Wendy Williams, the former daytime talk show host, is the focus of an explosive documentary that some critics are calling exploitative.
In the new two-part Lifetime docuseries, “Where Is Wendy Williams,” the former host seems often disoriented and in one clip does not recognize her manager. In another scene, the same manager confronts her over empty liquor bottles found in her apartment.
One of those people, Shawn Zanotti, who is featured in the docuseries, slammed the producers behind it in an exclusive interview with NBC News.
“I felt that [Williams] was being exploited,” said Zanotti, who began working as Williams’ publicist in 2021. “She thought we were focusing on the comeback of her career. … She would be mortified. There’s no way you can convince me that she would be OK with looking and seeing herself in that way.”
Zanotti said she was first pitched the project by Creature Films and eOne Television in 2022. The same production company was behind another Lifetime documentary on the host’s life, “Wendy Williams: What a Mess!”
“When I mentioned [doing a documentary] to Wendy, she immediately said: ‘Yes, I would love to do it. I would love to be able to get my story out there,’” Zanotti said.
But what aired is not what Zanotti said was agreed upon.
“That is not the project that [Williams] signed up for. That’s not the project [the producers] brought to me. That’s not what I told her this was going to be about,” Zanotti said.
“There were a lot of good moments. None of those good moments were shown,” she added.
Just one day before the documentary aired, Williams’ management team announced in a statement that she is in a treatment facility, diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia. Zanotti, who has not spoken to Williams since she entered a treatment facility in April, said she is still employed as her publicist.
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