Wendy Williams Once Shared She Couldn’t Be Fired From ‘The Wendy Williams Show’ Due to Ratings

Wendy Williams was the voice of her iconic talk show The Wendy Williams Show for 13 years. But after her medical and substance abuse issues, many wondered if the New York native might’ve been stable enough for TV. 

‘The Wendy Williams Show’ would’ve gotten canned if it wasn’t for the show’s success

Williams has experienced substance abuse issues for a long time. In her early years, climbing up the ladder as a radio host, she succumbed to cocaine addiction. It started out as a means to help her cope with the long working hours of her career. But it soon turned into a secret habit that she found hard to kick.

“I was a functioning addict. I’d work from 3 in the afternoon until 7 at night, get off and party until 7 in the morning — then sleep until 2, go to the radio station and do it all over again,” she once told In Touch. “People around me knew, but nobody ever said anything to me. Nobody had the guts, which is shocking to me.”

Williams asserted that her husband at the time was the main motivator behind her kicking her addiction.

“I never had [a breaking point]. Right around my 30th birthday, I met my [future] husband. The habit was not breaking me, so I could’ve gone on and on, except I was falling in love with this guy,” she said.

Still, it seemed Williams would go back to her old habits at the height of her career. While hosting The Wendy Williams Show, Williams went back to her routine as a functional addict. This, coupled with her medical issues, were apparent to her team backstage. It’d gotten to the point where Williams knew if it wasn’t for the show’s success, she would’ve been fired.

“I was a functioning addict though. I report to work on time, and I’d walk in and all my co-workers, including my bosses, would know but since I would have my headphones on and walk in the studio and [they] wouldn’t fire me because I was making ratings,” she once told Entertainment Tonight (via Female First).

Wendy Williams had trouble realizing that ‘The Wendy Williams Show’ was canceled

Williams’ health and substance abuse issues eventually continued to have negative consequences for her show. Audiences famously saw what Williams had been going through live when they saw her faint in the middle of an episode. Eventually, Williams’ issues led to The Wendy Williams Show being on hiatus. The series’ executive producers pulled the plug on the show after her prolonged absence.

Despite the show’s cancellation being made public, Williams still had trouble grasping that the series was finished. Executive producer Ira Bernstein had to remind Williams multiple times that the show wasn’t coming back.

“I said, ‘We haven’t heard from you, and we had to make a decision.’ We should have made one in November, but we pushed it to January or February, and by then, it was like, ‘Make a decision or lose the time period,’” Bernstein once recalled to The Hollywood Reporter. 

Williams would still try to see if she could work something out with the producers.

“She said, ‘Well, what’s going to air at 10 o’clock?’ I told her, ‘Sherri’s going to air at 10 o’clock.’ ‘So, can I go on at 11?’ I said, ‘We’d love to work with you, and there are lots of ways and lots of buyers, but you need to come back, and we need to know that you’re OK. You can’t just call after nine months and say, ‘I’m ready,’” Bernstein said.

Williams would have this same conversation multiple times, but she couldn’t produce proof that she was healthy enough to run the show.

“We said, ‘Wendy, we need to have a diagnosis from a doctor — whether it’s the TV stations or a network or a new producer, anyone who’s going to do business with you, after you didn’t show up for a year, needs to know that you’re OK. [Without that assurance,] no one’s going to risk money or finance things,’” producer Mort Marcus recalled. “Unfortunately for Wendy, the happiest moments in her life were on TV. She said to me once, at a Christmas party, ‘You know when I’m happiest? 10 a.m., Monday to Friday,’ and she was great at it. There are probably six or eight people in the world who can do it, and she’s one of them, and I believe that if there was a piece of paper that said, ‘No problem, she’s all good,’ she wouldn’t hesitate to show it.” 

Today, Williams is getting treatment for her severe cognitive issues.

How to get help: In the U.S., contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration helpline at 1-800-662-4357.