Photo Credit: Wendy Williams/Instagram
Wendy Williams has had a rocky year with her very public and embarrassing divorce from her philandering husband and longtime manager Kevin Hunter but celebrating receiving a Hollywood Star Thursday made for one of those better days. This has been thirty years in the making with her beginning radio in 1989, entering the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2009 and enjoying the last decade on television, she is now getting her just dues yet again earning the 2,677th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Joined by Jack Abernethy, CEO of Fox TV stations and radio host Elvis Duran to give words about Wendy along with Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell all to celebrate her epic career. Now we’ve grown used to seeing bouts of crying from Wendy lately when discussing either keeping her family together raising her son to TMZ amid her divorce or being grateful for those supporting her or her time in sober living, so she tried her best to not start that again yesterday.
“If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry, so I’ll keep it light and laughter-y,” Williams said as she took the podium to accept her honor, choking back tears all the same. “Jack and Elvis and Mitch and people have said throughout the day … I’m successful because I’ve done things my way. No, not exactly. It’s because I’m a good listener to advice, and if I don’t like the advice, then I do things my way.”
Naming some of her talk show inspirations such as Mike Douglas and Dinah Shore, she talked about her unlikely career in television saying, “I did not know I would be a talk-show host, but I liked the chit-chat; I’ve always liked the chit-chat. When they told me, ‘It’s going to be a live talk show,’ I was frightened — frightened. Doing it by myself, I had no problem with because most of my career I’ve been by myself. Even in a room full of a thousand people, I always feel like the person who doesn’t belong.”
And the obvious topic to discuss still remains her divorce, to which she said, “The elephant in the room is that I’ve been having a very, very tough year, but slowly but surely I’m climbing out of the pit, and this is one of those monumental days that makes me say, ‘If you don’t believe in yourself, who’s going to believe in you?’” she said while simultaneously breaking her no crying rule for the day. “Sometimes life is a very, very lonely path, and you’ve just got to make some hard decisions.”
But the amazing thing about watching Wendy these days is her evolution. I remember watching her for a minute in front of my boyfriend last year who made the snap judgment that she didn’t seem to care about what she was talking about and I said he was right. I started watching more as I hadn’t for a little while and the news reports confirmed that she was going through something which may have been the cause of her disposition that day. The difference is that she’s legitimately happy these days. She’s excited to talk about her new social life, dating, meeting people and celebrities come on her show congratulating her on pulling through all the time. And speaking of her new life, when asked by TMZ if she had any words for eligible bachelors out there interested in her, she said just make sure you have “Good conversation and a heavy credit card.” Not bad, Wendy. Not bad.
“My personal life has been better than ever, you know, all things considered. I’ve got love. I’ve got my family. I’ve got loyal staffers at ‘Wendy,’ who aren’t just there because it’s a paycheck, like, we love each other. You know, I’ve got great bosses at FOX. What gets better than [CEO of FOX Television Stations] Jack Abernethy coming out of his office to talk about me?”
The Wendy Williams Show has been renewed through 2022 so we’ve still got more Wendy to enjoy for the foreseeable future.
