Former talkshow host takes public her battle to remove her guardian, ordered by a court due to dementia and aphasia

The note dropped from the upper floor window of an assisted living facility in New York on the morning of 10 March contained a simple message: “Help! Wendy!!” it read.

For any patient inside, it would have been tragic. But, astonishingly, the writer of this note was Wendy Williams, a trailblazing television talkshow host and once one of the most recognizable daytime TV faces in America.

While half the nation pays attention to Donald Trump, the other half, it seems, is fixated on Williams, who has been under a court-ordered conservatorship since 2022 and whose clear struggles with her illness are captivating – and shocking – the US.

Williams, 60, wants to be released from her conservatorship, which she claims is similar to one that Britney Spears was place under, and has maintained in several interviews that she is “not cognitively impaired” as she was diagnosed to be two years ago.