*Wendy Williams’ publicist slammed the new Lifetime documentary “Where is Wendy Williams?”; described as “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 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 fragile mental state.
Shawn Zanotti, who became Williams’ publicist in 2021, slammed the producers of the project in an interview with NBC News.
“I felt that (Williams) was being exploited,” the author told NBC News. “She thought we were focusing on the comeback of her career. … 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.”
We reported earlier that Williams’ medical care team announced last week that she was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
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.
Zanotti said the documentary she was pitched initially is not what was ultimately produced and presented to Lifetime.
“That 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,” Zanotti said.
Meanwhile, producer Mark Ford addressed claims that he exploited the former talk show host amid her battle with dementia.
Ford told THR, “… if we had known that Wendy had dementia going into it, no one would’ve rolled a camera.”
The producer said, “We were more worried about what would happen if we stopped filming than if we continued.”
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