Peacock is digging into the well-mined world of former radio host and TV talk show star Wendy Williams, greenlighting the three-part documentary “Clap If You Care: The Wendy Williams Show” (which is a working title) to air in 2027.
Williams is not involved in the new docuseries, but her former producer is spearheading the project. As part of its announcement, Peacock confirmed that long-running “The Wendy Williams” show executive producer Susanne Bass, who ran that syndicated strip for 13 seasons, will also executive produce the documentary.
“Her experience brings invaluable insight and a firsthand account of the show’s unique place in pop culture,” the press release said. “Clap If You Care: The Wendy Williams Show” is also executive produced by Ian Orefice, Jon Adler, Amanda Spain and Missy Walker for EverWonder Studio. Chris Witherspoon and Vanessa Golembewski are also EPs.
Williams was already a well-known radio star when she launched “The Wendy Williams Show” on TV in 2008. The series ended in June 2022, although the host had taken a leave of absence starting in 2021 due to medical issues related to lymphedema and Graves’ disease.
The star entered a court-appointed guardianship in 2022, and in 2024, her team disclosed that she had been diagnosed with aphasia (affects language and communication abilities) and frontotemporal dementia, a disorder that impacts behavior and cognitive functions.
Williams has been vocal about her objections to the guardianships, and her attempts to be removed from it. Just last week, a paparazzi took a video of Williams in New York, where according to the New York Post, she said, “I want out!” as she entered a building. Last year, she called into ABC’s “The View” and told her guardian Sabrina Morrissey and the judge who declared her “legally incapacitated” to “get off my neck,” declaring, “I need a new guardian.” Also last year, she told “The Breakfast Club” radio show that “I feel I’m in a prison” and “I am not cognitively impaired.”
While past documentaries on Williams have focused on her health crises and guardianship, “Clap If You Care” appears to be more focused on the star’s career prior to the end of her show. The doc, according to Peacock, “celebrates the outrageous fun, cultural impact and meteoric rise of ‘The Wendy Williams Show.’”
Here’s the full logline: “Skyrocketing from unlikely beginnings as a radio host to her impact on entertainment culture, Williams redefined the daytime talk genre with her outrageous on-screen fun on the long-running, Daytime Emmy-nominated talk show. While praising Williams’ TV reign, the documentary also sheds light on the complicated truths about the cost of fame and answers long-lingering questions surrounding the infamous exit from her own show. Over 20 former staffers from the talk show will share their behind-the-scenes experiences and memories of the pop culture icon.”
Williams was an executive producer on Lifetime’s two-part docuseries “Where Is Wendy Williams?,” which chronicled her decline via footage shot between August 2022 and April 2023. It was a sequel of sorts to Lifetime’s 2021 documentary “Wendy Williams: What A Mess,” which looked at her public divorce and other public mishaps.