Wendy Williams started her career as a DJ and a radio host before she moved to television and rose to stardom.
Williams was born on July 18, 1964, in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Ever since she was a young girl, she felt like she stood out from the crowd. However, what she didn’t know at the time was that being sort of different would help her become the celebrity that she is today.
She used to describe herself as a “misfit.” In her memoir, Wendy’s Got The Heat, she wrote she was “the big girl in a family of perfect bodies.”
“I was a misfit basically from the time I came out of the womb,” she explained. “My parents are perfect, my sister, Wanda, who is seven years older than I am, is perfect. My brother, Tommy, the only boy and namesake to my father, is perfect. Then there is me.
“I was an outcast in my own home, and when I got to school, I didn’t quite fit in anywhere there, either,” she added. “I was the Black girl in a practically all-white school. And among the handful of Blacks, I was the ‘white girl,’ the outcast. I spent most of my youth in my room, rocking back and forth for endless hours, plotting my future. I knew that one day my being different would pay off.”
While at university, she never saw herself as part of a sorority. Instead, she got heavily involved with the student radio channel WRBB 104.9 FM. This experience only made her even more convinced that being a radio personality was her thing. At the same time, she knew she needed to work really hard in order to become successful and reach for the stars.
“It made it wonderful because I got involved with something that I thought, back at that time, would serve me better in the future than hanging out with a bunch of people at parties or even being a sorority girl. I got involved with something that would be germane to my future if I just focused,” she shared with WRBB.
Besides the student radio channel, Williams worked for other radios while at university. Then, in 1984, she became an intern for Matty in the Morning on KISS 108 in Boston. That was her first real job.
After becoming a famous DJ, Williams turned into a radio celebrity. She interviewed famous people and never asked soft questions, something which made her listeners fall for her even further. Williams earned a Billboard Radio Award and was honored as the R&B Major Market Radio Air Personality of the Year. Williams was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame once her radio show was over.
Later on, she turned to television with her show The Wendy Williams Experience on VH1 which attracted 12 million people daily.
In 2009, she started her show The Wendy Williams Show which brought her even more success and a nomination for an Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show/Entertainment four times.
Williams was married twice. Not much is known of her first husband with whom she stayed together for two years. Her second husband and the father of her only son has caused heartbreak at Williams over the years. Kevin Hunter has cheated on Williams, but she decided to forgive him each time.
They stayed together for 21 years before they finally filed for a divorce in 2019.
“If you told me when I was 25 years old or 30 years old that I would stay around for a cheater, I would have been like you are lying,” Williams told Essence.
“I’ve got way too much to offer a man to stick around for him cheating on me. At that particular time, I had my career in radio, I was making a great salary, I had vacation property of my very own, and the world was my oyster, so I definitely thought I wasn’t staying around for some cheating. But I did, and I don’t regret it.”
In 2017, it was revealed that Hunter cheated on Williams again, this time with a massage therapist named Sharina Hudson. It was also reported that he impregnated her.
“He’s my best friend, he’s my lover, he’s all this, and he’s all that,” Williams said at the time. “Anybody who’s been married for five minutes or 500 years, you know marriages have ebbs and flows. Marriages are not easy.”
However, they eventually divorced in 2020. As Hunter had equal shares in the Wendy Williams Productions Inc. and the two had shared property, they needed to split assets.
According to Page Six, she ended up with their New Jersey home which was listed for $1.7 million, but gave him $250,000. Further, he got their other home.
Williams and Hunter settled for her to be the sole owner of the Wendy Williams Productions Inc. and pay him for his shares.
She also kept him in on her insurance policy and will continue cover his health insurance. She also got the money from their joint account.
According to Celebrity Net Worth, the host is worth $40 million.
