The film covers the good and bad of her rise to superstardom, including bonkers moments like her passing out live on television dressed as the Statue of Liberty.
There’s a glorious cheesiness to Wendy Williams that can only truly be captured by a Lifetime original movie. This could be the first Lifetime biopic that almost feels like they didn’t go far enough.
Executive produced by Williams herself — the daytime talk show host that shocks the nation on an almost weekly basis with her unfiltered, often uninformed, and occasionally unintelligible commentary — the film is looking to be as uncensored and raw as she can be.
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It also isn’t trying to gloss over the darker chapters in her life, including health struggles and her divorce from husband Kevin Hunter. Basically, the whole film looks like Wendy Williams is the subject of her own “Hot Topics” segment.
As teased by the clip she shared on her show Thursday — which you can watch above — the film will also cover her legitimately frightening fainting incident on Halloween 2017 while she was dressed up as the Statue of Liberty.
The whole moment was surreal and scary, but also strangely absurd and funny (once we found out the next day she was okay). It was also the kind of unscripted realness and unvarnished truth fans have come to love about Williams.
The host admitted she had not seen a single clip of the film herself until she shared it with her audience on her show. Star Ciera Payton certainly embraces the role, bringing Williams’ signature manic energy and reckless abandon to sparkling life.
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She’s got the accent, attitude and body language down perfectly as it looks like the film chronicles all the ups and downs of her career from her start as a radio shock jock to her unlikely rise to talk show goddess.
And once the trailer ended, there was no one more excited about it than Williams herself. “Wow,” was all she could muster with a huge smile on her face before covering her mouth with her hands.
“She looks and acts so much like me, like she got it,” Williams said to director Darren Grant in a short interview after premiering the trailer. And she really did, to an uncanny degree.
We can’t wait for Williams to invite Payton on her show when we get closer to the film premiere so we can watch them ask each other, “How you doin’?” back and forth for an hour.
“Wendy Williams: The Movie” is coming to Lifetime on January 30, following a two-hour documentary on her life, as part of a special night of Wendy.
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