The world was captivated, worried, and shocked by the details surrounding Britney Spears' conservatorship with the #freebritney movement aiding in its conclusion in November 2021. Now, social media is rialing behind another famous name - Wendy Williams.
In February 2024, Williams Lifetime documentary Where Is Wendy Williams? Led to public concern over her health and the people around her. The famous talk show host has been under conservatorship since 2022, and in a rare interview Thursday morning with "The Breakfast Club," she made some heartbreaking allegations about how she has been mistreated by her conservator, Sabrina Morrissey. "I feel like I'm in prison. I am definitely isolated," she said in the interview.
One of the tear-jerking claims is that her two beloved cats, Chit Cat and My Way, which she rescued as kittens in 2019, were taken away from her without her knowledge. Williams' niece Alex, who has been an advocate for her aunt, alleged that the host is being "punished."
Quoting the conservator, Alex said, "You know your cats, Chit Cat, and My Way ... yeah I gave those cats away. You don't have her anymore." "It's like she's being punished for just trying to be a normal person about society and to live," Alex continued, saying it was also unclear if they would let Williams see her father in Miami on his 94th birthday.
Williams talked about her cats in September 2019, a few months after her divorce from Kevin Hunter, saying she loved them "so much." The kittens were born to a feral cat on the streets of Nyack in New York, and after Williams expressed her desire to adopt a pair of sister cats, a longtime viewer connected her with Dr. Maureen Saunders of the Cat Care Clinic of the Nyack.
They shared a photo of the two kittens hugging with Williams, and she knew they were the perfect pair. "When I saw them hugging each other, I was like, ‘Done!’" Williams recalled at the time, “'I want both of them!'”
"They came to the house, we immediately bonded," she shared. "They are wonderful. I feel like I have such a full life with them. They love each other, and they don’t much bother me!”
She named the grey cat My Way, “as in, my life, my way now," and the black cat Chit Chat, an adorable nod to her incredible career doing what she does best. “Chit Chat, the black one, is quite shady,” Williams said. “She’s the one like, ‘Stop being so friendly, we’re new here, we don’t know her.’ And then My Way is like, ‘No, we were found in the streets!’"
Williams' health has been making headlines since 2021 when she was diagnosed with Graves disease and lymphedema. The famous talk show host was placed in a wellness facility in September 2022, and in February 2024, it was revealed that she was diagnosed with frontal temporal dementia and speech-affecting aphasia ahead of the documentary release.
The 60-year-old's interview has gone viral, with Williams and Alex claiming she is not "cognitively impaired." Her family wants her freed, and so do members of the public, with Alex asking fans to keep sharing the #FreeWendy campaign on social media.
Following the interview, TMZ reported that they spoke to Willams' attorney Roberta Kaplan. Kaplan said because of her frontal lobe dementia, which is a neurological disease with no cure, a state court found her unable to make legal and financial decisions on her own. She also explained that because of the degenerative nature of the disease, she will require care for the remainder of her life.