REVEALED: Ailing Wendy Williams' Signed A Six-Figure Deal For 'Demeaning' Lifetime Documentary Exposed in Guardian's Unsealed Lawsuit
March 15 2024, Published 3:00 p.m. ET
Talk show queen Wendy Williams was promised less than a half-million dollars for the disturbing Lifetime documentary slammed as exploitive by critics and fans, RadarOnline.com can exclusively reveal.
Court documents revealed the 59-year-old was supposed to be paid $100,000 per episode in the four-part documentary that shamelessly showed the beloved star in the confusing throes of dementia.
The payment plan was laid bare in an 18-page contract Wendy allegedly signed in early 2023 shortly before she was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia – the crippling ailment that ended the film career of action hero Bruce Willis.
RadarOnline.com can also reveal the ‘How You Doin’ media mogul was also given a daily $1,000 stipend to “glam” her up for the hard-to-watch documentary Where is Wendy Williams?
“Producer shall pay Artist a fee of One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00) per shoot day that is pre-approved by Producers that glam is required for the shoot day, as a reimbursement for all of Artist's and Artist's associate's, hair and makeup,” the contract stated.
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, William’s court-ordered guardian Sabrina Morrissey questioned the validity of the contract in a bombshell lawsuit against Lifetime’s parent company A&E Networks Television, LLC
Morrissey claimed the gossip queen didn’t know what she was signing and would not have wanted the world to see her disorientated, under the influence, and “in an obviously disabled state,” the court documents showed.
"She was not, and is not, capable of consenting to the terms of the documentary Contract,” stated the explosive lawsuit Morrissey filed last month in New York Supreme Court in a failed attempt to prevent the documentary from airing.
“And no one acting in [Wendy’s] best interest would allow her to be portrayed in the demeaning manner in which she is portrayed in the Trailer for the documentary.”
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What’s more, Morrissey alleged the producers told Wendy she would be portrayed “in a positive manner like a phoenix rising from the ashes,” according to court documents.
The series, which eventually aired on February 24 and 25, ignited a raging social media firestorm critical of the producers who showed the gossip guru in cognitive decline, along with invasive close-up shots of her deformed feet due to lymphedema which caused a thickening of the skin.
"If we’d known she had dementia, no one would’ve rolled a camera,” one of the producers told The Hollywood Reporter.