Wendy Williams Describes What It Feels Like Living in a Posh $18K Per Month 'Memory Unit': 'It's Suffocating'
Former talk show host Wendy Williams has detailed her struggles in an assisted living facility, where she is currently living while embroiled in a legal conservatorship.
Williams, 60, expressed her sense of alienation and imprisonment in a February 27 appearance on NewsNation's "Banfield."
"I don't have the freedom to do virtually anything," Williams said, referring to her situation at the facility. "I've been in the ward for over three years. It's suffocating, it's very lonely."
Williams now lives upstairs, on the fifth floor, known as the "memory unit," a floor reserved for people with profound memory loss. She described it as harsh circumstances, with most needing help with daily activities and medications.
She crisscrossed the country with her team, paying $18,000 a month in rent — an eye-bleeding cost — she said. "What do I have? A bedroom, a bath, and a window."
Since the beginning of October, the television personality has expressed her desire to leave the center and end her conservatorship, which has controlled her money and health choices since May 2022.
Diagnosed with progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia, she argues she is not cognitively impaired.
Williams, during an emotional interview on "The Breakfast Club" on January 16, said: "I feel like I am in prison." About her living conditions and dealings with residents two generations her senior, she said: "I am clearly not [like them].
Williams reported as well that within the facility, she is not allowed to move freely because she is allegedly only allowed on the prison's floor and that elevators are being locked down with no visitors being allowed to leave to see the outside world.
She said it was frustrating that she had not been able to see a doctor for almost two years after her diagnosis.
As per PEOPLE, court documents have described Williams as "cognitively impaired, permanently disabled and legally incapacitated," according to her guardian, Sabrina Morrissey.
Wendy Williams Fights For Freedom
During a series of media appearances she made following those claims, Williams asked for a new medical evaluation.
Fans and colleagues are rallying around Williams. Suzanne Bass, a television producer who had recently reconnected with Williams after years of being apart, voiced her concern about Williams's situation.
In a heartfelt Instagram video, Bass called for an end to Williams's conservatorship. She said, "She sounds fantastic. She sounds the best she's sounded in years."
Williams is still fighting for her freedom and hopes to be free one day. "I want my life back," she said.
