Wendy Williams Says She Has Patched Things Up With Her Teenage Son
— -- Wendy Williams says she has patched things up with her teenage son since talking publicly last year about having issues with him at home.
“We weren’t getting along, we get along famously now, I straightened that right out,” Williams told “Nightline” co-anchor Byron Pitts in an interview with “Nightline.”
The talk show host, 50, broke down in tears on “The Wendy Williams Show” last year because she said her then-13-year-old son Kevin was lashing out at her and was “all into his father.” Now Kevin is 15 and she said the two have mended things. Williams said she doesn’t regret sharing her parenting struggles on-air.
“I’m a pretty transparent person,” Williams said. “I have a comfort level in front of that camera and with who I am that I don’t mind crying on TV and telling you I’m crying because I'm sad.”
It’s Williams’ brutal honesty that attracts viewers to “The Wendy Williams Show,” now in its sixth season, with ratings higher this year than ever before. She’s been dubbed the “unlikely survivor” in the cutthroat world of daytime talk. She’s thriving as a single host, where others like Queen Latifah, Anderson Cooper and Bethenny Frankel have all folded.
“I think people like me because I’m funny, because I’m real, because I’m comfortable with myself,” Williams said.
For the woman who got her start as a shock jock local radio DJ, she now sits atop a fast-growing, multi-million dollar media empire that includes the weekday talk show, a production company, best-selling books, an HSN clothing line and sold-out stand-up comedy shows.
“I had no idea that my life would be so big,” Williams said.
But despite her national fame, Williams says she leads a quiet life in suburban New Jersey and isn’t one to have celebrities in her phone. Her husband, Kevin Hunter, is also her business partner.
“I don’t think that I'm a diva,” she said. “I would say that is a horrible, horrible stereotype that I think that we get as woman with some sort of power.”
But as unassuming as her Jersey life can be, Williams’ TV life in Manhattan is high energy.
“Doing this show is like being shot out of a cannon,” she said. “Like when the doors open, that’s it for one hour.”
Williams’ take-no-prisoners attitude hasn’t come without a number of notable celebrity feuds. In 1998, she was reportedly driven off New York radio after making accusations about Sean “Diddy” Combs, which she was hesitant to talk about.
“While the statutes of limitation have passed on that particular topic I would say Puffy and I have made up wonderfully and we are both survivors in a game that normally turns you out to the streets and leaves you out for broke,” she said.
And in 2003, Williams, an admitted former cocaine addict herself, famously pressed the late Whitney Houston on-air about her alleged drug use. Although it was a very heated moment between them, Williams said, “I recognized the moment because I recognized the behavior because that was once me.”
Despite her bumpy past, Williams said she has no regrets.
“I don’t know how much longer the show is going to last but I could tell you I am having a ride of my life… and this is more than I could of ever dreamed,” she said.
