Wendy Williams returned to host her talk show on March 4th after a two month hiatus to focus on her health. Wendy revealed last year that she has Graves Disease, which causes hyperthyroidism. She seems to be doing ok now and has been back on the air for a couple of weeks. She even got into a feud with Howard Stern by saying he’s lost his edge, which she surely did for the headlines. On her show this week, Wendy revealed that she’s been living in a coed sober house with young people. She said that it helps her focus on her sobriety after battling a cocaine addiction. She’s also launched an 800 number and has a foundation to help people struggling with addiction.
“You know me for being a very open and truthful person and I’ve got more to the story for you,” the host, 54, said. “You know [my husband] Kevin [Hunter] and I have The Hunter Foundation for the good of the people. We recently launched our 888-5 HUNTER number for those of you caught up in the struggle of addiction. Well, for some time now, and even today and beyond, I have been living in a sober house. When you see me come to work glammed up, right after the show I go across the street, I do my Pilates. I told you – two hours a day or [so], to take care of my body.”
She continued: “You know I’ve had a struggle with cocaine in my past. I never went to a place to get the treatment. I don’t know how, except God was sitting on my shoulder and I just stopped.”
With that, the Ask Wendy author began crying, explaining that she goes to “several meetings” around the tri-state area to “see my brothers and sisters caught up in their addiction and looking for help.” She noted that only she and her husband knew she was doing that – not even her parents.
“Nobody knew because I look so glamorous out here. After I finish my appointments, seeing my brothers and sisters, breaking bread, I am driven by my 24-hour sober coach back to the home that I live in here in the tri-state with a bunch of smelly boys who have become my family,” the New Jersey native added. “They hog the TV and watch soccer, we talk and read and talk and read. and then I get bored with them. Doors are locked by 10 p.m. Lights out by 10 p.m. So I go to my room, and I stare at the ceiling, and I fall asleep to wake up and come back here to see you. So that is my truth.”
At the end of Tuesday’s segment, she reiterated the help provided by her foundation. “We have already successfully placed 56 people in recovery centers around the world, not just the country,” Williams said. “This is a 24-hour hotline, 7 days a week. Call 888-5 HUNTER.”
I like what she said in her segment, that’s below, about how the other addicts don’t know who she is and that they’re in the struggle together. She sounds really fond of the boys she lives with and called them her family. At the end she said “either you’re calling me crazy or the bravest woman you know, I don’t care.” This reminds me of the time that Demi Lovato revealed that she lived in a sober house. It’s a great way to surround yourself with other sober people, avoid using and have that reminder that you don’t want to go back to that life. Listening to other people tell their stories keeps the misery fresh. I wouldn’t want to live with other people like that, but it really works for some people, especially when they’re newly sober. I know this wasn’t what Wendy talked about specifically, but a lot of people are struggling with opiate addiction and so many people are overdosing and dying. It’s an epidemic.
photos credit: WENN and Getty
You know, I feel like she’s such a nasty person (at least her persona) and she is often so very gleeful when tearing down other people, or gossiping about other people’s struggles, that I’m struggling to feel sympathy for her.
Having said that – good for her for drawing attention to this disease, which manifests in so many different ways.
Really? I don’t see her that way at all. To me, her show is like sitting w a girlfriend, dishing the latest gossip. I don’t think she’s mean. I wish she would dump that cheating husband though.
Agree, Snowflake. She’s doing exactly what we do here – dish about gossip. I like her! And wish her well in her recovery. Good for her for speaking out.
Last year she was defending R Kelly and only backtracked because sponsors were going to pull out of her show. She also proclaimed herself “sick of MeToo” movement. So yeah, she is a nasty person and I don’t know how she still has a show.
I dont think she is a nasty person, I think she is just reporting on celebrity gossip – much like a blog like celebitchy.
I remember Wendy on the radio in new york back in the day so I just think she is acting- this is her job. She reports on famous people who probably want her to talk about them. lol
Same, she’s such a nasty person, that I’m not feeling any sympathy, and I’m a big sap.
