Biography
Wendy Williams Hunter (ne Wendy Joan Williams; born July 18, 1964) is an American journalist and broadcaster referred to as the âQueen of the media.â She hosted the nationally syndicated communicate display, The Wendy Williams Show, from 2008 to 2022.
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Prior to tv, Williams used to be a radio DJ and host in New York, the place she abruptly won notoriety. She used to be the point of interest of the 2006 VH1 fact tv collection The Wendy Williams Experience, which documented the occasions surrounding her radio display.
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Williamsâs different interests come with writing a couple of books, showing in a lot of motion pictures and tv collection, touring together with her comedy display, [2] [3], and developing her personal product strains, which come with a manner logo, a jewellery assortment, and a wig line.
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In 2009 marked Williamsâ induction into the National Radio Hall of Fame. On her fiftieth birthday, the Asbury Park, New Jersey, town council renamed the road she grew up directly to Wendy Williams Way.
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Profile
Wendy williams
Name: | Wendy Williams |
Date Of Birth: | 18 July, 1964 |
Nationality: | American |
Religion: | Christian |
AGE: | 55 years |
Relationship: | Divorced |
Height: | 1.95M |
Children: | One |
Stats: | Active |
Profession | Entrepreneur/TV Radio Presenter |
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Early Life And Education
On July 18, 1964, Wendy Joan Williams used to be born in Asbury Park, New Jersey. She is the second one of Shirley (ne Skinner) and Thomas Dwayne Williamsâ 3 youngsters.
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Shirley taught particular schooling, and Thomas used to be a trainer and faculty predominant. Thomas used to be the primary Black college administrator in Red Bank, New Jersey, in 1969.
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The couple had a mixed 3 graspâs levels. The circle of relatives relocated to the essentially white, higher center elegance suburb of Wayside in Ocean Township, New Jersey, after the Asbury Park racial riots of 1970.
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They went to a Baptist church and spent each and every summer season in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, a well-liked holiday spot for African Americans. Doctors instructed Williams to take drugs as a kid to control her hyperactivity.
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She had a damaging view of herself on account of the vitamin her oldsters pressured her to observe after she placed on weight in basic college. Williams served as a volunteer sweet striper whilst a Girl Scout Brownie. Her oldsters expected that she would paintings as a nurse.
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In 1982, Williams graduated from Ocean Township High School as one in every of 4 Black scholars, rating 360th out of 362 graduates. Her educational document contrasted with that of her older sister Wanda, who on the age of received a college scholarship.
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As she used to be in a position to make use of âWhiteâ speech versus African-American Vernacular English, Williamsâ White friends noticed her as one in every of them and used the phrase nigger freely round her. She didn’t get along side the opposite Black pupils and claimed that the one factor they’d in commonplace used to be smoking marijuana.
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According to Williams, she didn’t concentrate to hip hop track as a result of rock bands akin to AC/DC have been extra common amongst her classmates. She served as the general public cope with announcer for her more youthful brother Thomasâ Little League baseball video games.
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Williams attended Northeastern University in Boston as a way to change into a information anchor. Her oldsters disapproved of her determination to transition from tv communications to radio not up to a month after beginning since she may make stronger her career extra temporarily.
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Williams graduated in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts in conversation and a minor in journalism to placate her oldsters.
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She used to be a disc jockey for the campus radio station WRBB, the place her first superstar interviewee used to be rapper LL Cool J. Williams, as an intern for Matt Siegel on the recent hit radio station WXKS-FM, recapped the cleaning soap operas Dallas and Dynasty on air.
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Career
Two weeks after graduating from Northeastern, Williams started her occupation as a disc jockey for the small, calypso and reggae-oriented WVIS in Frederiksted, U.S.
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Virgin Islands. However, she disliked the placement as a result of she didn’t be told as a lot about radio from her coworkers as she had expected.
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Williams started sending her rsum and pattern tapes to different radio stations on account of her deficient wages and isolation from her circle of relatives. She left WVIS after 8 months and landed a task at WOL in Washington, D.C., however discovered the stationâs oldies structure incompatible together with her character.
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Williams persisted to ship cassettes to different stations, and on November 1, 1987, he started filling in at the weekends at WQHT in New York City. She give up WOL after the city recent radio station employed her full-time to paintings nocturnal shifts.
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After two years at WQHT, Williams used to be let cross and in short labored in a single day shifts at WPLJ sooner than being employed by means of WRKS. After WBLS started poaching its body of workers in May 1990, WRKS granted Williams a non-compete provision and an enduring morning place in May 1990.
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As a part of the stationâs âWake-Up Club,â she joined Jeff Foxx and Spider Webb. During a phase titled âDish the Dirt,â Williams started to unfold rumors about rappers and celebrities. Bill Cosby and Russell Simmons, amongst others, known as the station and unsuccessfully requested that she be fired.
