For quite some time Wendy Williams has been one of our favorite people to watch on daytime. She always speaks her mind and isn’t afraid to get scalded by diving into the hottest topics of the day.
However, something else is going on with the TV host lately. Maybe she’s just off her game? Or maybe it’s worse than that…
Related: Wendy William’s 2019 Woes
See, her latest controversies all seem totally avoidable, almost as if she’s throwing in awful things to say not because they’re what she really believes or finds funny but because she wants the reaction? We wouldn’t use the word troll in regards to Wendy, but we also aren’t going to let our kids cross any bridges that go by her studio at the moment, if you know what we mean. Just to be safe.
Here’s a breakdown of the controversies Wendy has already gotten into just since the start of 2020!
Fartgate
What represented the very WORST scandal for squeaky clean Democratic Representative and failed presidential candidate Eric Swalwell is probably the teeniest controversy for Wendy. But we thought we’d mention it. (You know, so it doesn’t stay silent but deadly.)
During a discussion about football player Odell Beckham Jr. in January, viewers were SURE they heard the daytime host let one rip.
Wendy was so embarrassed by the idea she farted on live TV, she came back the next week with a whole defensive strategy, even enlisting her gaffer to explain to the audience the sound they heard came from a chemistry experiment segment they were rehearsing backstage. She even protested she would have addressed it if she’d farted on TV because “farts are always funny.” However…
“By the sound of that fart, I would have had to go change my costume, I would have left a mark in the seat. I wouldn’t even save the costume, I’d throw it away. It’d be soiled beyond soiled-tivity.”
Hmm. What do YOU think? The lady doth protest too much? Should she have just turned the other cheek? (And should we have called this section “Windy Williams”??)
Jokin’ Phoenix
Even when she’s trying to be complimentary, Wendy tends to push the envelope.
She was praising Joaquin Phoenix for his Oscar-nominated (and later winning) work in Joker in January and couldn’t help but point out how she found him “oddly attractive”:
“He knows how to transform, when he shaves [his beard] off, the way he looks at you. And he’s got the good nose that dips way down, like he’s happy with it and so am I. When he shaves off his mustache, he’s got a hairline fracture, he’s got one of those — what do you call it? Cleft lip, cleft palate.”
She then showed the audience what she meant:
Yeesh, right? We aren’t sure if she was intending to be offensive for laughs or just being completely thoughtless, but either way she was hit by a backlash on social media immediately, including from Cher and from Canadian football player Adam Bighill, whose infant son Beau had just undergone cleft palate repair surgery.
Wendy accepted responsibility pretty quickly this time, apologizing and even putting her money where her mouth gestures were, donating to Operation Smile and the American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association in Beau’s honor.
Look, Gays…
This may be the most perplexing, self-destructive controversy Williams has been involved with: that is to say, going hard after half her freakin’ core audience!
In a February discussion of Galentine’s Day — the ladies’ night pre-Valentine’s Day celebration popularized by Parks and Recreation — Wendy for no reason at all went after the gay men who cheered.
She apparently wanted to make very clear that men were not welcome to ladies’ night, no matter their sexuality:
“I don’t care if you’re gay. You don’t get a [menstruation] every 28 days. You can do a lot that we do, but I get offended by the idea that we go through something you will never go through.”
She then added:
“And stop wearing our skirts and our heels! Just saying, girls, what do we have for ourselves? Looky here now, gay men, you’ll never be the women that we are. No matter how gay.”
Wow. It’s the kind of homophobic, transphobic rant you expect from a conservative shock jock and yet, here it was from a daytime host whose two big audiences are women and GAY MEN!!!
This time she did not apologize. After a commercial break in which we’re sure her LGBT staff members must have explained how offensive she had just been, Wendy instead issued a sort of non-apologetic SO WHAT, saying:
“I say it and I mean it.”
Well, damn. But the next day she did do a little better in an apology video, saying:
“I’m 55 years old and maybe I sounded like your auntie, your mother, your big sister or somebody out of touch. I’m not out of touch except for perhaps yesterday by saying what I said. I deeply apologize and I deeply appreciate the support that I get from the community. I will do better.”
At least it’s something??
The Price Is Wrong
This may be the most offensive thing Wendy has ever said. And that is saying something.
The Hot Topic of the day was the murder of Hollywood sex therapist Dr. Amie Harwick, who was killed, police believe, by a violent ex-boyfriend against whom she had already gotten multiple restraining orders. It is a truly heartbreaking, infuriating story. And Wendy did NOT help.
Harwick famously dated and got engaged to The Price Is Right host Drew Carey back in 2018. And while Wendy was describing the awful crime, she pointed out the ex-boyfriend being charged was absolutely NOT Drew. Unfortunately it seems she made that clarification just to set up a joke in which she referenced the clinical psychologist having been thrown off her balcony with the Price Is Right catchphrase, quoting:
“Come on down!”
The entire audience was not having that one. Not only was there no laughter, there were some groans as well. Since then Amie’s family have spoken out about the offensive moment, with brother Chris Harwick saying:
“Domestic violence is something no one should be joking about… This is a difficult time for my family and for Wendy Williams to make light of this tragedy is very upsetting to us and extremely distasteful. My sister worked tirelessly for domestic violence victims and women’s rights. Wendy Williams should apologize publicly to my family for her comment.”
As of this writing, Wendy has NOT apologized.
[Image via Wendy Williams/YouTube/Wendy.]
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