It was just announced by Wendy Williams’ health team that was just diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. Now there is more information on how it was diagnosed and the early signs everyone saw but missed…
Dr. Allison Reiss, an associate professor of medicine at NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine and an Alzheimer’s Foundation of America’s Medical, Scientific and Memory Screening Advisory Board Member, commented to the media about the talk show host’s prognosis.
“We do not know what causes it. We know that it happens in people younger than, say, Alzheimer’s disease,” Reiss said. She added, “There is some literature that people with thyroid issues may be more likely to have frontal temporal dementia, and we definitely know Wendy Williams has a history of thyroid problems that I think you can see in her eyes. She has some, what looks like thyroid eye disease to me.”
Reiss made sure to mention that she has never met Wendy Williams and has not treated her but is basing his comments of off his observation of the talk show host on TV throughout the last few years.
“I watched her show when I saw her at different stages,” Reiss went on. “You can really see what has happened. But we don’t have this information and I know that — because of Bruce Willis — we are really moving forward more. We need to get some research dollars to look into this.”
As many already know, Bruce Willis was diagnosed with the same disease last year. Wendy Williams’ care team made the decision to come forward with her diagnosis now even though it was revealed that she had been diagnosed last year. The reason they came forward with the revelation now is “to correct inaccurate and hurtful rumors about her health.”
This disclosure about her diagnosis comes just days ahead of the Lifetime’s two-part documentary, Where Is Wendy Williams? The documental has been executive produced by television personality herself. In the trailed for the documentary, she appears both coherent and then frazzled.
“The cognitive function stays longer, but eventually you lose that and the result for all of these is the same, which is losing pretty much everything,” Reiss explained about the disease. “And then it is a fatal disorder, somewhere around seven to nine years.”
Williams has had her fair share of health battles in the last few years. She has battled Graves’ disease and lymphedema among others. In June 2023, Williams also checked herself into a treatment facility to deal with her alcohol addiction issues. Her son had prompted her to seek help, pointing out the fatal consequences of such an addiction.
“This disease may have some environmental contributions, but fundamentally we couldn’t blame that,” said Reiss when question on whether Williams’ past addiction issues might have contributed to her FTD diagnosis. “What I would say is that some of the things that she did probably killed off a lot of nerve cells ahead of time. And we have what’s called cognitive reserve. So, the more that you have built-up the longer it takes for a disease like this to give you symptoms. So, if you’ve depleted some of your nerve cells already, you might show symptoms a little sooner than you would have otherwise.”
The Lifetime documentary trailer also showed some other alarming signs which people noticed.
“You see that she’s getting more frail. She’s not making as much sense, being as coherent, and you can see that the priorities of her life change as she really does recognize that the fame and the fortune — when you are in this kind of situation — it doesn’t really have the meaning that it has to be with people who love you and care about you,” Reiss shared his thoughts. Adding, “I think that was a lot of the message that I took from it.”
Reiss also gave some advice to the Williams’ family as they deal with the news of this diagnosis.“Give her love, give her affection, give her support, value her, and value everything that she has of herself, that is, that remains,” she says. “And keep her in environments that feel safe and comfortable for her, and make sure she just knows that she’s loved and do everything you can the way that the Willis family has.”