Former daytime queen Wendy Williams has been through quite a lot in the past year or so. A number of serious health concerns kept her off her popular daytime show last fall, to the point where she was replaced permanently with a new series hosted by Sherri Shepherd. There have continued to be reports and rumors about her health, even as she’s now left rehab again and is attempting to get a celebrity interview podcast started. But, the Hot Topics talker has also been embroiled in a battle with her bank, and now that her son has been evicted from his apartment, we know how her financial trouble ties into it.
Why Was Wendy Williams’ Son Evicted And How Are Her Finances Tied To It?
According to The U.S. Sun, Kevin Hunter, Jr., Williams’ 22-year-old son, was sued in August for back rent on his Florida apartment, to the whopping tune of $70,000. A copy of his lease was included in the filing, which shows that his famous mother had originally paid over $100,000 to rent the home for him for a year, starting in March 2021. That lease was up by the end of February 2022, and Hunter had previously agreed to continue paying on a monthly basis once the original term of the lease expired.
However, those who’ve been following all of the many twists and turns in Williams’ life over the past many months will know that her son’s original lease was up just a few weeks after she began fighting with her bank, Wells Fargo, which locked her out of her accounts in January. For a time, she said she had to borrow money from friends for “essential things,” meaning that she has been unable to offer enough financial support to her son in the intervening months that would allow him to be able to fulfill the new terms of his lease.
In his response to the lawsuit, Hunter told the court that he’s now in school full time, after taking a year off to help his mother through her health issues and because of his concerns over COVID. He added:
My mom went through some health issues that put the court in control of her finances. All of the financial support that she always gave stopped…For medical and legal reasons, she has not been able to pay the rent for the past months since the 1-year lease ended and the court controlled her finances. Everything happened very quickly and unexpectedly and I had no idea things would end up like this.
As noted in his response, things have not gone well when it comes to the former daytime host and her banking institution. Despite her lawyer filing an emergency petition for a restraining order to stop the bank from freezing her money, the process went ahead, as those at Wells Fargo said her former financial advisor alerted them to the possibility that she was “of unsound mind” and being taken advantage of financially. Her accounts were locked so that an investigation could take place.
Unfortunately, in May, that investigation turned up enough evidence to suggest that Williams would need a financial guardian, and one was appointed to her. This means that she’s not in control of her money on her own, as all decisions about what is spent and where needs to go through that guardian for ultimate approval.
It was just back in late August that Hunter publicly denied that he was the cause of Williams’ financial problems. There was an allegation stating that all of these issues came from his unauthorized use of her American Express card to the tune of $100,000. The two had later gone together to obtain information about her accounts with Wells Fargo, but when Williams wouldn’t allow her financial advisor at the time to speak to her alone, it seems that that is when a warning about her mental state was sent to bank officials, and the lockdown of her money began.
Hunter is said to have vacated the apartment willingly on September 7, but there’s no word on where he’s living now, or how that home is being paid for, seeing as how Williams is still working with her financial guardian. Hopefully, with her trying to return to media prominence with a new podcast, and possibly attempting to open a restaurant, she’ll be back in control of her money before much longer.
