Wendy Williams Fortune – That’s What Wendy Williams Has Earned So Far

Wendy Williams Net Worth: Wendy Williams is an American television host, businesswoman, media personality, and author who has a net worth of $40 million. She is perhaps best known for hosting the nationally syndicated television talk show The Wendy Williams Show since 2008.

Real Estate: Wendy’s salary for The Wendy Williams Show is $10 million per year. In some years she films 180 episodes. That equates to a salary per episode of $55,000.

Birthplace: Wendy Williams was born on July 18, 1964 in Asbury Park, New Jersey. The second of three children, she was born to Shirley and Thomas Williams. When Wendy was five years old, the family moved to Ocean Township, NJ. She graduated from Ocean Township High School and attended Northeastern University from 1982 to 1986. She graduated from Northeastern University with a Bachelor of Science in Communications and was a DJ for college radio station WRBB.

Her first professional radio job was with WVIS in the Virgin Islands. From there she got a job as a backup DJ at WRKS in New York City. A year later, Williams landed an afternoon anchor appearance on Washington DC-based broadcaster WOL. Pretty soon, Wendy was one of the network’s most popular full-time DJs, hosting the main drive-time shift. After switching formats, Wendy joined NYC’s metropolitan station Hot 97, where she stayed from 1994-1998. She was fired in 1998 and then hired by a Philadelphia broadcaster, WUSL. Wendy really got going at this station. While in Philadelphia, she met her future husband, Kevin Hunter, who also became her agent.

Her show eventually spread across the country. Her open and honest discussions about her personal struggles with miscarriages, former drug addictions and her breast augmentation surgery helped boost her popularity and she helped the channel ^climb from 14th to 2nd in the ^ratings . In 2001, she returned to NYC to claim a full-time slot on WBLS for a 4-hour syndicated program. Williams notably had a wild interview with Whitney Houston that catapulted Wendy to fame and glory in her radio career. Wendy left the radio show in 2009 to focus on a career in television. By then she had been inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame.

Today, Wendy is best known for hosting the popular syndicated television show The Wendy Williams Show.

Williams was offered a six-week trial by Debmar-Mercury in 2008 against her own television talk show. The Wendy Williams Show debuted in July 2008 and following positive feedback, Fox signed a deal with Debmar-Mercury to air the show nationally. BET also acquired the cable rights to air the show nightly and began airing the show internationally in 2010 through BET International to 54 countries. Her show was very successful, attracting an average of 2.4 million viewers per day. To date, more than 1,500 episodes have aired across 10 seasons. During the November 2015 sweeps, the talk show was ranked #1 in the US demographic for women 25-54.

In February 2019, Williams was forced to take an unprecedented time off due to complications from Graves’ disease. Guest presenters including Nick Cannon filled in for Wendy until her return on March 4, 2019. The Wendy Williams Show is currently in its 12th season beginning Spring 2020. Williams was nominated for 2015 and 2016 Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Host for Wendy: The Wendy Williams Show. In 2016, she was nominated for a People’s Choice Award for Favorite Newspaper.

Williams has appeared in television, films, and theater, and even dabbled in stand-up comedy. She has appeared on the television shows Martin, One Life to Live and Dancing with the Stars. Wendy also starred in the films Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man and the two sequels to this film.

In 2014, Williams went on a comedy tour, performing stand-up shows across the country. In 2015, she embarked on the 12-city comedy tour The Wendy Williams Sit Down Tour: Too Real for Standup.

Williams and her husband Kevin founded a reality television production company, Wendy Williams Productions, in 2013.

Williams has produced on numerous other television shows, including serving as a judge on Drop Dead Diva (2011) and as a contestant on season 12 of Dancing with the Stars. She was also cast in the Broadway musical Chicago, where she completed a seven-week episode of the show in 2013. Williams has also produced several shows, including the 2015 Discovery Channel documentary series Death by Gossip with Wendy Williams (which she also hosted), the Lifetime biopic Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B (2014), and the GSN game show “Love Triangle” (2011).

<Wendy has written Wendy’s Got the Heat, The Wendy Williams Experience, Ask Wendy: Straight-Up Advice for All the Drama in Your Life, Drama Is Her Middle Name, Is the Bitch Dead, Or What? authored, Ritz Harper Goes to Hollywood, and Hold Me in Contempt: A Romance. Wendy is best known for her famous catchphrase, “How are you?”

Williams partnered with the Home Shopping Network (HSN), unveiling a line of dresses, pants, sweaters and skirts on March 28, 2015. The Wendy Williams line is sold exclusively on HSN, and Williams told viewers on her talk show that her line’s debut was HSN’s most-watched premiere ever. Williams also has a line of jewelry sold through home shopping network QVC called “Adorn by Wendy Williams.”

Personality: Williams has been open about her health struggles with hyperthyroidism and Graves’ disease. Wendy has been married twice, with her first marriage ending in separation after 5 months and a year and a half of divorce proceedings.

They married on November 30, 1997. In 2000, they welcomed a son, Kevin Jr. Kevin eventually became Wendy’s manager. Kevin Hunter was allegedly unfaithful to Wendy on several occasions. It was also reported that he was very controlling and physically abusive at times.

In 2019, rumors circulated that Kevin welcomed a baby born from a lover. Around this time, Wendy revealed on her show that she was living out of a sober house due to a previous cocaine addiction. In April 2019, Wendy filed for divorce from Kevin after 22 years of marriage. The court, citing irreconcilable differences, attempted to establish an appropriate level of child support and property division. Wendy and Kevin’s primary residence was a 6,000 square foot house in Livingston, New Jersey, which they bought in 2009 for $2.1 million. Wendy sold this home in August 2020 for $1.475 million.

On April 24, 2019, it was reported that Wendy had moved to keep Kevin out of her life, both personally and professionally. She reportedly fired him from the show and hired a team of financial advisors to protect her fortune. She cut all ties and hired a new manager.