Wendy Williams defiantly went out to dinner again in New York Saturday – days after her assisted living facility called the police on her restaurant outing with her niece.
The 60-year-old presenter has been waging in a public battle against her guardianship, which she claims is so restrictive she feels ‘like I am in prison.’
In a dramatic new development this Wednesday, Coterie – the center where she lives – filed a report with the NYPD claiming that Williams’ niece Alex Finnie evaded staff by taking the TV star out of the building to eat out at an Italian restaurant.
‘Clearly, they are lying to me when they say I can go out and do what I want to do,’ Williams told TMZ during the excursion.
When she returned from dinner to the Coterie on Wednesday, Williams, who suffers from Graves’ disease and lymphedema, was seen on a mobility scooter.
She used the same mode of transportation when she was spotted this weekend heading to the Italian restaurant Tucci in Manhattan.
Wendy Williams defiantly went out to dinner again in New York Saturday (pictured) – days after her assisted living facility called the police on her restaurant outing with her niece
Williams appeared in bright spirits on Saturday, wearing full makeup and a glamorous outfit that included a fur-trimmed coat and a Chanel bag and boots.
When Coterie called the police on Williams’ dinner outing with Finnie on Wednesday, both women seized on the incident as an example of how excessively confining the guardianship had allegedly become.
In an interview she gave alongside her aunt that evening, Alex said: ‘I’m wondering how exactly that correlates with the statements that the guardian [Sabrina Morrissey] has made [Wednesday] that Wendy is able to come and go as she pleases and that there are no family visits that are blocked.’
Wendy has repeatedly claimed she can only leave the fifth floor memory unit with permission aka an attendant unlocking the elevator, which is reportedly what happened Wednesday night.
Morrissey, 60, an elder law attorney, was originally appointed by a Manhattan judge in 2022 after Williams’ ex-manager Bernie Young reportedly raised concerns that she was of ‘unsound mind,’ which also led to Wells Fargo freezing her bank accounts.
That same judge declared the former talk show host legally incapacitated last August – a year after she was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, but she sounded a lot like her old self in recent interviews as well as the Tubi documentary Saving Wendy.
‘She is in great shape mentally and physically,’ Wendy’s younger brother Tommy Williams told Us Weekly on Wednesday. ‘Let her out.’
The Paradise Boat Tours staffer was relieved after Williams went to Lenox Hill Hospital on Monday to have an independent psychiatrist conduct a cognitive test on her, which she passed with ‘flying colors.’
She used a mobility scooter when she was spotted this weekend heading to the Italian restaurant Tucci in Manhattan – just as she had during Wednesday’s outing
Williams suffers from Graves’ disease and lymphedema
Williams appeared in bright spirits on Saturday, wearing full makeup and a glamorous outfit that included a fur-trimmed coat and a Chanel bag and boots
‘Now she has some direction and understanding of her functional abilities and cognizant abilities,’ Tommy said.
‘It’s a win for Wendy, a big one. And she did it herself. It also shows she is fluid with her thoughts and actions.’
Williams added: ‘It’s a wait and see. We want to root Wendy on. We watch and listen and cheer her on. And we are praying.’
The New Jersey native and her caregiver – Connect Care Advisory Group founder Ginalia Monterrosa – are scheduled to speak with the ladies of ABC’s The View via phone call this Friday.
The 60-year-old elder law attorney was originally appointed by a Manhattan judge in 2022 after Williams’ ex-manager Bernie Young reportedly raised concerns that she was of ‘unsound mind,’ which also led to Wells Fargo freezing her bank accounts
The former talk show host’s younger brother Tommy Williams (R, posted December 20) told Us Weekly on Wednesday: ‘She is in great shape mentally and physically. Let her out’
The Paradise Boat Tours staffer was relieved after Wendy went to Lenox Hill Hospital on Monday (pictured) to have an independent psychiatrist conduct a cognitive test on her, which she passed with ‘flying colors’
Tommy said: ‘Now she has some direction and understanding of her functional abilities and cognizant abilities. It’s a win for Wendy, a big one. And she did it herself. It also shows she is fluid with her thoughts and actions’ (pictured in 2022)
Williams and her caregiver – Connect Care Advisory Group founder Ginalia Monterrosa – are scheduled to speak with the ladies of ABC’s The View via phone call this Friday
‘She is letting the public know it is unfair, it is unjust. She doesn’t need to be in a guardianship. She is not incapacitated. She will continue to voice her opinion,’ Monterrosa told Us.
‘We’d love for her to be in an unrestrictive environment — even at another facility — where she has freedom to come in and out, see her friends, people can call her, she can have an iPad, she can use a two-way phone — not just [a] one way [phone].
‘[She has] the freedom to go to the store and supermarket, to go to the gym, to have a life and the things we take for granted.’
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