Williams, Wendy

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Wendy Williams

1964—

Radio and television personality, author, businesswoman

"Shock jock diva," "radio gossip guru," and "the biggest mouth in New York" are among the monikers that have been applied to radio host Wendy Williams. As she branched out into television and publishing Williams proclaimed herself "queen of all media." Her tell-all memoirs made the New York Times bestsellers list. As of 2007 her syndicated SupeRadio program The Wendy Williams Experience was reaching 12 million listeners daily.

Throughout her 20-year radio career Wendy Williams courted controversy. Her brash blend of celebrity gossip, fashion, social commentary, and romantic advice earned her a broad base of devoted fans. She was famous for grilling celebrities on their drug use and sexual proclivities and her on-air interviews sometimes escalated into major blowups. Williams preached morality, family values, nutrition, fitness, and financial responsibility, while talking about her own ten-year cocaine addiction, her date-rape by an R&B singer, her abortion, miscarriages, and multiple plastic surgeries.

Grew Up a Suburban Misfit

Born on July 18, 1964, and raised in the upper-middle-class Wayside area of Ocean Township, New Jersey, Wendy Williams was an unlikely candidate for celebrity. Her father, Thomas Williams, was a junior high school principal and college English teacher. Her mother Shirley also taught school. One of only four black children in her class, by the sixth grade Wendy weighed 149 pounds. Almost six feet tall, she never attended a prom. She told Steve Fishman of New York magazine in 2005: "I was the thing that did not fit in my family." Alone in her room Wendy read the National Enquirer and "Dear Abby" and watched Divorce Court on television. She graduated at the bottom of her high school class just as her sister Wanda was graduating from law school.

But Wendy Williams could talk. During high school she announced for her younger brother Tommy's Little League games. She told Fishman: "The best thing that could have happened to me was I found that microphone." Williams talked her way into Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, planning to become a television newscaster. She began her career by reading the news on the college radio station. One day the disc jockey didn't show up. Williams took over and soon she had a regular on-air shift. Some afternoons she took the train to New York City just to hear her favorite disc jockeys. Williams interned at WXKS in Boston, where she plotted how to get the morning DJ's attention. She told Billboard Radio Monitor in 2005: "I didn't want to be like all the other interns; I wanted to be the queen of all interns. So, I'd get up at 3 a.m. so I could make it to the station before Matt [Siegel]'s show got started at 5:30 a.m." Soon Siegel had her on the air reviewing the evening's television programming. She told Fishman: "Virtually everything in my life I have plotted on to get it. Nothing has happened by fluke."

Williams graduated with a degree in communications and a minor in journalism. Her first job was at a tiny radio station in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Friends and family were horrified that she would take such a low-paying job in such a far-off place and Williams was miserable, but she saw it as the first step in her career. After less than a year she moved to an "oldies" station in Washington, D.C.

Fired by "Hot 97"

After stints at WQHT and WPLJ in New York City, Williams was hired as a fill-in at WRKS-FM, KISS 98.7. When rival station WBLS began hiring staff away from KISS, Williams was given the morning show with a non-compete-clause. Although it was her first job playing the music that she liked, Williams soon morphed into a radio personality, telling stories and gossiping about the intimate lives of rap stars. The following year her evening show hit number one in the ratings and her career took off. In 1993 Williams was accused of making inflammatory remarks that transformed a private dispute between rap groups into a public feud that threatened to turn violent. Concerned for her safety, Williams stopped going to hip-hop events, but she cultivated a system of moles—friends, listeners, hotel and airport workers—to keep her informed.

In 1995, after Emmis Broadcasting bought KISS and switched its format to classic soul, Williams moved back to WQHT, which had become the Emmis hip-hop station Hot 97. That year Williams repeated rumors that rapper Tupac Shakur had been raped in prison. In his song "Why U Wanna Turn On Me?" released after his death in 1996, Shakur hurled obscenities at Williams.

The circumstances of Williams's 1998 firing were disputed. The station claimed she was fired for fighting with a coworker and "outing" gay rap musicians on her Web site. Williams blamed hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, "Puffy," for her firing. Her fans staged protests and Williams took the station to court.

Contractually prevented from working in New York, Williams moved to the Philadelphia hip-hop station WUSL-FM. A motorcade brought her to the city's "Love Statue" and publicly "married" her to her co-hosts. She took the station from the bottom to the top of the ratings among 18-34-year-olds. Williams married her manager, Kevin Hunter, in 1999. The following year, bedridden with a difficult pregnancy, Williams broadcast her show from her home.

Launched The Wendy Williams Experience

In 2001 WBLS lured Williams back to New York. The Wendy Williams Experience debuted in 2003 and went into syndication. Williams also began hosting On the Down Lo, a daily entertainment and gossip feature that was nationally syndicated on American Urban Radio Networks. In her book The Wendy Williams Experience she wrote: "Scandals, gossip, innuendos, rumors—we love it all! We love it because it takes us out of our own reality. It gives us an opportunity to look at somebody else's problems and know that we are not alone." Her 2003 interview with Blu Cantrell, in which she questioned the R&B singer about her sex life and drug abuse, became a bonus DVD on Cantrell's Bittersweet album. After a 2003 interview with Judge Greg Mathis of the Judge Mathis show, Williams was hit with a gag order preventing her from ever re-broadcasting or discussing the interview.

