A  Jamie Foster Brown Interview
 
 
Sometimes you never know where people will end up. I’ve been covering Wendy Williams for 10 years in Sister 2 Sister magazine. Her star rose in the extremely competitive world of New York City radio on the popular WBLS-FM. She was a pathfinder in those days, one of the first to dig into the personal lives of the stars whose music she played day after day, and give the dish—often the dirt—on their goings-on as she played their music. She reported things in those days that hurt people, and once she even was forced to leave her seat at WBLS because of something she reported. 


 
In this article, Wendy apologizes for any harm that she may have done. Yes, she has grown and it’s a new Wendy that we get to watch on her ever more popular nationally syndicated TV show. 


 
I was intrigued to find out how happy Wendy is that she’s found a man who gets her—a man whose face she saw wrinkle up in pain whenever he saw her high from her drug addiction. His love for her, and her seeing his pain, literally helped her to get off of drugs.


She’s also very open about sleeping in rest stops in her car rather than going home to her family and having them criticize her for being too tired, for not coming home enough—she always felt some kind of guilt about what her “Cosby Show” family thought she should be doing with her life. In that turbulent time, she became her own best friend. 


 
So now she is on her way to superstardom, yet she is still humble. Her family, her husband Kevin and son Little Kevin, as well as her biological family, remain extremely important to her—and they all “get” her. Wendy is in a wonderful place and does not forget to thank God for it. 


 
We got a chance to really kick it over the phone, even while I was trying to find my way to Tyler Perry’s studio, and then filling out a form to go inside the studio and trying to make those vexing telecommunication lines work. I think my S2S babies will enjoy this.


 
***
 
Wendy: Hi, it’s Wendy. 

Jamie: It’s Jamie! How are you doing, baby?

Wendy: Good.


 
Jamie: Girl, congratulations on the show. Are you excited?

Wendy: Very excited. Very used to the routine now. I think that the staff, the crew, everybody—we’re getting into our groove. 


 
Jamie: You had to leave your radio show to do this, right?

Wendy: Well, I’ve retired from radio.


 
Jamie: Would you have had to retire to do the show?

Wendy: Yes. I mean, it’s only an hour a day and we’re live out of New York at 10 a.m., but I get through the show every morning at 7:00 a.m. And then there’s prepping with the staff and then prepping with the glam squad, and then, you know, taking a moment to breathe. 


 

Jamie: Right. Did they change the time the show goes on the air now?

Wendy: Well, it’s a network show, so it’s on network Monday through Friday. Then BET has bought the cable rights to it, I think—I’m not sure, Jamie. By the time you see it on BET, it’s already run twice a day in quite a few places.

Jamie: Is it going to be up against “Tyra” and “Oprah”? That’s what they say. 

Wendy: Well, because it’s syndicated, every market has different times. There’s some places where I am on the same time as “Oprah,” or the same time as “Dr. Phil”—or my lead-in in San Francisco, for instance, I come on at 3 p.m. on NBC and then “Ellen” comes on right after me at 4 p.m. 


 
Jamie: You know what’s really interesting to me, Wendy? I’m noticing that people like you, Sherri Shepherd and Kim Coles—they’re not just taking the little 2-year-old women to put on air. Because, you know, they’ve always been so prejudiced against women if they’re not 19 or 20 years old and skinny. 

Wendy: You know, unfortunately, I think for the acting part of celebrity, a lot of the girls still face that—whether it’s a Sharon Stone, or Courteney Cox, or Vivica Fox. Regarding talk show hosts, it’s nice to be in the middle of everything. I’m not so old that I’m out to pasture and I’m not so young that I don’t know anything. I think that to be a good talk show host, it’s really nice to have some years under my belt. 


 
Jamie: What’s been the biggest surprise for you since you started doing this? 

Wendy: Probably how much time it takes to do a simple hour of TV. And the part that I probably don’t like about it the most is that there just seems to be people around all the time. My commute time used to be my favorite time to catch up with friends and family. Now there are three people in the car every morning. 


 
Jamie: They pick you up in the morning?
Wendy: Yes. There are three people in the car and the best way I can get away from the three people is some mornings, I would say probably half the time, I ride with my husband because we go in to work together. [Today] the driver car followed behind us. And then, when we left the show, it was me and [Little] Kevin in the driver’s car; Big Kevin called about an hour ago on his way home, which is great. So we’re going to take advantage of this nice fall day and do a little grilling. 


 
Jamie: That’s good.

Wendy: You know, it’s nice, Jamie. I would have never thought that a simple career move would absolutely bond us as a family so much as it has. I mean, my husband is also an executive producer on the show. Rob Dauber is the main producer. Rob comes from “Oprah,” “Rosie” and “Martha Stewart.” So he’s got as many years in television as I was in radio, and he’s got Emmys and all of that other kind of good stuff. And then I’m an executive producer and my husband is an executive producer. So when I leave the show as the talent, he stays behind as the businessman to have meetings and various things after the show.
 
 
 
Pick up the December 2009 issue of Sister 2 Sister magazine to see how she and comedian Mo'Nique almost wound up sharing a show.