Two Wendy Williams Staffers Fired (Probably) for Her Misguided Race Comments

Recently, Wendy Williams said she’d be offended if there were all white colleges like there are historically black colleges and organizations, namely the NAACP. Now, according to Page Six, several staffers have become fall guys for her musings, including one producer named Jason Gabel, one of her “Jason’s.”

A source says, “The crew had a big party celebrating what they considered a season well done, and the next day [some of them] got calls saying they’d been let go.” In true television fashion, the party line is that higher ups want to “retool the show,” hence the lay-offs, but this seems like good old fashioned passing the blame for Wendy’s “confusion,” which, let’s be honest, isn’t confusion at all.

Prior to the firings, the kerfuffle did give Williams and TV One’s NewsOne Now host Roland “ascot” Martin a chance to run down black history for daytime’s mixed audience who might not have known that, despite there not being any officially “all-white” institutions, segregation resulted in the same. Hell, we’re still writing about college sororities and fraternities that won’t allow people of color, Wendy!

Look, Wendy is a whip smart black woman who’s been on the radio for decades and clawed her way to television. She knows why there are black colleges because I’m quite sure she did most of her early promotional radio tours on their campuses during her runs at WBLS and Hot 97, R&B and Hip Hop stations respectively, which have chiefly African American audiences, some of whom attended HBCUs. Her NAACP comments all felt very “Let me appeal to my white viewers and stir up some controversy during the summer doldrums” to me, but I could be jaded.