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In April 1991, WRKS relocated Williams to the night power time slot because of her expanding reputation. She were given a Billboard Radio Award for R&B Major Market Radio Air Personality of the Year in 1993, when she used to be the highest-rated host in her time slot within the New York City marketplace.
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Williams co-hosted the syndicated Top 30 USA track countdown program on American Urban Radio Networks in 1993 and USA Music Magazine in 1994.
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By the center of 1994, WRKSâs rankings had declined because of festival from Emmis Broadcastingâs hip-hop-focused WQHT. In an effort to opposite the fashion, on September 26, 1994, WRKS shifted Williams again to mornings, the place she hosted âWendy & Company.â
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However, not up to 3 months later, Emmis bought WRKS and despatched Williams to WQHT, the place she started internet hosting the night power time slot on December 12, 1994.
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As WRKS used to be remodeled into an city grownup recent station catering to older other people, it used to be regarded as that Williams would extra appropriately constitute WQHTâs more youthful demographic.
In 1998, she used to be brushed aside from Hot 97
WUSL, a Philadelphia city station, employed Williams (âPower 99FMâ). Kevin Hunter, her husband, turned into her agent. She used to be extraordinarily candid on air about her non-public existence, disclosing her miscarriages, breast augmentation surgical treatment, and prior drug dependancy. She contributed to the stationâs upward thrust from 14th to 2nd place within the rankings.
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Williams right through the yr 2005
In 2001, Williams returned to New York airwaves when WBLS employed her full-time for a 26 p.m. syndication time slot. MC Spice of Boston, a chum of Williams, supplied voiceover products and services for the printed, continuously incorporating brief rap verses designed expressly for Williamsâ display.
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According to The New York Times, her display is best when its facets confessional and snarky are mixed.
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In 2008, she used to be syndicated in quite a few spaces, together with Redondo Beach, California; Shreveport, Louisiana; Wilmington, Delaware; Toledo, Ohio; Columbia, South Carolina; Emporia, Virginia; Lake Charles, Louisiana; Tyler, Texas; and Alexandria, Louisiana. (Reference wanted) In 2009, Williams give up her radio display to be aware of her tv display and spend extra time together with her circle of relatives.
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2008present: Television
Debmar-Mercury presented Williams a six-week trial of her personal communicate program in 2008. Wendyâs World, a syndicated daylight hours communicate display Williams used to be set to anchor within the fall of 1997, by no means aired.
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Williams started her daylight hours communicate display The Wendy Williams Show in 4 towns on July 14, 2008, right through the summer season of 2008. During the trial run, The New York Times famous that the display offered the style of âbacktalk showâ as a âbreakthrough in daytime.â
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Fox struck a freelance with Debmar-Mercury to air the display nationally on its stations starting in July 2009, following a a success run. In addition, BET obtained the cable rights to air this system at night time.
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BET International started broadcasting the display globally in 54 nations in 2010. Williams and Ellen DeGeneres exchange day-to-day as the most well liked feminine host on daylight hours tv, attracting a median of two.4 million other people in line with day.
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Williams and her husband, Kevin Hunter, labored as govt manufacturers for the GSN recreation display Love Triangle (2011), which Williams hosted.
Williams acted as a pass judgement on at the 2011 Lifetime collection Drop Dead Diva and as a visitor pass judgement on on The Face (2013).
As a contestant within the 12th season of Dancing with the Stars, Williams used to be teamed with Tony Dovolani; she used to be eradicated 2nd.
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Williams later claimed that the displayâs creators offered her as a racially stereotypical indignant black lady. Williams seems in Think Like a Man (2012), the movie adaptation of Steve Harveyâs e-book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, and its sequel, Think Like a Man Too (2014).
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(2014). It used to be printed in 2012 that Williams would shape a âproduction collaborationâ with Suzanne de Passe and Madison Jones to create motion pictures and tv systems for multicultural audiences.
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These productions might be classified âWendy Williams presents,â and their first mission might be a Star Jones novel adaptation for VH1.
Wendy Williams Productions will produce unscripted programming, akin to fact tv and recreation presentations, in step with a press release made in February 2013 by means of Wendy Williams and her husband and supervisor, Kevin.
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Williams served as the manager manufacturer of Celebrities Undercover (2014).
Aaliyah: The Princess of R & B, a biopic Williams govt produced for Lifetime, debuted on November 15, 2014.
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Due to its casting and depiction of Aaliyahâs dating with R. Kelly, the movie sparked controversy and won most commonly damaging critiques from critics.
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Wendy Williams hosted and produced the debut of Death By Gossip with Wendy Williams at the Investigation Discovery channel in September 2015.
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Williams used to be decided on as Matron âMamaâ Morton within the 2013 manufacturing of the Broadway musical Chicago. She started her seven-week time period on July 2, 2013 and concluded it on August 11, 2013.