At a Glance …

Born Wendy Williams on July 18, 1964, in New Jersey; married Kevin Hunter, 1999; children: Kevin Samuel. Education: Northeastern University, BA, communications, 1986.

Career: Matt Siegel Morning Show, WXKS, Boston, MA, intern; WVIS, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, disc jockey, 1986-87; WOL-AM, Washington, DC, disc jockey, 1987; WQHT-FM, New York City, disc jockey, 1987-89(?), radio personality, 1995-98; WPLJ-FM, New York City, disc jockey, 1989-90(?); WRKS-FM, New York City, radio personality, 1990-95; WUSL-FM, Philadelphia, PA, radio personality, 1998-2001; WBLS-FM, New York City, radio personality, 2001-03, The Wendy Williams Experience, host, 2003-; American Urban Radio Networks, On the Down Lo, host, 2003-; author of fiction and nonfiction, 2003-; VH1, Wendy Williams Is on Fire, host, 2003, The Wendy Williams Experience, host, 2006-.

Awards: Billboard Magazine, Best On-Air Radio Personality, 1993; Black Radio Exclusive, Radio Personality of the Year; Radio and Records Magazine, Urban Personality of the Year, 2000.

Addresses: Office—WBLS-FM, 3 Park Ave #41, New York, NY, 10016.

It was Williams's 2003 telephone interview with pop star Whitney Houston that first brought her national attention. Confronted about her alleged drug use and marriage to Bobby Brown, Houston accused Williams of "going too deep." Williams told Houston that her breast implants looked like "two baseballs on a stick." The women got into a shouting match. Williams told the New York Times: "That interview was number 19 on the E! Network's 100 most shocking moments. I beat out Richard Pryor setting himself on fire."

Williams never let herself off the hook. She bragged about her breast implants, liposuctions, and tummy tucks. She talked about her husband's infidelity. Williams told the Philadelphia Weekly: "When you're so judgmental, and I am, people say, ‘Well, nobody's perfect. What the hell is going on in your damn life?’ So I chose to share some very intimate things."

Moved into Other Media

Simon & Schuster employees contacted Williams after hearing her say on the radio that she wanted to do a book. In Wendy's Got the Heat Williams wrote about her struggles with her weight and with drugs and her experiences with racism and sexism. Her second book featured celebrity interviews, anecdotes, and "scandalocity." Williams coined the term "Negroidian" to describe the flagrant spending of hip-hop artists. One particularly cynical chapter entitled "BMs (Baby's Mamas)" advised women who wanted a celebrity's baby: "Get pregnant by someone who has a future. Get the goodies in your name!"

Williams began appearing on television and had a small part in the 2004 Queen Latifah film The Cookout. Williams and her husband produced Wendy Williams Brings the Heat, a compilation of rap and hip-hop recording artists. Following a series of specials, Wendy Williams Is On Fire, on the cable network VH1, her late-night reality TV series, The Wendy Williams Experience, debuted on October 20, 2006.

That year Williams published the first in a series of novels featuring her alter-ego, DJ Ritz Harper. Williams told Essence in 2006: "Ritz and I have a lot in common. That competitive do-anything-to-succeed kind of hunger that drives her? I totally identify with that." Readers were left hanging until the sequel appeared in 2007.

In 2007 a limited edition of 1,000 "Wendy Williams Contribution Smart T" tee shirts was launched, in Williams's favorite color—hot pink. Sales benefited the "What Smart Girls Know" campaign promoting positive change and healthy choices. However Williams, WBLS, and its owner, Inner City Broadcasting, remained the focus of protests by groups who considered Williams's programming to be inappropriate and offensive.

Entered Business

Williams told Essence in 2004: "Half of me believes that I have a great deal of power and that I wield it well. The other half knows that it's all an illusion because this is a male-dominated industry and I'm a little girl trying to make my way…For a long time I've been faking the confidence that I finally own. That confidence comes from being able to walk out tomorrow and leave it all and know that I'll get hired somewhere else. I'm fearless, not because I have a million dollars to sit back on, but because I finally believe in my own power and worth."

Williams incorporated as Question Mark Entertainment and in 2006 became part owner and spokesperson for The House of Georges Vesselle champagne. Williams told the AllHipHop Web site: "This is for our son. This is that ride out to the sunset…. I thought my books were going to be my ride out…or maybe if I ever got a television show where I'm amassing a fortune…. I never in my wildest dreams thought that my ride out—our ride out, as a family, would be liquor, much less a fine champagne." That same year Williams signed an endorsement deal with Alizé liqueurs for a national advertising campaign and launched a promotional tour.

In 2006 Williams told Essence: "I'm a Black woman in a man's world, and the financial validation is only just now starting to catch up to my popularity. No matter what, a woman has got to fight. We make 75 cents for every dollar a man rakes in. It's not fair!"