The daytime talk show concluded in June 2022

NEED TO KNOW

• Peacock announced a new three-part documentary that will explore the legacy of The Wendy Williams Show
• Former executive producer Suzanne Bass and over 20 staffers will share behind-the-scenes insights from the show’s 14 seasons
• The series will explore Williams’ “meteoric rise” to fame and her series’ “cultural impact”

A new documentary series will examine the impact of Wendy Williams and her eponymous talk show.

Peacock announced on Monday, Aug. 24, that a new three-part documentary about Williams’ hit show will celebrate its “outrageous fun, cultural impact, and meteoric rise.” The docuseries will air on the streaming platform in 2027.

Longtime executive producer Suzanne Bass is serving as an executive producer on the new docuseries and will provide insight from her 13 seasons on the 14-season talk show. “Her experience brings invaluable insight and a firsthand account of the show’s unique place in pop culture,” the press release reads. Along with Bass, over 20 former staffers will also share their behind-the-scenes experiences and memories.

According to the press release, the series will chronicle Williams’ “skyrocketing from unlikely beginnings as a radio host” to redefining the daytime talk genre. “While praising Williams’ TV reign, the documentary also sheds light on the complicated truths about the cost of fame and answers long-lingering questions surrounding the infamous exit from her own show.”

After 14 years, the series ended in June 2022, with the final episode airing on June 17. The news came after Williams had dealt with various health issues over the final few seasons. In March 2018, May 2020 and October 2021, she took time away from the show due to complications with her Graves’ disease and hyperthyroidism. She also took a six-week break in early 2019 after fracturing her shoulder. She later revealed that she was quietly focusing on her sobriety during the leave of absence. 

One month after the show concluded, Williams said that “there was nothing I liked” about her show’s end, which aired without her appearance, per The New York Post in July 2022. “[The show’s syndication company] didn’t ask me to do [the finale], so I didn’t,” she said at the time. “I sat in my apartment and I watched it. And [I was] like, ‘Eek!’”

Before the series ended, Williams was placed under a legal guardianship in May 2022. In the years since, she has been vocal about her living conditions and restrictions from the outside world.

In April 2023, she entered a different health facility to treat “cognitive issues,” and it was revealed in February 2024 that she was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) the year prior. According to Mayo Clinic, aphasia “robs you of the ability to communicate” and “can affect your ability to speak, write and understand language, both verbal and written.” The organization adds that the condition “typically occurs suddenly after a stroke or a head injury. But it can also come on gradually from a slow-growing brain tumor or a disease that causes progressive, permanent damage (degenerative).”

That same month, Lifetime’s Where Is Wendy Williams? premiered — which documented the period of her life following the cancellation of her talk show. The project was filmed after her court-ordered guardianship began.

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In November 2024, Williams’ court-appointed guardian Sabrina E. Morrissey claimed that Williams is “cognitively impaired, permanently disabled and legally incapacitated” in documents obtained by PEOPLE. Then, in January 2025, Williams shut down the idea that she was “incapacitated” during an appearance on The Don Lemon Show.

That same month, she made a series of public pleas for help during several rare interviews, saying she feels trapped in “what some people would call a luxury prison” where she has limited access to the outside world.

In the months that followed, she repeatedly denied claims that she is cognitively impaired and continues to attempt to dissolve the guardianship. But the guardianship was upheld in August 2025 after doctors completed a new medical examination of the star, according to documents obtained by PEOPLE.

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