The only reason I think she even said anything is because Daily Mail was about to post the story on her that they did yesterday.
@Toot & Clare, I agree with both of you. Wendy outed rapper Method Mans wife as ill and exposed her CANCER diagnosis to the world when no one knew, he was outraged at the harm she caused his family by revealing, as gossip, something so serious, tragic and Private. She gloated over the demise of Whitney Houston and made fun of her drug habit, so it’s no surprise to me that she’d defend the pedophile , R Kelly. She is vile and since she loves to make people’s personal issues public, and she’s such an honest person, why hasn’t she addressed that her husband has a housed mistress close to their marital home?…I guess it’s not so exciting when it’s your personal problems being used for entertainment…and she looks horrid in that top picture. Yes, I’m being petty, I can’t stand her but I still wish her no harm.
Thank you I thought I was alone but she puts out such a negative persona and seems so happy to dig into people and their terrible secrets that I am struggling to feel sympathy for her. Did you see that Judge Mathis interview? He read her to filth and I was not mad at him because she tried to put him down like she does so many of her guests and he was not having it. With that being said I am happy that she is trying to better herself and help others along the way.
Oooooh, I HAVE to see that interview!
@ Jessica LOL 😂, Yes, I remember when Judge Mathis shut her down, I went to YouTube one day and saw it trending and oh boy he “read her for filth” is the only description I can come up for the lies she was spreading about him, and would not tolerate her buffoonery, not even a bit! She couldn’t even respond😂😂😂 thanks for the reminder 😆
I think this kind of explains that nasty side of her, though, you know? When you hate a side of yourself enough, you can cope with drugs and talking negatively about others and judging them instead of thinking about the parts of yourself that make you uncomfortable and sad.
I like this open side of herself. And something about the quote “either you’re calling me crazy or the bravest woman you know, I don’t care.” really touched me. I relate to that.
I watched her segment on YouTube. Visually she’s kind of a mess, and I didn’t think I’d like the show. But she dissed so truthfully and authentically on the recent varsity blues case- it was refreshing. Just no filter opinion Jersey style. I loved it. Now that I realize she’s sober, I get it. I’m 20 yrs sober but had a scare w opiate/cosmetic surgery addiction 5yrs ago, so o go to meetings weekly. This is the era of blaring lights and instant reveals, some of us can handle whilst others ar going down hard. The way she’s come through her schizzle is admirable.
I was put off when she was implying there was a story behind Luke Perry’s death. The man had just passed, his family was trying to cope and she was out there yapping away. Not every unexpected death is from drugs Wendy. I guess that was her world for so long, she is always suspicious. Not fair.
I got chills reading this. It’s amazing to see her use her platform to help others. She’s not playing the victim or sugar coating any of it.
Does her husband live with her there? I’m confused about that part.
The opiate epidemic is so terrifying and heart breaking. I really wonder how our society will ever find its way out of this. There’s a whole population among us now who’s lives revolve around heroin and Fentanyl, who look and act like walking zombies, who live in tents or right on the street and have no help from anyone. It’s truly horrific.
I could just be bitter because of my job, but my hospital saw 80 something overdoses in a week recently. We need preventative measures so people don’t start. Unfortunately, casual drug use is embedded in every facet of our entertainment culture.
Why can’t people just smoke a joint? No one is overdosing and dying from weed. I’m sure full legalization could probably put a dent in the epidemic.
@wow The problem is that when you go to the doctor for chronic facial pain they can’t say “go smoke a joint” they just prescribe you pain meds. And more and more and then stop even though they still can’t figure out what is causing your pain. Then you don’t have insurance and can’t afford to go see another doctor and oh hey, heroin is cheaper and you get a better high for less money. Then your life goes to hell in a handbasket faster than you ever thought possible.
And you still have the undiagnosed chronic facial pain. I don’t blame my doctors because I wanted something for pain and a lot of times I went to the doctor seeking pain meds, I just wish I could have figured out what was causing so much pain.
@megan in my experience with pain unless there is an obvious diagnosis a lot of the time its caused by the brain. I’m not saying in your head, I’m saying its not a pain caused in a traditional way. A colleague of mine treated someone who had PTSD that manifested with a symptom of physical pain.
