Wendy Williams (born July 18, 1964, Asbury Park, New Jersey, U.S.) is an American talk-show host, producer, and author who began her career in radio and later used the popularity she garnered from her radio show, The Wendy Williams Experience, to segue into daytime television in 2008 with The Wendy Williams Show. She is known in particular for confrontational interviews with her celebrity guests and outspoken commentary.
Williams attended Northeastern University in Boston, graduating in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in communications. She began to work in radio in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, before moving back to the mainland United States. By the mid-1990s she had an established career as a radio disc jockey in New York City, playing hip-hop music and boldly interviewing music celebrities. In 1998, however, she was fired, perhaps partly because of her outspokenness. She spent a few years working in Philadelphia before returning to New York City and gaining popularity with her nationally broadcast daily radio show, The Wendy Williams Experience. Williams was noted for her tough, brash talk and shock-value personal disclosures, including regarding her past drug addiction, plastic surgery, and fertility struggles. Her show attracted an audience of more than 12 million listeners.
In 2008 Williams debuted a new talk show on television, The Wendy Williams Show, for a trial run. On it she interviewed celebrities, gossiped, gave advice, and answered questions concerning sex and relationships. With the same confrontational style that won her millions of fans on the radio, she grilled her guests, unmercifully at times. Williams ended her radio show that same year. In 2009 The Wendy Williams Show was picked up by Fox television for a full season of daily shows, and Black Entertainment Television (BET) began broadcasting the show at night. By 2010 Williams had emerged as one of the top female hosts on daytime television.
In 2011 Williams and Kevin Hunter, her husband, were executive producers for the game show Love Triangle; Williams was also the host of the show. That same year she again increased her popularity when she competed on the reality show Dancing with the Stars. She subsequently served as a judge and a contestant on other reality shows, appeared in several films, and produced documentaries. In 2013 she appeared in the Broadway musical Chicago in the role of Matron (“Mama”) Morton.
In 2018 Williams, dealing with Graves disease, was forced to take a short break from her show for the first time since it began airing on Fox. She later faced flare-ups of the condition but managed to continue her work. In addition to her television career, Williams is the author of several books, including Wendy’s Got the Heat (2003), The Wendy Williams Experience (2004), and Ask Wendy (2013). Among her other pursuits, she sold a line of accessories through the QVC television home shopping network. In 2015 she designed a fashion line.