Wendy Williams diagnosed with dementia amid family's concerns about guardianship

“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,” Wanda told that outlet. The pop culture icon has been in a facility to treat cognitive issues for 10 months, and her guardian—whose identity is not publicly available—is the only one with “unfettered access” to her. Reportedly, Williams can call her family, but the family is unable to reach her themselves. Yet Wanda claimed her sister’s “desire, as I understand it, is to be in Florida with her family.”

Where Is Wendy Williams? executive producer Mark Ford told People Williams’ guardian refused to answer questions about the situation (“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?”), and when they were filming, observed that the star was not receiving care (he noted there was “no food in Wendy’s apartment”). A turning point came when the documentary crew found Williams unconscious in her apartment: “The guardian did come around and was responsive to our pleas … to get her into a safer place.”

Williams’ struggles with addiction, on top of health issues including Graves’ disease and lymphedema, have unfolded in front of the public, and will be explored in the documentary. (Williams is listed as an executive producer of the doc.) However, she has supposedly been responding to treatment in the facility and sounds better than she has “in years,” according to her niece Alex. Yet she does not have the power to leave the facility of her own accord. Her court-appointed guardian controls if and when Williams can check out.

“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?” Wanda questioned. “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.”