Wendy Williams Documentary Producer Admits They 'Never' Would Have 'Rolled a Camera' If They Knew About Her Surprising Dementia Diagnosis

A producer working on the soon-to-be released Lifetime docuseries Where Is Wendy Williams? revealed that they never would have pursued the story if they'd known the talk show personality had been diagnosed with dementia.

The project came about after Wendy Williams popped in and out of the spotlight for the past few years amid a series of mental and physical health woes, leaving fans — as well as friends and family members — concerned.

"It was supposed to be a documentary that would follow her journey back into her career doing a podcast," Mark Ford shared in a recent interview. "We thought it was a great idea, and we were hopeful that Wendy’s story would be redeeming ... but as we filmed, it became evident that this wasn’t really going to be a career comeback story, that this was going to be a deeper story, and that there was something ultimately disturbing going on in Wendy’s life."

Ford noted that at the beginning of production, they just wanted to sit with Williams and "see how she was doing," but they were later told it had been a "bad day" for the television host and that "alcohol had been involved."

They were also informed she'd be going to a treatment facility to get help.

Ford said they were told "this should in no way inhibit us from moving forward" with the documentary. When she was finally able to resume production, the producer said she was "sober" and "on a better trajectory."

"There were conversations and plans for the podcast, and there were people being put in place to produce that podcast, and that was a storyline that we were following," he continued. "But it was derailed because of what we now know was the state of Wendy’s dementia."

"We tried to be as transparent as possible, and the making of the film is as much a story in some ways as Wendy’s story itself," he explained to the outlet.

"And that’s why we intentionally left a lot of the questions in — we wanted people to understand the journey of the filmmakers and how upsetting it was for all of us in certain instances and also how outrageous in some ways the situations were."

"Like, Wendy would be left alone without food, completely on her own in that apartment with stairs that she could easily fall down," he said. "There was no one there 24/7. So, these are just all the questions we had throughout. But, of course, if we had known that Wendy had dementia going into it, no one would’ve rolled a camera."

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Ford spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about Williams' diagnosis.