As Wendy Williams continues her highly public battle to end her court-ordered guardianship, new details are surfacing about how the arrangement began—and how far it’s gone beyond what the former talk show host originally expected.
According to Entertainment Weekly, Williams’ guardianship was triggered after her son, Kevin Hunter Jr., reportedly made a large withdrawal from her account using power of attorney, prompting Wells Fargo to freeze her finances and question her mental capacity. The financial dispute eventually led the bank to request a temporary financial guardianship in 2022, which quickly evolved into a full legal guardianship under New York state law.
But now, Williams’ health care advocate, Ginalisa Monterroso, says the beloved TV personality never fully understood what she was agreeing to.
“Wendy consented to a financial guardianship thinking it would protect her money from being misused,” Monterroso told PEOPLE. “She kind of felt like, ‘Hey, I have the court. They’re going to assign me a money person. I’m going to be good.’ But in no way did she think her whole life was going to be taken away from her.”
Monterroso explained that Williams “has no rights” under her current arrangement with court-appointed guardian Sabrina Morrissey—not even the right to manage her own bank account, choose where she lives, or decide who her doctors are. “Somebody in prison has more rights than a person put under a guardianship,” she added.
The former Wendy Williams Show host, now 60, is currently residing in a luxury high-rise assisted-living facility in New York after checking into a wellness center. While her exact condition remains undisclosed, her advocates and supporters continue to push for her freedom under the banner of the growing #FreeWendy movement.
What began as a financial safeguard appears to have spiraled into a legal entanglement that stripped the television icon of control over both her finances and her personal life. And as the public learns more about the circumstances that led to her guardianship, so does the concern for her autonomy—and the hope that she may one day be able to regain it.