Warring Factions Emerge In Court Battle

Last month, high-flying celebrity lawyer Joe Tacopina declared he had been hired by Wendy Williams to potentially fight against a guardianship imposed upon her following a series of health issues that cast doubt over her mental capacity. It was the latest development in a labyrinthine case being fought behind closed doors that invoked chatter of Britney Spears, who quietly pushed for years to end a similar court-appointed arrangement that gave her family the power to essentially control her life.

“She’s lucid and in control of her faculties,” says Tacopina, who met Williams earlier this summer at Fresco by Scotto in New York City to celebrate her birthday. “What’s happening here is not normal.”

Yet, there’s one issue: The judge overseeing Williams’ guardianship tapped a trio of lawyers — and only those lawyers — to represent her interests in court, and Tacopina isn’t among them, according to court documents reviewed by The Hollywood Reporter that point to complications around a tangling web of lawsuits over the former TV personality’s well-being. Still, he maintains that he’ll enter the increasingly contentious battle to dissolve the arrangement if and when the time is right.

Three camps of people in Williams’ orbit appear to have formed. On one side is Tacopina, who was brought into the fold by Williams’ niece Alex Finnie to act as the TV personality’s personal attorney; on another is Sabrina Morrissey, who in 2022 was named by the court as Williams’ guardian; on the last is Williams’ ex-husband Kevin Hunter, who in June filed a $250 million lawsuit against Morrissey. Each side claims to know what’s best for the TV personality.

The factions dueling over Williams’ fate may portend a veering of the guardianship into a Spears-esque saga. One question stands at the forefront: Is the arrangement necessary to protect Williams from exploitation?

“It’s scary,” she told TMZ of the guardianship in July.

In 2022, Williams was placed under a financial guardianship after Wells Fargo claimed she was an “incapacitated person” and a “victim of undue influence.” She contested the development, saying that her health had improved and that she was “absolutely” of sound mind after receiving treatment for Graves’ disease and thyroid issues (Bernie Young, Williams’ former manager who was fired by the TV personality, moved to be placed as guardian for the court, which led to Williams saying that he improperly used her money in the effort). It was later revealed that the financial exploitation stemmed from purchases made by her son, Kevin Hunter Jr.

At the time, La’Shawn Thomas, a lawyer for Williams in the guardianship proceedings, said that the chain of events that culminated in the installment of a guardian over the ex-TV personality started with a request to check her bank statements. Williams accused a Wells Fargo financial advisor of lying that she’s mentally unstable to lock her out of her accounts.

“Wendy doesn’t agree with a financial guardian being appointed,” Thomas told THR in 2022. “If it’s the court’s intention to have one appointed over her affairs for the long haul, she definitely isn’t going to accept that.”

Thomas is now representing Kevin Hunter, who takes issue with no longer being paid severance from his divorce, in a lawsuit that looks to replace Morrissey as Williams’ guardian and a court order mandating a reassessment of money owed to him. Williams, however, later said she wasn’t aware that of the lawsuit. “It’s about money,” Tacopina says of Hunter’s motivation for suing over the guardianship. “We’re not a part of that, and we don’t believe there’s merit to his claim. If Wendy wants to sue, she’ll do so on her own without her husband.”

There are questions surrounding Hunter’s motivation in bringing the lawsuit and his legal standing to do so. Thomas, his lawyer, was denied admission into the guardianship proceedings, with the judge issuing an order that barred her from “communicating in any manner with” Williams and her family, according to court documents. Allan Diamond, Peter Strauss and Morrissey — lawyers appointed by the court to represent Williams who didn’t respond to requests for comment — are the only representatives capable of initiating litigation on her behalf. They’ve moved to dismiss Hunter’s case.

The court is expected to make a determination as to whether Williams still belongs in the guardianship by November. Ahead of a 2024 documentary chronicling Williams’ deteriorating mental and physical state, her camp shared that she had been diagnosed with dementia and primary progressive aphasia, which impairs the ability to understand language. A lawsuit was later filed over Where Is Wendy Williams?, which documented her life for the better part of a year showing her downward spiral as she struggled with health and addiction issues, against Lifetime parent A+E Networks. It was alleged that Williams didn’t have the legal or mental capacity to authorize her participation in the title.

In an interview with Don Lemon earlier this year, Finnie said she’s doesn’t believe that Williams has dementia or is otherwise incapacitated.

“Once the guardianship was put in place, we were just left on the outside and that’s how it’s been,” she said. “Everything is controlled by this guardian.”

A spokesperson for Williams declined to comment for this story.