Sued for all revenue from Lifetime docuseries

A recently revised complaint in Wendy Williams' lawsuit against A+E Networks, Lifetime's parent company, for releasing a documentary chronicling her deteriorating mental and physical condition demands that all profits from the project be used to fund her medical care.

The amended complaint, filed in New York County Supreme Court on Sept. 16, says Williams received about $82,000 for her participation in the project, which documented her life for nearly a year and showed her downward spiral as she struggled with family, fame and excessive drinking. The lawsuit names A&E and EOne Productions as defendants, along with Lifetime Entertainment Services, Creature Films and producer Mark Ford.

“This is a paltry sum for the use of highly invasive, humiliating footage showing her in the confusing agony of her dementia, while the defendants who profited from streaming the show have likely already made millions,” the lawsuit states.

In March, Sabrina Morrissey, in her capacity as Williams' temporary conservator, filed a lawsuit against A+E Networks, claiming that the contract the company brokered for the filming of the documentary was invalid because Williams was not legally or mentally competent at the time to consent to her participation in the film. She was allegedly told the film would have a “positive and beneficial” impact on her image.

The lawsuit was part of a legal battle brought by Morrissey to prevent the documentary from being released. A temporary restraining order was issued before the ruling was overturned by a higher court. Since then, Roberta Kaplan, who represented E. Jean Carroll in a defamation case against former President Donald Trump, has joined Williams' legal team, which includes Ellen Holloman.

In a statement on the amended complaint, Kaplan said the defendants “viciously and shamelessly exploited Wendy Williams for their own benefit while she was clearly incapacitated and suffering from dementia.”

The new lawsuit alleges that Will Selby, Williams' former manager, arranged for the former talk show host to participate in the documentary. In response to concerns, he allegedly told Morrissey the title would focus on Williams' triumphant return to the media and that he would have full creative control. When asked what that meant, he said: “If I don't want it in the movie, they'll take it out.”

According to the lawsuit, similar allegations were made to EOne's lawyers. The company then drafted an allegedly one-sided contract to work on camera with Ford, Creature Films and A&E, Morrissey claims. “This contract was filed after WWH had already been filmed by the defendants while she was obviously disheveled, mentally absent and confused,” the lawsuit states. “No person who saw WWH under these circumstances would have believed that she was capable of agreeing to a contract to film or to the filming itself.”

During this time, Williams was under 24-hour care. Morrissey refused to allow the documentary crew access to shoot any more footage, assuming the project was dead because no deal was ever signed.

But in February, A&E released a promotional trailer for the project. The complaint criticizes the filmmakers for portraying Williams as a “laughing stock and drunkard who is implicitly responsible for his ongoing suffering” by showing unflattering footage, such as photos of her wigless and nearly bald.

Morrissey “was stunned and appalled [Williams] insists on wearing her wig at all meetings and she would never have consented to being filmed for public viewing without her wig,” the complaint states.

The controversial four-and-a-half-hour documentary, which includes footage from about seven months of Williams' turbulent past until she was admitted to a clinic last year to treat cognitive problems, aired in February to blockbuster ratings, averaging just over a million viewers on the two nights it aired. Lifetime said it was the most successful documentary debut in two years. Williams, her son Kevin Hunter Jr. and Selby, her jeweler-turned-manager, are all listed as executive producers.