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Wendy Williams is facing stricter restrictions on her guardianship following her exposure of the living conditions of Coterie, the assisted living facility where she has been staying since 2023. TMZ reported on February 12, 2025, that Judge Lisa Sokoloff, who presides over Williams’ guardianship hearings, is reportedly displeased that the latter has been talking to the media.
In an email, reportedly, obtained by TMZ, Judge Sokoloff expressed that Williams had misused the freedom allotted to her:
"I have always contended that [Wendy] will be given the independence she can handle. I question how well she has handled the independence she has been given."
In another email to Williams’ lawyer, Sokoloff stated that if the former show host wanted a jury-based hearing, she would have to limit her interactions with the press:
"Tell your client that if she wants a jury, she should refrain from trying to poison the jury pool."
Even after Wendy Williams passed a mental competency test, the judge stated:
"The hospital wants to discharge her. Ms. Morrissey [the guardian] has facilities who, despite her behavior, are willing to assess her. She needs to go back to the Coterie until a new facility can be found."
In a TMZ-produced documentary about Williams's guardianship titled “Saving Wendy,” the 60-year-old television personality expressed that she felt like a prisoner in Coterie and had no access to internet services or phone calls and limited access to visitors. Williams is currently undergoing psychological evaluation at the Lenox Hill Hospital.
She was taken to the hospital following a viral photo where she held up a note through the windows of the Coterie facility that read, "Help! Wendy!!"
More details on Wendy Williams’ conservatorship
Wendy Williams' conservatorship began in 2022 after her bank, Wells Fargo, froze her accounts and petitioned the court for a third-party approved financial guardian. Her accounts were frozen by Wells Fargo after Williams’ financial advisor, Lori Schiller, reported that she was of “unsound mind.”
Schiller became concerned about financial exploitation, dementia, or undue influence” due to purchases made by her son Kevin Hunter Jr. whilst Williams was in Miami, Florida, in 2021. Wendy Williams’ previous Graves’ disease and lymphedema diagnosis and questions about her mental health resulted in the court appointing Sabrina Morrissey as Williams’ guardian in May 2022.
Morrissey is a New York-based lawyer focused on administration, estate planning, litigation, and guardianships. Wendy Williams was further diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia in 2023.
Williams resisted her guardianship from the beginning and told Good Morning America in 2022:
“They say that I need somebody to handle my account, and I don’t want that. I want all my money. I want to see all my money that I worked hard for my entire life. My entire life. I don’t lie, and I don’t cheat, and I don’t steal. I am an honest, hardworking person.”
Williams lived from 2022 to 2023 at her New York penthouse before she was moved to Coterie Hudson Yards in Manhattan. The former TV show host revealed to The Breakfast Club in January 2025 that she felt isolated in the facility:
“I am not cognitively impaired, but I feel like I am in prison,” Williams said. “I am definitely isolated. To talk to these people who live here, that is not my cup of tea.”
Morrissey responded to TMZ’s latest exclusive on Williams, describing it as “untrue, inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading.”
According to Page Six, Wendy Williams signed an affidavit in February 2025 for Morrissey to be removed as her legal guardian. She also insists that she can function independently.
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