I encounter people with “fibromyalgia” who don’t actually have it and have had their doctors do them a HUGE disservice by just diagnosing them with something to get rid of them instead of trying to figure out the problem or at least send them to someone who can.
If marijuana was legalized I would probably never write another take home opiate prescription again. I don’t tend to work in palliative care, so there would be no need for me to send people home with a medication that high risk of abuse outside of a hospital environment.
As I stand I won’t write them when I work in the ER. I will give you pain management while you are here, but I spend about 8 minutes with each patient. I can’t in good conscience assume I can make a diagnosis that would require an opiate prescription in that time. If you really need it you are either being admitted or I’ll treat you right now so you can go see your primary care provider tomorrow.
I have had people yell and scream that I’m being insensitive to their pain or not believing them. I’m not disbelieving, most things can’t be properly diagnosed and treated in an emergency room setting.
If i could write medical marijuana prescriptions I would, all day. I can’t so I direct people to physicians who can properly diagnose them. Emergency medicine tossing some oxy out to clear the bed had a huge part in getting us here.
@wow It has definitely been a journey to see what is going on with my facial pain. Through my recovery I can see now that the more pain meds I took, the more pain I thought I had, so the more meds I took. Now I try to treat with OTC pain relievers, heat, etc. And it has been working for me, if i can catch it in time. My final diagnosis before I gave up was “chronic facial pain caused by a headache disorder.”
I know you are doing the best you can to take care of the patients you see. My point was just that this life can hit you from the side and you’re in the middle of it before you even know what happened.
@megan the diagnosis process feels broken to me. I spend an average of 8 minutes per patient. That makes sense in a setting like mine. Many specialists try to make complicated diagnosis after 10 to 15 minutes with a patient. People are being left undiagnosed and misdiagnosed because in my opinion physicians are not taking the time to listen and think of a patient as a person who is going home and living like this.
I’m glad you are climbing out of addiction and I hope for your continued success.
@Meghan
Did they ever look into trigeminal neuralgia? Not sure of your symptoms, but it’s a hell of a condition. I ‘thankfully’ only have bad migraines.
@wow
As someone with fibro – i’ve seen a good deal of people say they’ve been diagnosed that reallyyyy don’t seem to have the condition. There seem to be a lot of people who have general aches and pains because of their joints or aging or being overweight who don’t line up with the kind of symptoms I’ve had. And of course nobody is going to experience the condition the EXACT same way… but it makes me so mad that it’s become such a catch-all because it makes the people who actually have it suffer more. They’re not believed. Or they’re told “so-and-so’s sister had it, and they tried [insert bs remedy here] and it CURED them!”. But I can track my symptoms back to about middle school – and trying to convince myself it was normal to feel as much pain and be as exhausted as I am because it was part of my life for SO long. And I know there are a lot of pushy patients out there who refuse to accept that aging and poor lifestyles are catching up to them and an outside factor completely outside of their control has done this to them. And I can imagine that gets exhausting for physicians – who where I live are WILDLY overworked in hospitals/clinics that are understaffed. So I can see WHY it happens… but it shouldn’t.
@Meghan, not to scare you, but have you had an MRI? I had a meningioma, a non-cancerous brain tumor, roughly behind my eye and one of the symptoms was facial pain and numbness because it affected that nerve. Just a thought since you said it’s still undiagnosed.
In my book, casual weed use is part of the coin you complain about. Not so serious, not so addictive, but come on. People relying on alcohol or weed are also using.
Her husband currently tries to sell the house he lived in with his other woman Sharina Hudson.
Good for her if true but it does not seem to be changing her mean spirited tabloid persona. She has lot of problems and drug addiction is only one of them. I wish her well but will never support her tv program.
This sounds like an attention grab for her foundation. Recovery is not glamorous, recovery is hard and can be messy and you go to meetings in sweats and nasty hair because it takes all you have to just stay clean and get to that meeting. All the sober living houses in my area are same sex only because a big part of your first year of recovery is to focus on yourself and not on the opposite sex and from what she says it sounds like she is the only woman in this house?
