A new complaint filed by Wendy Williams’ guardian slams A&E Television Networks claiming the legendary TV host was only paid $82,000 from her Lifetime documentary while Lifetime made millions.
According to PEOPLE, Wendy Williams’ guardian Sabrina Morrissey, filed a lawsuit in the New York Supreme Court on Monday (September 16), about seven months after Lifetime premiered Williams’ shocking documentary ‘Where Is Wendy Williams?’ — which explored the famed TV star’s life under guardianship. The defendants include Lifetime’s parent company, A&E Television Networks, Lifetime Entertainment Services, EOne Productions, Creature Films, and its executive producer Mark Ford.
The documentary, which aired on February 24 and 25, was also shown after Williams’ guardian unsuccessfully asked the courts to prohibit it from going to air. Morrisey’s 75-page complaint in part read, “As is patently obvious from the very first few minutes of the Program itself, W.W.H. [Wendy Williams Hunter] was highly vulnerable and clearly incapable of consenting to be filmed, much less humiliated and exploited.”
It continued, “When the Guardian discovered that Defendants’ true intentions were to portray W.W.H. in a highly demeaning and embarrassing manner, she immediately sought to protect and to preserve her dignity. But the defendants fought to move ahead… without a valid contract and released without the Guardian’s consent.”
Morrisey’s complaint also stated that the network and defendants took advantage of Williams and should therefore pay her for her medical care and supervision for the rest of her life.
As we previously shared, since May 2022, Williams has been living under a legal court-ordered guardianship that oversees her health and finances. For the past year and four months, she’s also been living in an unknown facility to that her cognitive issues since being diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia in May 2023.
Morrisey’s complaint stated, “Not surprisingly, the public reacted with disgust and revulsion at Defendants’ blatant and vicious exploitation of W.W.H. By willfully taking advantage of a severely impaired, incapacitated person, Defendants have made millions on W.W.H.’s back, while W.W.H. has received a paltry $82,000 [from the documentary].”
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The complaint continued, “This case arises from the brutally calculated, deliberate actions of powerful and cravenly opportunistic media companies working together with a producer to knowingly exploit W.W.H., an acclaimed African-American entertainer who, tragically, suffers from dementia and, as a result, has become cognitively impaired, permanently disabled, and legally incapacitated. Eager to sensationalize and profit from W.W.H.’s cognitive and physical decline, Defendants took advantage of W.W.H. in the cruelest, most obscene way possible for their own financial gain, in a manner that truly shocks the conscience.”
Morrisey’s complaint further alleged that “the defendants not only deliberately destroyed [Williams’] credibility and image,” but they also did it for financial gain. It was noted that Williams was the “laughingstock and drunkard implicitly responsible for her own continued suffering” and that handfuls of photos of her in a wheelchair with her legs spread went viral, along with images of her on camera with a nearly bald head — all things she would have “never, ever consented and allowed.”
In a statement to PEOPLE, Kaplan Martin LLP and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, attorneys for Wendy Williams’ guardian stated, “As our complaint shows in painful and excruciating detail, A&E, Lifetime and Mark Ford viciously and shamelessly exploited Wendy Williams for their own profit while she was obviously incapacitated and suffering from dementia. Their behavior truly shocks the conscience, and they should not be permitted to profit from her suffering. We are proud to represent her guardian in holding them accountable.”
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