she calls.
Wendy Williams on the Walk of Fame in 2019. (Michael Tran/FilmMagic)
They
blame the lack of communication on Williams’s guardian, whose identity
is private. According to the family, that person is the only one with
full access to Williams.
In the doc, Williams claims that the guardian stole money from her, but filmmakers said she didn’t provide evidence.
Nearly
one year after she was put into treatment, “The people who love her
cannot see her,” Wanda told the outlet. “I think the big [question] is:
How the hell did we get here?”
How is Williams now?
According
to Thursday's statement, receiving aphasia and FTD diagnoses has
enabled Williams “to receive the medical care she requires.”
The
decision to share this news was difficult and made after careful
consideration, not only to advocate for understanding and compassion for
Wendy, but to raise awareness about aphasia and frontotemporal dementia
and support the thousands of others facing similar circumstances.
Unfortunately, many individuals diagnosed with aphasia and
frontotemporal dementia face stigma and misunderstanding, particularly
when they begin to exhibit behavioral changes but have not yet received a
diagnosis.
There
is hope that with early detection and far more empathy, the stigma
associated with dementia will be eliminated, and those affected will
receive the understanding, support, and care they deserve and need.
Wendy
is still able to do many things for herself. Most importantly she
maintains her trademark sense of humor and is receiving the care she
requires to make sure she is protected and that her needs are addressed.
She is appreciative of the many kind thoughts and good wishes being
sent her way.
Questions remain
Lifetime
did not make an advance screener of the documentary available to Yahoo
Entertainment by press time, but People had access to it. According to
the outlet, the doc looks at Williams’s spiral in the final years of her
onetime hit show.
Things came to a head in April 2019 when she filed for divorce from her husband of nearly 21 years, Kevin Hunter Sr., as he welcomed a child with another woman. He was axed as executive producer on her show. Their son was arrested for allegedly getting into an altercation with “Big Kev.”
Williams’s brother Tommy told People that the end of her marriage put her into a “dark space.”
Multiple staffers told the outlet that Williams, who had previously battled cocaine addiction,
“would be drunk on air” in the show’s final years. Co-executive
producer Suzanne Bass said they saw her “struggling,” but “she pushed us
away” when they tried to help.
As part of the broadcast, Lifetime
will direct viewers to resources including SAMHSA (the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Services Administration) and NAMI (the National
Alliance on Mental Illness).
– Taryn Ryder contributed to this report
Correction: The
most common form of dementia is Alzheimer's disease, per the CDC. An
earlier version of this story misstated that it was FTD.
Where Is Wendy Williams? airs Feb. 24 and Feb. 25 at 8 p.m. ET on Lifetime.
WILKES-BARRE, LUZERNE CO. (WOLF) — A disbarred Lackawanna County attorney is now facing charges of forgery and tampering with records.
James
Conaboy is expected to be arraigned on Thursday in Luzerne County for
two charges each of forgery and tampering records, accused of lying to
clients and forging signatures.
In
2015, Teresa Matheson had hip surgery that resulted in complications
and multiple following surgeries. In 2017, Conaboy, at the time an
attorney with Abrahamsen, Conaboy & Abrahamsen, filed a medical
malpractice suit against Geisinger. In April 2021, Conaboy notified the
Mathesons that they were awarded $700,000 in a settlement and would
receive the money a short time later, according to police. Despite
making calls to Conaboy on a weekly basis, they never received the
money, police said.
In March 2022, Teresa Matheson had received a document from Conaboy
started that she will receive an extra $100,000 as interest since she
had still not received the money. Later that month, she received a court
document from Conaboy allegedly signed by Lackawanna County Judge
Therence Nealon stating that the money was to be sent from the
Catastrophic Loss Benefits Continuation Fund of the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania.
Later that month, Matheson received another court
document from Conaboy, again thought to be signed by Judge Nealon,
stating that Teresa Matheson was to be delivered $700,000.
However,
in April 2022, the Mathesons received a phone call from Conaboy telling
them "everything was a hoax and the court documents were fake," police
wrote in an affidavit.
In a June 2022 interview, Conaboy told
police that the suit was terminated on July 7, 2020, "since the claim
could not be supported by a medical professional." Conaboy denied taking
any money or defrauding the Mathesons in any way, according to an
affidavit.
In the interview, Conaboy was shown several printed
emails supplied by the Mathesons reportedly from Conaboy. However,
Conaboy said he did not send those emails and has not spoken to the
Mathesons since the suit was terminated in July 2020.
Through investigation, authorities discovered that:
The Lackawanna County Clerk of Courts did not have the two-Judge Nealon documents
Judge Nealon never issued the two orders
Geisinger was never served with legal paperwork related to the lawsuit
In September 2022, the Office of the Attorney General took over the investigation, and agents began to question more victims.
In
another medical malpractice case in 2022, Conaboy reached a $25,00
settlement with Mid Valley Outpatient Care for his client, James Moran.
However, the case ended up moving forward and no settlement was reached
with the doctor.
Conaboy had been leading Moran to believe the
case then settled for $50,000, when in reality, the case settled for
zero, according to police. Conaboy reportedly made several excuses as to
why the money had not been sent to Moran.
Moran then saw in Feb.
2023 that Conaboy had been removed from the Abrahamsen, Conaboy &
Abrahamsen website, and called the firm to ask about it. Conaboy's
brother, Kevin Conaboy, said that he had a mental breakdown and told
Moran that his case was over without a payout.
In July 2023,
investigators met with Paul Grace, another victim, who had worked with
the Department of Labor and Industry Bureau of Disability as a
disability adjudicator.
Conaboy, who was a family friend of Grace,
advised that Grace should file a lawsuit against the Department of
Labor and Industry. In 2017, Conaboy led Grace to believe that he was
entitled to $517,000 in a settlement but once again gave Grace various
excuses as to why Grace hadn't received the money.
In one excuse,
Conaboy sent Grace a forged document from the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court, falsely signed then-Inspector General Bruce Beemer seeking court
action to have the money returned since it was taken from the wrong
Commonwealth account.
In May 2023, Kevin Conaboy told Grace that
everything James Conaboy told him was false and that the case ended up
being dismissed in 2018.
Conaboy's arraignment is scheduled for Thursday in Luzerne County.
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