Wendy Williams Diagnosed With Dementia and Aphasia

Talk show host Wendy Williams has been diagnosed with aphasia and dementia, according to a statement from her team.

“In 2023, after undergoing a battery of medical tests, Wendy was officially diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD),” the statement says.

The statement also addresses the rumors about Williams that have been reported in the media in recent years...

Over the past few years, questions have been raised at times about Wendy’s ability to process information and many have speculated about Wendy’s condition, particularly when she began to lose words, act erratically at times, and have difficulty understanding financial transactions.

Williams’ diagnosis is essentially the same as the one given to Bruce Willis, the TV and film star whose family announced in the spring of 2022 that he was stepping away from acting due to his deteriorating condition.

READ MORE: The Best TV Shows of the Year

Williams was a popular radio DJ who then moved into television, first with the reality series The Wendy Williams Experience and then with her long-running daytime talk show, The Wendy Williams Show. It aired in syndication from 2008 to 2021. Not long after that, a financial adviser claimed she was of “unsound mind,” and Wells Fargo petitioned a New York Court to have the host put under a financial guardianship.

“There is hope that with early detection and far more empathy, the stigma associated with dementia will be eliminated, and those affected will receive the understanding, support, and care they deserve and need,” Williams’ team’s statement reads.

A documentary on Williams will premiere later this week on Lifetime. According to People, the documentary began shooting around the time her talk show ended and “set out to follow Williams’ comeback as she prepared to launch a new podcast. The film quickly evolved into something entirely different” as her health deteriorated amidst addiction issues.