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Her arrangements for the musical have been documented within the Wendy Williams: How You Doinâ, Broadway?! docuseries for TV Guide, which used to be produced by means of her personal manufacturing corporate, Wendy Williams Productions.
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Williams within the yr 2019
Williams had now not overlooked an episode of her communicate display till February 2018, when she took a one-week ruin; on the other hand, on February 21, 2018, she said that her display can be on holiday for 3 weeks owing to issues of Gravesâ sickness and hyperthyroidism.
The Williams-Hunter circle of relatives stated in a January 2019 observation that Williams have been hospitalized owing to headaches from Gravesâ illness and that her go back to the display can be postponed indefinitely because of this.
During her hiatus, visitor hosts akin to Nick Cannon stood in for Wendy; she returned on March 4, 2019.
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Due to the coronavirus epidemic, the display suspended reside audiences for 2 tapings in early March 2020; Williamsâ group of workers stuffed the seats. The displayâs manufacturing ceased in a while thereafter.
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The display reemerged as The Wendy Williams Show @ Home, broadcast by means of video chat from Williamsâ place of abode, and persisted till May 15, when manufacturing used to be once more interrupted owing to a Gravesâ illness flare-up.
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Williams showed in July 2020 that her display would go back to reside studio broadcasting on September 21, 2020.
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Williams competed within the fourth season of The Masked Singer as âLipsâ in 2020. Due to the burden of the gown, she sat for almost all of the contest.
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After her debut look, she carried out the track âNative New Yorkerâ by means of Odyssey and used to be the primary member of Group C to be eradicated and unmasked. Wendy Williams signed a freelance with the American cable community Lifetime for a documentary and biopic according to her existence titled Wendy Williams: What a Mess! and Wendy Williams: The Movie, respectively.
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Filmography
Title | Year |
The cookout | 2004 |
The cookout ll | 2011 |
Think Like A Man | 2012 |
World War Z | 2013 |
Think Like A Man Too | 2014 |
Mike And Dave Need Wedding Date | 2016 |
Private Life
Williams claimed she used to be raped in faculty within the Nineteen Eighties by means of R & B megastar Sherrick. After splitting up together with her spouse in 1991, she underwent an abortion six weeks later.
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Williams later wed Bertrand âBertâ Girigorie, her first husband. In her memoirs, she refers to him beneath a pseudonym and states that they parted after 5 months and divorced roughly eighteen months later.
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Williams met her 2nd husband, Kevin Hunter, in 1994, and so they have been married on November 30, 1999. Prior to the beginning in their son, Kevin Samuel, on August 18, 2000, she skilled many miscarriages.
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Williams filed for divorce in April 2019 owing to irreconcilable variations after Hunter fathered a kid along with his mistress. Despite the truth that the divorce used to be finalized in January 2020, her prison surname continues to be Hunter.
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Due to her suburban background, Williams considers herself âa multicultural woman who happens to be black.â Although Williams identifies as a Christian, he not attends church products and services. She believes that âGod is everywhereâ and prays âdaily, multiple times per day.â
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Williams helps abortion selection. In 2012, she sponsored Barack Obama for president and advocated an NAACP voter help program. That yr, Williams participated in PETAâs âIâd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Furâ marketing campaign, pointing out, âWe should all attempt to be comfortable in our own skin and let the animals keep theirs.â
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She helps the South Carolina State Houseâs removing of the Confederate struggle flag in 2015.
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Wellness and aesthetics
Williams has had breast implants since 1994 and has additionally passed through liposuction and Botox injections.
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Williams has been frank about her cocaine dependence within the overdue Nineteen Eighties and early Nineties, for which she by no means sought remedy. Since she fainted on her communicate program in October 2017 because of dehydration, she has spoken brazenly about more than a few well being difficulties.
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Williams said in February 2018 that she has Gravesâ illness, which reasons hyperthyroidism, a situation for which she used to be recognized over twenty years previous. Due to the greater drive in the back of her eyes, her eyes sometimes seem outstanding.
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Williams wears wigs in public because of the thinning of her herbal hair led to by means of her thyroid factor. In December of 2018, she injured her shoulder by chance.
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Williams said in March 2019 that she have been staying in a sober space âfor some timeâ and that she suffers from vertigo.
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Later that yr, Williams disclosed that she have been recognized with lymphedema, a dysfunction characterised by means of ankle swelling. In September 2021, right through the COVID-19 pandemic, Williams examined certain for an epidemic an infection of the illness.
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Wells Fargo, Williamsâs financial institution, blocked her budget and petitioned the New York Supreme Court for a listening to to ascertain if her well being instances render her incapable and require a dad or mum. Her legal professional refutes those claims and asserts that Williams hires âholistic health practitioners.â
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Net Worth
Wendy Williams is among the wealthiest and highest-paid tv personalities within the United States, with an estimated web value of $40 million.