The battle over who has the right to control Wendy Williams’ Wells Fargo accounts began at the start of 2022, but as of September, it has still not been resolved. We provide a timeline of events related to the Wendy Williams vs. Wells Fargo dispute below.
July 2021 – Williams makes her final appearance on her talk show The Wendy Williams Show, though she did not know it would be her last show at the time, as she expected to return in fall of that year.
September 2021 – Reports surface that Williams has been transported to a New York hospital following a call to 911 for an individual in need of psychiatric services.
November 2021 – Further reports surface that Williams is suffering from early-onset dementia. Her brother Tommy Williams publicly denies these claims, stating that she is not suffering from any such ailment.
January 2022 – Williams’ attorney La’Shawn Thomas says that Williams made a request to Wells Fargo for her bank account statements because she suspects fiduciary misconduct by her financial adviser and needs her most recent bank statements to switch to another financial institution.
January 2022 – After receiving notice from Williams’ financial adviser Lori Schiller that the TV host is of “unsound mind,” Wells Fargo freezes Willams’ bank accounts and petitions the court to have her placed under a temporary financial guardianship, citing risks of “financial exploitation, dementia, or undue influence” in the court filing.
February 2022 – As a result of Wells Fargo’s claims that Williams is a possible victim of financial abuse, the TV personality fires her entire management team, including Schiller and Bernie Young, her financial advisers.
February 2022 – Williams’ legal team files an emergency order with the New York Supreme Court for her Wells Fargo bank accounts to be unfrozen. In the petition, Williams claims the bank is in “possession of several million dollars’ worth of funds” and that she has been denied access to those funds for upward of two weeks, which has led her to default or risk defaulting on her bills. The petition further claims that Wells Fargo is breaching its fiduciary duty to Williams, causing her to suffer “imminent and irreparable financial damage.” Williams argues that the claims surrounding her alleged incapacity were falsified, and that despite terminating her problematic advisers, Wells Fargo continues to deny her access to her accounts. Williams demands that she and her team be granted access to her Wells Fargo accounts within 48 hours.
February 2022 – The Wendy Williams Show is permanently canceled.
March 2022 – Young, the financial adviser who Williams previously terminated, files a petition to be appointed Williams’ financial guardian, even though Williams claims that she wants nothing to do with him.
March 2022 – The court appoints an unnamed temporary financial guardian for Williams, agreeing with Wells Fargo that a temporary guardian is necessary while the Wendy Williams and Wells Fargo bank case is pending.
March 2022 – In response to Williams’ claim that she risks defaulting on bills due to Wells Fargo freezing her assets, the banking giant releases a statement that, in part, reads: “Wells Fargo’s priority is the financial well-being of Ms. Williams and the preservation of her privacy. … As we have expressed to the Court, Wells Fargo is open to working with Ms. Williams’ counsel to release funds directly to her creditors for bills historically and regularly paid from her accounts.”
March 2022 – Williams posts a video to Instagram in which she claims, among other things, that Young used approximately $100,000 of her money to hire a law firm to pursue a guardianship over her. She also alleges that a former doctor, whom she fired, had sent her medical information to Schiller, her former financial adviser, who then shared it with Wells Fargo without her consent.
May 2022 – A New York judge appoints an unnamed guardian to control Williams’ finances until at least July. This new guardianship removes Wells Fargo from having an operational role in Wendy Williams’ financial guardianship dispute.
May 2022 – Williams is interviewed by rapper Fat Joe and reveals to him that she has only $2 to her name. News outlets describe her as “rambling” during the interview, leading many to question whether she is indeed suffering from neurological and/or mental health issues.
August 2022 – Thomas, Williams’ former lawyer, speaks out about the Wendy Williams vs. Wells Fargo dispute, issuing this statement to Page Six: “The real issue is that Wells Fargo, through their adviser, refused to grant Wendy access to her own accounts, this includes the right to check her balance. No bank should have the authority to do that. No one attempted to gain access to any of Wendy’s accounts. The Wells Fargo adviser and [former manager Bernie Young] were the only people with access. … They left Wendy to die.”
The question on many people’s minds is: Did Wendy Williams get her money from Wells Fargo yet? As of September, the answer to that question remains no. While Wells Fargo no longer directly controls Williams’ finances, she is still under a financial guardianship, which means that her finances are controlled by her financial guardian.
February 2024 – Wendy’s care team publishes a press release to share an update with about Wendy’s health condition. An excerpt from the press release reads: “In 2023, after undergoing a battery of medical tests, Wendy was officially diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Aphasia, a condition affecting language and communication abilities, and frontotemporal dementia, a progressive disorder impacting behavior and cognitive functions, have already presented significant hurdles in Wendy’s life.”
February 2024 – Lifetime airs the multi-part docuseries “Where Is Wendy Williams” despite Wendy’s temporary court-appointed guardian filing a lawsuit against A&E Television Networks, a parent company of Lifetime, to try to block it from being aired. According to USA Today, an attorney for A&E Networks, Rachel Strom, claimed Morrissey was only trying to put an end to the documentary after seeing how Wendy’s guardianship was being depicted in the trailer.
The question on many people’s minds is: Did Wendy Williams get her money from Wells Fargo yet? As of March 2024, the answer to that question remains no. While Wells Fargo no longer directly controls Williams’ finances, she is still under a financial guardianship, which means that her finances are controlled by her financial guardian.
