New Details: Wendy Williams Didn't Believe Doomed Talk Show Was Canceled Until Day Before Finale

The explosive last few days of The Wendy Williams Show had staffers and the former television personality rattled.

After months of Wendy Williams experiencing multiple health woes that kept her from her famed purple chair, it became clear to production company Debmar-Mercury that the embattled celebrity was not OK, as her speech and communication was not what it once was, leaving them with no choice but to announce the 13th season of the chat show would be the last.

Despite making the announcement in February, with news that Sherri Shepherd would be stepping in for Williams permanently with her own show, Sherri, starting in September, the 58-year-old continuously maintained, "I'm going to be back on the Wendy show."

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After the news made headlines, Debmar-Mercury co-president Ira Bernstein recounted the call he had with Williams about her show being canceled, candidly admitting he didn't know when he would hear from Williams again after she stepped back from the series in September 2021.

“I said, ‘We haven’t heard from you, and we had to make a decision.’ We should have made one in November, but we pushed it to January or February, and by then, it was like, ‘Make a decision or lose the time period,'” recounted Bernstein in an explosive new interview of the phone call that took place earlier this year. “She said, ‘Well, what’s going to air at 10 o’clock?’ I told her, ‘Sherri’s going to air at 10 o’clock.’ ‘So, can I go on at 11?’ I said, ‘We’d love to work with you, and there are lots of ways and lots of buyers, but you need to come back, and we need to know that you’re OK. You can’t just call after nine months and say, ‘I’m ready.'”

According to Bernstein and copresident Mort Marcus, there were several more conversations like that over the course of the following four months. Whether they were phone calls or a sit-down lunch in Manhattan, Williams appeared to be having the discussion all over again for the first time, the copresidents claimed in the tell-all about the demise of The Wendy Williams Show.

Marcus remembered telling Williams after several of the same calls, “'Wendy, we need to have a diagnosis from a doctor — whether it’s the TV stations or a network or a new producer, anyone who’s going to do business with you, after you didn’t show up for a year, needs to know that you’re OK. [Without that assurance,] no one’s going to risk money or finance things.'”

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To date, Williams has been unable to provide either or is withholding from presenting a note showing a doctor signed off on her health.

When the finale of The Wendy Williams Show approached in June, Williams phoned Marcus the day before the last episode aired having seen a promo about it on Fox. “She called me, like, ‘Wait a minute, what do you mean it’s canceled? What are you talking about?'"

William Selby, a high-end jeweler Williams enlisted as her new manager, insisted his client didn't actually think her show was over until that point. “No matter how many people could have told her — you could have told her, I could have told her — she’s thinking, ‘I’ll be ready in a week and I’m coming to shoot,'” he said. “So, it kind of happened all of a sudden for her, even though it was unraveling before her eyes.”

The Hollywood Reporter conducted the interviews with Williams' team.