'Wendy Williams Show' Executives Wanted Her Cleared by a Doctor Before TV Return

etonline.com:

the end of are coming to light. In 's latest cover story, the outlet details the final days of the long-running talk show, which came amid a series of health issues of its eponymous host.

ET has reached out to Williams' rep for comment on 's story.Once the decision was made in February 2022 to cancel , on which the host herself did not appear during the final season, Debmar-Mercury co-presidents Mort Marcus and Ira Bernstein tell the outlet that they received a series of phone calls from Williams questioning the end of her show.Those calls, Marcus and Bernstein claim, came after months of silence from Williams, during which time she was unreachable.«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,'» Bernstein says. «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.'»Marcus agreed, recounting from his phone call with Williams, «We said, '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.'» In an interview with ET, Lacey Rose, the Executive Editor of TV for who wrote the outlet's cover story, further explains, «This is a woman who has been.