I applaud any person seeking help for their addiction, I myself have a more 18 months clean, and if she is truly struggling then I sympathize and wish her luck and strength.
That’s because she isn’t telling the whole truth. She was trying to beat The Daily Fail’s release of the info that she’s living in a Sober house away from her family. They published it the same day she “confessed”.
It’s a long story starting with a leak months ago that her husband had both a house for his mistress blocks from their house and has keeping two households. Then all of a sudden Wendy shows up on camera with a broken arm, reports of physical abuse by her husband. Husband sends the mistress off to her family, sells the mistress house and Wendy disappears from her show for months.
Putting two and two together, there might have been some confrontation between Wendy and her hubby or mistress leading to her relapse and she has been in rehab these past months. Other people were hosting her show including Nick Cannon.
She came back recently but refused to address the rumors of possible spousal abuse, she only said she is NEVERleaving her husband. Then this week, the shoe drops from the Daily Fail about her living in a Sober house (relapse). I feel bad for her and wish she would be truthful and get real help away from her husband.
Agreed. I am happy in part to hear that she’s in the sober house because it gets her away from the husband and his abuse. I wonder if that’s one reason why she did it (among many other reasons including sobriety but also media). I felt relieved when I heard she was on such a regimented healing program away from home. Their child just went away to school–praying that he gets the help he needs from years of growing up in such an abusive situation–and the husband with the mistress and his physical and mental abuse of her for years to the point even his own mother said Wendy’s being abused and to get away from him. If your own mother turns you in, that’s when the shit is bad. I just hope she can stay with that sober facility, gain the strength she needs to divorce him and get security to keep him away, and find a way to build a new life. It will be hard because her entire persona is wrapped up in him and because she has suffered so many years of abuse that she still supports him, but if she could get a real fresh start, maybe…. Others have done it, maybe she can, too…
I love Wendy and her show. I feel like her husband is the source of many of her issues. Sounds to me like he pushed her and that’s how she fractured her shoulder.
The day she came back she defended Michael Jackson and R.Kelly. F her.
What? Yeah, done with her. She used to call R.Kelly out, even when she did her radio show, especially about Ayliliah.
I don’t know what Lucy is talking about re: R. Kelly. Wendy was in the documentary about R. Kelly’s abuse. She’s not a defender of him. So many celebs refused to comment for the doc, and she was one of the few who did. On her show, I remember her saying that he couldn’t read, so he’s probably signed some questionable contracts. I don’t think that’s a defense.
As for Michael, yes, she did say she didn’t believe his accusers. But she’s not alone. Jackson’s family has done a good job of character assassination on the accusers, especially Wade Robson, saying his accusations started after the estate refused to give him a high-profile gig. So, maybe she’s siding with the Jackson fam.
I may not be hearing her really acknowledging that she is having a relaps. I hear her talking about living at a sober house to help her brothers and sisters who are suffering from addiction and she and Kevin is working to help others. She goes to meetings all around town to help others. She talked about dressing glamorous and people don’t know who she is, but she’s helping people with addictions all around the world. She mentioned she had a cocaine addiction years ago. She did mention her sober coach who is with her 24 hrs a day, did not mentioned she has a alcohol and pill
problem that caused her to get help. Btw, a sober coach 24 hrs a day is very
serious problem.
IMO, she cried and was not totally truthful. It was reported she was caught going to the sober
house and that was the reason she is telling her truth, if she was not caught
we would have never hear about this. Anyway, hope she faces her demons, Kevin, be truthful and have a speedy recovery, one day at a time.
I noticed that too, and she may not be ready to admit that, but is in the process of accepting that herself. I had the exact same thought. Someone who had been sober for years just doesn’t get a sober coach and love in a sober house for solidarity.
Yeah I was so confused about her statement and living with smelly boys (thought it was Kev and little Kev) until I got linked to the DailyMail article and saw the Black blog posts. She purposefully was obtuse in her confession, avoiding the words relapse, pain meds, and alcohol. That’s leaving out being AWAL from her show for months, the signs of abuse and her husband’s side-chick going underground.
