Wendy Williams’ publicist said this week that the former talk show host would be "mortified" by the way she was portrayed in her two-part docuseries, "Where is Wendy Williams?"
"She thought we were focusing on the comeback of her career," Shawn Zanotti told NBC on Wednesday. "She would be mortified. There’s no way you can convince me that she would be OK with looking and seeing herself in that way."
Zanotti, who has worked with Williams since 2021, said she feels the 59-year-old was "exploited" by the producers of the Lifetime documentary.
Williams has been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia and is in a treatment facility, a representative revealed just days before the documentary aired.
Zanotti said she hasn’t spoken to Williams since she entered the facility last April, according to NBC.
"When I mentioned [doing a documentary] to Wendy, she immediately said: 'Yes, I would love to do it. I would love to be able to get my story out there,'" Zanotti said.
But Zanotti said the documentary is "not the project that [Williams] signed up for. That’s not the project [the producers] brought to me. That’s not what I told her this was going to be about."
Producer Mark Ford, executive producer Erica Hanson and Brie Miranda Bryant, an executive at Lifetime, have now said they wouldn’t have shot the documentary if they had known about Williams’ diagnosis.
In a discussion about whether the documentary is exploitative, Ford told The Hollywood Reporter that things were edited in a certain way because "[w]e wanted people to understand the journey of the filmmakers and how upsetting it was for all of us in certain instances and also how outrageous in some ways the situations were. Like, Wendy would be left alone without food, completely on her own in that apartment with stairs that she could easily fall down. There was no one there 24/7. So, these are just all the questions we had throughout."
He added, "But, of course, if we had known that Wendy had dementia going into it, no one would’ve rolled a camera."
WENDY WILLIAMS SPEAKS OUT FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE DEMENTIA, APHASIA DIAGNOSIS ANNOUNCED
Bryant explained, "The diagnosis that was announced was not the information that any of us had going into it. So, people were watching the journey with information that we didn’t have in those first two hours, and I think that’s part of the confusion and the upset and outrage."
Ford also told the outlet, "This project never would’ve aired if we couldn’t steer it toward the hopeful ending or the ending that we have here with the family engaging and telling their story. I don’t want to speak for Brie, but we never would’ve aired something that didn’t have Wendy’s best interests and her family’s best interests at heart."
Williams often appears confused in the docuseries, at one time not even recognizing her manager. It also appears to show her struggle with alcoholism, with empty bottles lying around.
Williams discussed her substance abuse issues while hosting her talk show, which was canceled in 2022.
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Her manager confronts Williams about an empty bottle in one scene of the docuseries, asking if she drank the whole thing in one day. She answers, "Yes — no."
"There were a lot of good moments. None of those good moments were shown," Zanotti told NBC of filming the docuseries.
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She added, "I don’t think [the diagnosis] would have stopped them at all. The producers were asking questions throughout the entire time — would ask questions where she would somewhat seem confused, and I feel as though it was done to be intentional at that moment in time to make their storyline. Again, this was presented as a documentary to her, but to me, it looked as though it was a reality show of a circus, a circus to her downfall."
Williams is now under a financial guardianship. Her guardian, Sabrina Morrissey, filed a lawsuit to keep the documentary from airing. It was dismissed by a judge citing the First Amendment.
Ford told NBC, "Wendy was a partner, as well as her guardian, her manager, all our lawyers — everybody’s signed off and was aware all the ways through what we were filming."
"I believe the intentions around this documentary was to make money and ratings — that was it," Zanotti said.
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She added, "That should have never aired, that documentary, the way that it was put together, or so they’re calling it, should not have been put out that way. That is not the project that she signed up for."
Fox News Digital has reached out to Lifetime for comment.
