Wendy Williams’ court-appointed guardian Sabrina Morrissey is seeking justice for the former daytime talk show host in a new complaint related to the suit filed against Lifetime’s parent company, A&E Television Networks, Lifetime Entertainment Services, EOne Productions, Creature Films and its executive producer Mark Ford over the highly controversial docuseries, “Where Is Wendy Williams?”
Suggested Reading
The show was released back in February and has since been the source of contention between the parties due to Morrissey’s suit. She originally filed the suit following month, alleging that the creative team responsible filmed it without getting consent from her guardian.
The suit also claimed that the doc was originally conceived and communicated to her that it would chronicle a behind-the-scenes look at Williams comeback to the public through the launch of her new podcast. But what we all know now to be true, as evidenced by the four-part series, was that it centered on the beloved media personality’s’ personal health struggles, as well as her family and legal issues.
As previously reported by The Root, in the immediate aftermath of the doc’s airing, viewers complained that it felt exploitative and intrusive and portrayed Williams in a horrible light. It’s those sentiments, also shared by her guardian Morrissey, that remain paramount in the new complaint filed on Monday as is the allegation that the creative team moved forward with filming the doc without a valid contract.
More on the details of the complaint per court docs obtained by People:
“As is patently obvious from the very first few minutes of the Program itself, W.W.H. was highly vulnerable and clearly incapable of consenting to being filmed, much less humiliated and exploited,” the 75-page complaint alleges. “When the Guardian discovered that Defendants’ true intentions were to portray W.W.H. in a highly demeaning and embarrassing manner, she immediately sought to protect and to preserve her dignity. But the defendants fought to move ahead... without a valid contract and released without the Guardian’s consent.”
Due to that fact, Morrissey is now asking the court to make the network and the other listed defendants pay for Williams “medical care and supervision for the rest of her life.” The complaint alleged that since the documentary aired, Williams has only received $82,000 despite the fact that she is listed as an executive producer on the film—a title that Morrissey also alleged was given to Williams under false pretenses as the eponymous host was mentally incapacitated and unable to consent or sign any contracts. The complaint also claims that Williams had “never saw the trailer or series before it aired, or ever endorsed them.” The complaint is also seeking for the court to stop A&E from any further airing, sales or release of the docuseries. Morrissey is also attempting to “recover for the damage caused by defendants, including the ‘unjust profits they received by exploiting W.W.H. in her vulnerable state.’”
“This case arises from the brutally calculated, deliberate actions of powerful and cravenly opportunistic media companies working together with a producer to knowingly exploit W.W.H., an acclaimed African-American entertainer who, tragically, suffers from dementia and, as a result, has become cognitively impaired, permanently disabled, and legally incapacitated,” the complaint reads in part, per People. “Eager to sensationalize and profit from W.W.H.’s cognitive and physical decline, Defendants took advantage of W.W.H in the cruelest, most obscene way possible for their own financial gain, in a manner that truly shocks the conscience.
Ford has been on the defense about the direction of the doc, telling The Hollywood Reporter in an interview earlier this year that they were “worried about what would happen to Wendy if we stopped filming then if we continued.” Ford also revealed that the intention behind the doc became more about chronicling Williams and her family’s difficulty with dealing with a guardian and the issues that come from that once cameras began rolling than the originally conceived plan. Ford also told THR that while Williams’ diagnosis of dementia didn’t come as a surprise when it was announced just days before the docuseries aired back in February, he asserted that they wouldn’t have filmed the show had they been privy to that information going in.
Be that as it may, Morrissey’s complaint argues that if Ford and the aforementioned defendants had really been concerned about Williams’ well-being, they would’ve opted not to film at all and “stop the exploitation of W.W.H.” Instead, they “kept filming, trolling for the most embarrassing and shocking footage to titillate and sell to their audiences in order to generate more profit for themselves,” the complaint says
Straight From 
Sign up for our free daily newsletter.