Attorney Joe Tacopina Vows to Help End Wendy Williams’ Guardianship

Wendy Williams has a high-profile new ally in the battle to end her court-ordered guardianship — attorney Joe Tacopina.

Tacopina famously represented A$AP Rocky in his assault and gun case earlier this year, which saw the rapper acquitted by a Los Angeles jury.

Now, the celebrity attorney is ready to take off the gloves and help Williams regain her freedom.

In an interview with TMZ on Thursday, April 3, Tacopina confirmed he has been retained by Williams.

Related: Wendy Williams Encouraged by Protesters Demanding ‘Free Wendy’

Wendy Williams has added famed attorney Joe Tacopina to her legal team! Attorney Tacopina joined us on TMZ Live to talk about Wendy’s fight for freedom. pic.twitter.com/o8KHWMnX5C

— TMZ Live (@TMZLive) April 3, 2025

The attorney said the first order of business is to get Williams released from the assisted living facility where she is staying in New York City.

Williams, 60, has said in recent interviews the facility is “like a prison.” She said the elevator on her floor is operated by a key, and she cannot leave that floor.

Tacopina said he speaks with the radio and daytime TV legend almost daily, and she should not be living in a facility with elderly residents who’ve lost their mental faculties.

“The end goal is to get her out of that draconian institution she’s in, she doesn’t belong in, because she’s not incapacitated in any way,” he said.

“She’s in a ward where people don’t know their names, where people don’t know [the difference] between a red light and a green light,” Tacopina continued. “I mean, she’s in a place where people are a danger to themselves. She’s not. She can’t leave there on her own to go get a cup of coffee.”

In November 2024, Williams’ legal guardian, Sabrina Morrissey, filed court documents alleging the TV star is “cognitively impaired and permanently incapacitated. Williams, and now Tacopina, both dispute that claim.

The attorney said he is only Williams’ personal attorney. But he’s taken steps to represent her in the guardianship case as well.

“There’s a process that’s in play there,” he said. “If the judge, for some reason, doesn’t allow us into the guardianship matter as Wendy’s counsel of choice, which almost sounds ridiculous, but they could try and argue that she doesn’t have the wherewithal or the abilities to pick her own counsel, which is obviously silly. But if they did, we’d take an interlocutory appeal, or we could go as far as doing something called an Article 78, which is actually suing the judge in a Supreme Court in New York State. So we have things to do and we’ll be doing them.”

Tacopina said the assisted living facility is taking a toll on Williams.

“Every day she spends in there is a travesty of justice. Any additional day she spends in there is horrific,” he said.

Williams was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia in 2023, according to her care team.

But the attorney disputed the diagnosis, and said Williams was actually dealing with the effects of alcoholism at the time, which was shown in the 2024 Lifetime documentary Where is Wendy Williams?

Williams was placed under guardianship in 2022 after Wells Fargo petitioned a New York court, citing concerns of financial exploitation. People magazine reported Williams was alleged to have been of “unsound mind” in court documents.

The TV star’s son, Kevin Hunter Jr., had power of attorney at the time and reportedly took a large amount of money from her account, raising a red flag at the bank.

In the Lifetime doc, Williams’ nephew Travis offered a tally of Kevin’s annual spending before the bank stepped in.

“To put it all in perspective, Kevin’s birthday party that his mom threw that year was like $120,000. Kevin’s rent was $80,000. Kevin’s Uber Eats probably exceeded $100,000 that his mom approves,” Travis said.

Williams addressed the issue of her son and her money in the  February 2025 documentary TMZ Presents: Saving Wendy.

“My son, he overstepped his boundaries in terms of me. He overstepped his boundaries and he was inappropriately using my money without telling me crap about it,” she said in the film. “Like, is he stealing from me? Look, all I know is that, in terms of what I’m dealing with, and this is still going on, because that’s when my money got frozen at Wells Fargo, thank God. No more money stealing from my son and the other people.”