Wendy Williams’ Lifetime documentary is getting combined critiques.
Feb. 26 2024, Printed 7:08 p.m. ET
The producers behind the heartbreaking Wendy Williams Lifetime documentary are talking out, defending the selection to face by and movie the deteriorating star whereas admitting that whereas they have been involved about her wellbeing, they did not know the severity of her situation, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
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The place is Wendy Williams? is a four-part documentary that aired over the weekend and took over a 12 months to movie. The crew hoped to seize the previous beloved speak present host’s sober profession comeback however discovered that Williams’ state of affairs was extra dire than anybody anticipated.
Days earlier than the documentary debuted, Williams’ workforce issued a press launch asserting she was identified with main progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia, which impacts communication, cognitive perform, and language. Her court-ordered guardian additionally filed a lawsuit towards Lifetime’s mum or dad firm in a Hail Mary try to presumably stop the documentary from airing.
The famed gossip guru has been out of the limelight for the reason that cancellation of her present in 2022, following an earlier Graves illness prognosis and contracting COVID-19.
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The place is Wendy Williams?’ producer Mark Ford, government producer Erica Hanson, and Lifetime’s Brie Miranda Bryant agreed to a Zoom interview on Monday to face questions and issues surrounding the disturbing footage they filmed and aired.
Many critics questioned how the documentary’s workforce may sit again and watch Williams deteriorate.
“At a sure level, we have been extra anxious about what would occur if we stopped filming than if we continued,” Ford advised The Hollywood Reporter, with one of many three later claiming, “If we’d identified she had dementia, nobody would’ve rolled a digicam.” Nevertheless, at one level within the interview, Ford shared that his workforce wasn’t stunned to study of Williams’ medical prognosis.
“I don’t suppose it stunned us. In fact, we’re not medical professionals. However anybody watching the movie can see that there are indicators that have been there after which progressed quickly,” he mentioned.
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When Ford was requested in regards to the thought course of behind the undertaking, he responded that they have been “hopeful” the story “could be redeeming.”
“However as we filmed, it turned evident that this wasn’t actually going to be a profession comeback story, that this was going to be a deeper story, and that there was one thing in the end disturbing happening in Wendy’s life,” he shared.
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He additionally mentioned he believed she was prepared for digicam crews to be again on her “one hundred pc” however that derailed rapidly.
“The start of the movie was actually the event shoot, the place we went out and simply wished to sit down with Wendy and see how she was doing,” he defined. “Principally the story that was given to us after that day is that it was a foul day for Wendy and that alcohol had been concerned, and now she was going away [to a treatment facility] and she or he was going to get that beneath management. However this could by no means inhibit us from transferring ahead. And once we did come again, she was higher. She was sober and on a greater trajectory. And there have been conversations and plans for the podcast, and there have been folks being put in place to supply that podcast, and that was a storyline that we have been following. But it surely was derailed due to what we now know was the state of Wendy’s dementia.”
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Wendy’s alleged alcoholism was a scorching subject in the course of the four-part undertaking; nonetheless, she claimed she did not have a difficulty.
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When THR pushed again and insinuated that her decline was evident and taking place in real-time in entrance of them, Ford claimed, “It was robust each single day, and there have been conversations that we had, all of us, all through the documentary,” including, “We simply occurred to be there day-after-day seeing the truth of this example, and we simply put the digicam on it and captured it. There was no intention. And Brie was very supportive all through, as a result of we wanted to only let this documentary unfold and see the place it went. And also you actually see that within the movie.”
He continued to defend recording her erratic habits, saying they have been “very clear about our producers’ confusion. We’re asking all of those questions that everybody has right through. We don’t know this supervisor. It’s a brand new supervisor. We don’t know this publicist. It’s a brand new publicist. The guardian gained’t converse to us. And so we’re continually simply attempting to push ahead and get the data as filmmakers. Like, what is definitely happening right here?”
Ford mentioned that Williams liked the digicam a lot that they “have been extra anxious about what would occur to Wendy if we stopped filming then if we continued.”
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He mentioned worse footage exists and can by no means see the sunshine of day. Ford mentioned they’d Williams’ greatest curiosity at coronary heart; nonetheless, the workforce hasn’t spoken to her since filming wrapped in April and Wendy by no means acquired to preview the documentary earlier than it aired as a result of they do not know the place she is.
“We merely have had no method to get it to her to see it. No method to display screen it together with her, as a result of she’s locked down in a facility and we haven’t been in a position to converse to her since we wrapped filming. The final day that you just see us filming together with her is the final time we spoke to Wendy,” he mentioned.
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Ford later defined, “What you see within the documentary is the final time we ever spoke with Wendy. The workforce did return and verify on her a pair instances after filming stopped, however we couldn’t get into the condominium. After which we’ve been checking in together with her via her supervisor Will, who has spoken to her many instances within the ensuing months. And he echoes what you see within the documentary that she is sounding and doing higher, and she or he is getting the best care. In order that’s one factor that we’re very relieved about, that we left her in a greater place than we discovered her.”
Regardless of the combined critiques, Ford mentioned, “The doc may be very observational in its nature and simply captured the reality of what was taking place to Wendy and what the folks round her have been doing or not doing.”
RadarOnline.com has reached out to Will Shelby for remark.
In response to the guardian’s lawsuit, Ford acknowledged, “In the end, it’s a First Modification problem. No person ought to have the facility to quash Wendy’s voice, and her household’s voice. And fortunately the courts understood that that was an important factor, and the free press gained out right here.”