Wendy Williams on Her Ongoing Conservatorship: ‘Get Off My Neck’

“It’s time for my money and my life to get back to status quo,” the former radio and television host and pop culture icon told The View on Friday.

By Audra Heinrichs | March 14, 2025 | 3:11pm

Photo: Getty Images Celebrities Latest

Wendy Williams on Her Ongoing Conservatorship: ‘Get Off My Neck’

Four years after legions of Britney Spears fans waged war and won the battle of her conservatorship via the #FreeBritney movement, another conservatorship of a beloved celebrity is dominating headlines.

Since 2022, Wendy Williams, the former radio and television host and pop culture icon, has been under court-appointed financial guardianship after her bank alleged it had “documented a pattern of unusual and disturbing events” regarding her recent transactions. Two years later, Williams was diagnosed with dementia and aphasia, a condition that impacts language and communication abilities.

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On Friday, Williams called into The View to discuss the current state of the conservatorship and her guardian, Sabrina Morrissey, who has called any allegations that Williams is being held—in good health—against her will “untrue, inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading.”

Throughout the three-year public saga about Williams’ health struggles, a four-part documentary chronicling life after her talk show ended aired on Lifetime and garnered scrutiny including accusations of exploitation from Morrissey, who filed a lawsuit against Lifetime’s parent network, A&E for injunctive relief. The team behind the doc—and Williams—felt differently. In the middle of the public back-and-forth, Williams was admitted to an assisted living facility in New York’s Hudson Yards, with Morrissey alleging that Williams had “become cognitively impaired, permanently disabled, and legally incapacitated.” But a number of Williams’ loved ones—including her niece, Alex Finnie—have since mounted a campaign to remove her from the state’s care, based on claims that Williams is actually in far more control of her cognitive capabilities than alleged.

“Get off my neck,” Williams told The View, of her current situation, adding that she doesn’t want to work with Morrissey or the judge appointed to her case and, instead, hopes to “move on with my life.”

“It’s time for my money and my life to get back to status quo,” she added. This isn’t the first time Williams has spoken out in recent months. In January, she joined The Breakfast Club to deny any claim that she’s incapacitated and discuss the care facility she’s been living in.

“I am not cognitively impaired, you know what I’m saying? But I feel like I’m in prison,” Williams described. “I’m in this place where the people are in their 90s and their 80s and their 70s. There’s something wrong with these people here on this floor.”

Williams’ niece, Finnie, also spoke to the show in support of her aunt. She described Williams’ apartment in the care facility as having “a bed, a chair, a TV, a bathroom, and she’s looking out one window at buildings across the street.” She added that while her aunt is able to call her loved ones, they aren’t able to call her. Williams is also without access to the internet via a laptop or an iPad. These restrictions, Alex said, are not only unnecessary but undue punishment.

“My aunt sounds great,” Alex told the show. “I’ve seen her, in a very limited capacity, but I’ve seen her and we’re talking to her. This does not match an incapacitated person. And that’s why we say she’s in a luxury prison, because she is being held and she is being punished for whatever reason that other people are coming up with as to why she has to be kept in this position.”

Furthermore, Williams told the hosts that she’s spent her last three birthdays alone due to the facility’s high security, adding: “This is what is called emotional abuse.” She also broke down in tears, alleging that her two beloved cats were sold without her knowledge and that because any travel she wants to do must be approved by her guardian, she might not be allowed to see her father on his 94th birthday.

“Listen, this system is broken, this system that I am in. This system has falsified a lot,” she said on the show. “For the last three years, I have been caught up in the system.”

On Monday, Williams tossed a handwritten note begging for help from the window of her fifth-story room. The plea culminated in a welfare check and effectively forced an independent test to be conducted just one month after Morrissey told a judge she’d be amenable to a new medical evaluation for Williams. She was taken by ambulance to Lenox Hill Hospital where she underwent a psychological examination called a “capacity test” from a psychiatrist on staff.

“I passed with flying colors,” she told Good Day New York adding that she didn’t trust the court’s testing which is why she insisted upon an independent evaluation. Ultimately, Williams said her “number one most important thing” was “getting out of guardianship. Her brother, caretaker, and niece, who had dinner with Williams after the testing, continue to insist that she is in good mental and physical shape. Meanwhile, Morrissey has countered that her facility has “excellent medical care” and Williams is empowered to leave and see her family whenever she’d like.

I don’t know about you all, but I think now is about the time Williams’ case gets the #FreeBritney treatment…