WHAT HAPPENED ΤΟ WENDY WILLIAMS?

THE TALK SHOW HOST ON AIR-THEN FROM PUBLIC. STRUGGLED VANISHED HER FAMILY SPEAKS OUT ABOUT HER HEALTH AND THE FIGHT OVER HER FUTURE

- BRIANNE TRACY & JANINE RUBENSTEIN

Wendy Williams began the season 12 finale of her Wendy Williams Show on July 23, 2021, just as she had so many times before, by asking the audience her signature "How you doin'?" But as she continued, it became clear that something was off: She slightly slurred her words and had moments of confusion. Still, she ended with a promise to viewers they'd see her on TV again in just "two months and two weeks."

That day would never come. Over the past two and a half years, Williams's life spiraled into the exact kind of drama she once would have gossiped about during her Hot Topics segment. As rumors swirled about her well-being was placed under a financial guardianship in 2022 over concerns about her capacity to make decisions-the larger-than-life personality remained mostly quiet. Now her family is speaking out for the first time about what went down during this dark period to People and in a new Lifetime documentary, Where Is Wendy Williams?, premiering Feb. 24 and which she executive-produced.

 "There were points where everyone in this family wondered whether that call [that she was dead] was going to come in the middle of the night," says Williams's sister Wanda Finnie.

Adds Wanda's daughter Alex: "It was shocking and heartbreaking to see her in this state." When the documentary crew began filming in August 2022, it set out to follow Williams's comeback as she prepared to launch a new podcast. The film quickly evolved into something entirely different, as the crew captured Williams in the throes of alcohol addiction and struggles with health issues including Graves' disease, an autoimmune disorder that can cause bulging eyes, and lymphedema, a condition that causes swelling in her feet. A particularly gut-wrenching scene shows Williams-who turns 60 in July-asking her driver to take her past the former Wendy Williams Show studio, forgetting that he had done so only moments earlier.