Wendy Williams was transported by ambulance to a New York hospital on Monday after authorities responded to a distress call at her assisted living facility in Manhattan. The 60-year-old former talk show host, who has been living under a court-appointed guardianship since 2022, was taken for medical evaluation following a wellness check, according to the New York Police Department.
Sources familiar with the situation said Williams may have attempted to signal for help before authorities arrived. The New York Post reported that she dropped a note from her window that allegedly read: "Help! Wendy!!" Emergency responders arrived at the Hudson Yards facility around 8 a.m., and Williams was reportedly calm and cooperative as she entered the ambulance unrestrained.
The NYPD said the call was treated as a standard service request, and there is no ongoing criminal investigation. However, Williams' hospitalization comes amid her public battle to regain control over her personal and financial affairs. She has repeatedly spoken out against her conservatorship, claiming that it has stripped her of autonomy and placed her in a restrictive environment.
"I am not cognitively impaired, but I feel like I am in prison," Williams said in January during an interview on The Breakfast Club. "I'm in this place with people who are in their 90s and their 80s and their 70s. ... There's something wrong with these people here on this floor. I am clearly not."
She has also alleged that her guardianship restricts her movement and decisions. "Well, I don't have the freedom to do virtually anything," Williams told NewsNation's Banfield in February. "As far as where I am, I'm on the fifth floor. They call it 'the memory unit,' so it's for people who don't remember anything."
Williams has been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia, conditions that impair speech and cognitive function. The diagnosis was made public in February through a press release from her medical team, which described the decision to share the news as an effort to "raise awareness about aphasia and frontotemporal dementia and support the thousands of others facing similar circumstances."
Despite this, Williams has denied claims that she is incapable of making her own decisions. "I don't belong here at all," she told Nightline last month, referencing her assisted living facility. "This is ridiculous."
Her legal guardian, Sabrina Morrissey, has argued otherwise, asserting in court documents that Williams is "cognitively impaired, permanently disabled, and legally incapacitated." Following Williams' public statements, Morrissey requested a "new medical evaluation" in January, further fueling speculation about the former television star's ability to advocate for herself.
The hospitalization follows the release of TMZ Presents: Saving Wendy Williams, a TubiTV documentary that aired in February, in which Williams admitted she couldn't recall the last time she had seen a medical professional. "[It has been] a long while," she said, stating that she had not received care while in Connecticut for a year or in her current facility for the past several months.
Williams, who rose to fame as a radio host before becoming a household name with The Wendy Williams Show, has largely remained out of the public eye since her guardianship was established. Her financial assets were frozen in 2022 after Wells Fargo raised concerns about "financial exploitation." She has since fought to regain control, but legal efforts to terminate the guardianship have thus far been unsuccessful.
