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Wendy Williams, the previous daytime discuss present host, is the main target of an explosive documentary that some critics are calling exploitative.
Within the new two-part Lifetime docuseries, “The place Is Wendy Williams,” the previous host appears typically disoriented and in a single clip doesn’t acknowledge her supervisor. In one other scene, the identical supervisor confronts her over empty liquor bottles present in her condo.
A kind of individuals, Shawn Zanotti, who’s featured within the docuseries, slammed the producers behind it in an unique interview with NBC Information.
“I felt that [Williams] was being exploited,” mentioned Zanotti, who started working as Williams’ publicist in 2021. “She thought we have been specializing in the comeback of her profession. … She can be mortified. There’s no approach you may persuade me that she can be OK with trying and seeing herself in that approach.”
Zanotti mentioned she was first pitched the challenge by Creature Movies and eOne Tv in 2022. The identical manufacturing firm was behind one other Lifetime documentary on the host’s life, “Wendy Williams: What a Mess!”
“When I discussed [doing a documentary] to Wendy, she instantly mentioned: ‘Sure, I’d like to do it. I’d love to have the ability to get my story on the market,’” Zanotti mentioned.
However what aired is just not what Zanotti mentioned was agreed upon.
“That isn’t the challenge that [Williams] signed up for. That’s not the challenge [the producers] dropped at me. That’s not what I informed her this was going to be about,” Zanotti mentioned.
“There have been loads of good moments. None of these good moments have been proven,” she added.
Simply in the future earlier than the documentary aired, Williams’ administration group introduced in an announcement that she is in a therapy facility, diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia. Zanotti, who has not spoken to Williams since she entered a therapy facility in April, mentioned she continues to be employed as her publicist.
Tune into Prime Story with Tom Llamas on NBC Information Now on Wednesday night time for the complete interview.
In an interview with TODAY.com, the filmmakers mentioned they weren’t conscious of Williams’ prognosis throughout manufacturing, although they acknowledged that, “Some days, Wendy was on and really Wendy. Different days, she wasn’t.”
They moved ahead with the challenge as a result of, based on showrunner Erica Hanson, “All of us felt this was a fancy and delicate story to inform, and all of us felt a fantastic accountability to do it with dignity and sensitivity.”
However Zanotti is just not shopping for that.
“I don’t suppose [the diagnosis] would have stopped them in any respect. The producers have been asking questions all through your entire time — would ask questions the place she would considerably appear confused, and I really feel as if it was finished to be intentional at that second in time to make their storyline,” Zanotti mentioned. “Once more, this was introduced as a documentary to her, however to me, it regarded as if it was a actuality present of a circus, a circus to her downfall.”
The producers and Lifetime didn’t reply to requests for additional remark.
Zanotti mentioned she even flagged her issues to Williams’ guardian, Sabrina Morrissey, throughout manufacturing.
“I didn’t agree with what was occurring with this documentary,” she mentioned. “I made it very clear to the guardian. The manufacturing firm was conscious of that. I didn’t — I didn’t agree with the best way this was shifting and shaking. And as a substitute of them coping with it with me, they determined to disregard me. They ignored me from that second, and I by no means heard from them once more.”
Morrissey didn’t reply to requests for remark.
The day Williams’ dementia prognosis was introduced, Morrissey filed a now-sealed lawsuit to forestall the collection from airing. A choose dismissed the case, citing the First Modification.
Mark Ford, the chief producer of the docuseries, informed TODAY.com that “Wendy was a associate, in addition to her guardian, her supervisor, all our legal professionals — all people’s signed off and was conscious all of the methods by way of what we have been filming.”
Nevertheless, Zanotti mentioned, she believes the collection was all about making a spectacle for cash and rankings, not about exhibiting Williams in one of the best mild.
Zanotti mentioned she additionally feels misrepresented within the collection, taking particular exception to a scene wherein Williams berates her on the sofa.
“Though you noticed these horrific parts of what she did in the best way that she handled me, there have been nice, lovely moments that occurred after that,” Zanotti mentioned.
Hypothesis about Williams’ well being started after she fainted dwell on the air in 2017.
Williams, who hosted “The Wendy Williams Present,” a rankings juggernaut, from 2008 to 2021, had been open about her struggles with habit.
In 2019, she informed viewers she was residing in a sober home after having sought therapy for drug use. Months later, she revealed she was taking time without work due to Graves’ illness, an autoimmune dysfunction.
Williams was additionally absent from her present in 2021 and 2022 due to well being causes, Variety reported. Sherri Shepherd took over the time slot in 2022, earlier than “The Wendy Williams Present” was finally canceled.
It was whereas Williams was off the air that her financial institution, Wells Fargo, petitioned to have her placed under a financial guardianship, claiming she was “incapacitated” and “a sufferer of undue affect and monetary exploitation,” claims Williams later pushed again towards.
Since then, Williams has remained largely out of the general public eye, and Zanotti mentioned the collection is just not how she would need followers to recollect her.
“That isn’t the challenge that she signed up for,” Zanotti mentioned. “My concern at this level is: What’s actually occurring? Who actually does have her finest curiosity at coronary heart?”
