Wendy Williams’ former publicist Shawn Zanotti — who appeared in “Where Is Wendy Williams?” — is speaking out against the series, claiming her ex-client would be “mortified” over what made it on the air.
“I felt that [Williams] was being exploited,” Zanotti told NBC News of the two-part documentary Wednesday.
The publicist, who no longer works with Williams, then explained that the renowned talk show host, 59, allegedly had a different idea of what the show would be when she agreed to do it.
“She thought we were focusing on the comeback of her career,” Zanotti said. “She would be mortified.
“There’s no way you can convince me that she would be OK with looking and seeing herself in that way.”
The Exact Publicity founder said producers at Creature Films and eOne Television approached her and Williams to do the docuseries in 2022 and that the former radio DJ jumped at the opportunity, saying she would “love to do it” to “get [her] story out there.”
“That is not the project that [Williams] signed up for,” Zanotti concluded following the airing of “Where Is Wendy Williams?” this past weekend on Lifetime.
“That’s not the project [the producers] brought to me. That’s not what I told her this was going to be about. There were a lot of good moments. None of those good moments were shown.”
Williams’ reps did not immediately return ’s requests for comment. We also reached out to Lifetime for a response to Zanotti’s comments and confirmation as to whether Williams was able to review the final version of the series before it aired but did not hear back.
An insider with knowledge of the situation confirms to exclusively, however, that Williams did not watch and approve the docuseries footage.
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