Wendy Williams lost her father, Thomas Williams, at age 94 this weekend. The media personality’s niece, Alex Finnie, broke the news on Instagram on Sunday.
Finnie shared family videos on social media with a heartfelt message. “After 94 years of extraordinary love, strength, brilliance and wisdom, my grandfather Thomas D. Williams has passed,” she wrote.
Williams celebrated her father’s 94th birthday in Miami last February 2025. She got special permission to leave her assisted living facility for the trip.
Her mother, Shirley, died in 2020 at age 85. Now she’s lost both parents while fighting for her independence.
Thomas Williams passed away as his daughter continues her legal fight to escape court-ordered guardianship. The 61-year-old talk show host has been under legal control since 2022.
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She’s been pushing to end her guardianship after new medical tests proved she doesn’t have dementia.
“She does not have frontotemporal dementia, so that should be game, set, match,” Tacopina told ABC’s Nightline.
Wells Fargo started the whole drama for Wendy in 2022. The bank froze Williams’ accounts and requested guardianship. They claimed she was being financially exploited.
Williams was placed under court control after the bank’s petition. Her care team announced the dementia diagnosis in February 2024. But Williams fought back hard.
She denied the diagnosis and demanded new medical tests. The fresh evaluation happened in New York City last October. Results reached her legal team in late October 2025.
Tacopina said guardianship lawyers promised Williams freedom by the end of 2025. That deadline passed without resolution.
The former radio queen has been stuck in an $18,000-per-month assisted living facility in New York. She calls it suffocating.
“I don’t have the freedom to do anything,” Williams told NewsNation in February 2025. “As far as where I am, I’m on the fifth floor. They call it the ‘memory unit,’ so it’s for people who don’t remember anything.”
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