*Producer Mark Ford is speaking out about production on the new Lifetime documentary, “Where Is Wendy Williams?” and addressing claims that the creative team exploited the former talk show host amid her battle with dementia.
As we reported earlier, Williams’ medical care team announced last week that she was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
“Wendy is still able to do many things for herself,” the team said, People reports. “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.”
According to a press release, Williams, 59, was officially diagnosed last year. She has been contending with various other health challenges, including Graves’ disease, lymphedema, and alcohol abuse.
Meanwhile, in a new interview with THR, Ford explains why his cameras documented Wendy’s “increasingly fragile state,” the outlet writes.
Ford said, “We were more worried about what would happen if we stopped filming than if we continued.”
The new doc gives viewers “unparalleled access granted by Wendy to film with her and her family for nearly two years, what was captured was not what anyone expected,” per the press release.
The four-and-a-half-hour, two-night documentary event, “Where is Wendy Williams?” debuted on Saturday, February 24 and 25, and fans immediately took to social media to rip the producers for taking advantage of Williams amid her current mental state.
The producer told THR, “… if we had known that Wendy had dementia going into it, no one would’ve rolled a camera.”
When asked if he questioned whether she was ready to return to the spotlight during filming, Ford explained, “One hundred percent. I mean, you can hear my voice in the first 10 minutes of the film asking every question that you would ask about this situation. The beginning of the film was really the development shoot, where we went out and just wanted to sit with Wendy and see how she was doing.”
Ford added, “Basically, the story that was given to us after that day is that it was a bad day for Wendy and that alcohol had been involved, and now she was going away [to a treatment facility] and she was going to get that under control, but this should in no way inhibit us from moving forward,” he explained to THR.
“And when we did come back, she was better. She was sober and on a better trajectory. And there were conversations and plans for the podcast, and there were people being put in place to produce that podcast, and that was a storyline that we were following. But it was derailed because of what we now know was the state of Wendy’s dementia.”
Read Ford’s full interview here.
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