As news has swirled surrounding the health of Wendy Williams, 59, ahead of Lifetime's two-part documentary, the former radio host's niece Alex Finnie spoke out on Good Morning America about the state of her aunt.
Alex sat down with Deborah Roberts to discuss her aunt following an announcement from Wendy's care team that she had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia and primary progressive aphasia in 2023.
© Screenshot from Good Morning AmericaAs Deborah asked if Wendy's diagnosis made sense to her, Alex's sounded conflicted, as she conceded: "So what I will say is it does make sense that she definitely cognitively has some things that are off."
She then added: "But the aunt that I hear when I'm on the phone with her now, I don't hear that same Wendy."
Good Morning America interspersed the exclusive interview with clips from the documentary, set to be released on February 24 and 25. The clips exemplified Wendy's confusion as it showed she couldn't remember where she was and her driver suggested she might be "losing memory".
© NBCAnother clip saw Wendy crying as she said she missed her family.
Deborah went on to observe that some people might call the documentary exploitative, questioning whether Wendy has the capacity to consent to such a private look at her life.
Alex responded: "But I will say this first and foremost. My aunt is the executive producer of this documentary. And when I finally talked to her, I said to her 'Wendy, do you want to do this? You're clearly - the health, all of that has to be addressed. Is now the right time?'"
© Screenshot from Good Morning America"She said 'now is the perfect time. Because I want to take ownership of my story.'"
Wendy currently has a court appointed guardian responsible for her health and finances, who put the Wendy Williams Show host in a facility to deal with her cognitive decline back in 2023.
Her family reportedly don't know where she is physically, but Alex confirmed that she was able to speak to her and felt "comforted" by that.
"I haven't seen her in a really long time, but I'm finally talking to her regularly", she confirmed, adding: "Our conversations are beautiful."
