A new documentary series about Wendy Williams will celebrate the daytime TV legend’s groundbreaking career and also address “lingering” questions about the end of her talk show.
On Monday, Aug. 24, Peacock announced it just greenlit the three-part documentary series Clap If You Care: The Wendy Williams Show (working title).
The series will trace Williams’ rise from radio personality to daytime television powerhouse and examine how she changed the talk show landscape with candid commentary and her signature “Hot Topics” segments.
The project will also explore “the complicated truths about the cost of fame” and address “long-lingering questions” about her mysterious exit from The Wendy Williams Show, per Peacock.
More than 20 former staffers will share behind-the-scenes stories and memories from the syndicated series, which ran for 13 seasons between 2008 and 2022.
Related: Wendy Williams Gets Devastating News in Fight to End Guardianship
Williams was absent from the show’s final season, including the last episode, amid mounting health problems. A rotating lineup of guest hosts filled in, including Sherri Shepherd, before the series aired its final episode without the daytime diva.
In a 2022 exposé, The Hollywood Reporter said Williams was in such fragile health before the show’s final season that she was experiencing “nonlinear speech, brain fog, memory loss and even hallucinations.”
Mort Marcus and Ira Bernstein, co-presidents of the show’s distributor Debmar-Mercury, told the outlet local affiliates still expected them to deliver a show.
“They started calling, saying, ‘Guys, if you don’t [put on new episodes], we’re going to pull it.’ So, what could we do? We started saying, ‘Let’s just do a couple of weeks of guest hosts until she’s better,’” Marcus said in the article. But Williams never returned.
Suzanne Bass, who served as an executive producer throughout The Wendy Williams Show’s daytime run, will executive produce the Peacock series and could offer new insight into what happened behind the scenes.
Williams, 62, was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia in 2023, according to her caregivers. Her medical team publicly announced the diagnosis in February 2024, two days before Lifetime aired the controversial documentary series Where Is Wendy Williams?
Peacock says the new docuseries will be more celebratory and offer “invaluable insight.”
Clap If You Care: The Wendy Williams Show is co-executive produced by Ian Orefice, Jon Adler, Amanda Spain and Missy Walker for EverWonder Studio. Chris Witherspoon and Vanessa Golembewski will also serve as executive producers.
The project is expected to premiere on Peacock in 2027.
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