‘The Wendy Williams Show’ Fate Revealed Amid Williams’ Health Issues

The Wendy Williams Show is officially coming to an end with its final episode Friday, June 17, Variety confirms. The daytime talk show has been missing its titular host, Wendy Williams, throughout the entire final season as she stepped back due to health-related issues, and Williams will not be returning for the final episode.

“The final original episode of The Wendy Williams Show will air on Friday, June 17th with a video tribute to the iconic host. The series comes to an end after 13 successful years in syndication,” a spokesperson for the show said in a statement to Variety. Williams has struggled for years with Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disorder, and has been absent throughout the 2021-22 season, replaced by a rotating panel of guest hosts. 

One of those guest hosts, Sherri Shepherd, was announced in February as taking over The Wendy Williams Show‘s slot with her own daytime syndicated talk show, titled Sherri, in the fall. Shepherd will also host Friday’s final show. Williams, meanwhile, has said in a number of recent interviews that she had plans to return to her show, despite it being bumped from the fall schedule.

In March, Williams was placed under a financial guardianship and claimed misconduct by Wells Fargo, denying through her representative all claims being made about her mental health and well-being. Last month, the co-presidents of Debmar-Mercury, Ira Bernstein and Mort Marcus, told Variety they would be open to working with Williams again “if she can come back and be healthy.” 

“It doesn’t mean the next day, but we will put it together and figure it out,” Bernstein said. “It’s not like we have a Plan B where we hit a button and it’s back in a week, but we do have the desire to be in business with her, if she can come back and be healthy, and so does Fox.” Marcus added, “Other than her health, she could have continued to keep doing it as long as she wanted. She was still getting a rating and she has a die-hard audience that turned it into a profitable show. We were protecting the business, while we waited for her. And at some point, we had to say, ‘We have a business to run and she’s not here.’ It was a hard call.”