All these open secrets she refuses to admit to are killing her. She doesn’t seem to have many close female friends to seek help from. And she has been surviving because the mainstream tabloids aren’t interested enough. Until the Dailyfail…
I used to LOVE Wendy. It was like gossiping with a girlfriend and it was the fluff I needed when the day was long and hard. However and maybe this is dramatic, but after the election and my heartbreak. It became evident that Wendy is a misogynist. She constantly takes the side of the abuses in stories like Johnny Depp, makes comments about women, it just rubbed me the wrong way and I couldn’t watch her anymore after picking up on that. Someone here said she defended Michae Jackson and R Kelly the day she came back and that doesn’t surprise me one bit. And the way she she puts her head in the sand regarding her cheating husband. Ugh. I used to like her so much.
HI Mindy_dopple
I noticed that too!
Wendy regularly defends men who are accused of abusing women, and she often puts down women who accuse men of abuse.
I find that Wendy often defends abusers with sly jokes, or she alludes to knowing more of the truth than the rest of us. She often remarks that there are many women who make false abuse accusations. Sometimes she has a sympathetic tone in her voice for victims, and softens her statements by saying that women need to learn to stick up for themselves. But women are sticking up for themselves; the problem is with the abusers. She even suggested that Kiki Palmer had made false claims when she interviewed Kiki on her show.
It’s difficult, because on other topics Wendy is often funny and charming, and willing to entertain differences of opinion, but not on this topic.
After I noticed this I stopped watching as often, even though I generally like her.
I love Wendy but I do agree with you guys on that point. But my mom is the same way. They were brainwashed growing up to believe that if women are attacked or abused, they caused it in some way. The focus is on the women to fix it, leave, etc. I was brought up in a conservative Christian atmosphere and they teach women to believe the women are responsible for men’s actions. For example, saying boys will be boys. They don’t say girls will be girls when they do something wrong, the adults make the women take all the responsibility. Well, you were dressed like a bimbo. He probably thought you wanted it, etc etc. The man is the head of the household. But he’s at the mercy of his penis! *facepalm* it’s the upbringing/generation. Unfortunately we can’t change them.
“Nobody knew because I look so glamorous out here.“
Ha! Sure, Jan. Glamorous is the last adjective that comes to mind with this mean spirited bully. Also, blonde is not her color.
I think everyone knew when she passed out or nearly passed out on her Halloween show last year. 🥴
I Think she did think cause Dailymail did another “expose”on her & I think she wanted to her this story before they did,nonetheless many people will hopefully benefit from this story.And I fully agree that her husband is the cause of many things going on in her life,but she’s sticking with him Sooooooo🤷🏼♀️
I think her personal life is such a mess, with her cheating husband, coupled with a high pressure job that I’m not surprised she self-medicates with drugs.
She needs to dump that leech of a husband or she will always be a prisoner of her mind and addictions
She had the nerve to do the late great Whitney Houston so dirty because of her addiction.
This is really sweet, I think. 🙂 IDK, in some ways it’s like Wendy Williams is totally out of touch (who can afford a 24 hour sober coach? I wish I had one to help me with my internet addiction) and yet at the same time, she’s 100% real and really making friends with her pack of smelly boys in the sober house. I like this, it feels real to me. Godspeed, Wendy and the Lost Boys in the Sober House. 🙂
This was about covering her ass.She is not honest.She is not truthful.She is a miserable person who has mocked other people dealing with substance abuse.She is a pathetic hypocrite who tells women to leave their cheating husband while she gloats about her cheating,abusive husband. Today Charlamagne from The Breakfast Club says Kevin beats her.Hopefully she will leave him before she ends up dead.
Wendy, what stunt do you have scheduled for NEXT WEEK? I am really suspicious of this grab for headlines. She could have her own sober coach rather than taking up a much-needed bed at a sober house. I’m done with messy Wendy.
If I were struggling with addiction, an active addict’s advice line is the LAST place I’d call.