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Wendy Williams (born July 16, 1964) is an African-American radio host and television personality. She was raised in Ocean Township, New Jersey and presently lives in northern New Jersey with her husband, Kevin Hunter and their four-year-old son. She currently has her own show called Wendy Williams Is On Fire on American VH1 and hosts a weekday syndicated radio program called The Wendy Williams Experience from its flagship station 107.5 WBLS New York City.
Williams attended Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts where she majored in communications and was a DJ for the college station WRBB 104.9 FM. During college, she interned at WXKS, Kiss 108, in Boston. Later, she became a DJ for a radio station in St. Croix. After a few months there, she accepted a job on, WOL-AM, a Washington D.C. station, and then soon moved to the New York market, where she has worked for PLJ and Hot 97 (both when it was "Hot 97" and earlier, when it was "Hot 103.5").
In 1989 she was hired by 98.7 Kiss FM in New York as a fill-in DJ. As rival station WBLS was pilfering staff away from Kiss the station immediately hired her full time for their morning show and gave her a Non compete clause contract. That was when she started her gossip on celebrities. A year later she landed her own 6-10pm shift, making her the most listened-to DJ in the country. In 1993 she won the Billboard Award for Best On-Air Radio Personality. Subsequently hired (and fired) from Hot 97 allegedly for outing co-worker Angie Martinez romantic relationship with rapper Q-Tip (of A Tribe Called Quest fame). Wendy then was hired by a Philadelphia station (Power 99), claiming that her NY fans "left her for dead" after the Hot 97 incident. WBLS, Power 99's sister station, hired her full time for her very own 2-6pm (7pm for the NY Tri-State Area) shift, again making her the most listened-to DJ in the country. She is currently syndicated in Philadelphia, Shreveport, Hartford, and Los Angeles among other markets.
Williams is known for being brash and honest in her interviews and refers to herself, a la Howard Stern, as the "Queen Of All Media". In both her television show and her radio show she dishes celebrity gossip as well as conducts interviews and speaks her mind about current events. She has hosted several installments of Wendy Williams is on Fire for VH1.
In 2003, Williams caused controversy when interviewing Whitney Houston and asking blunt questions about Houston's drug habits and other issues including her marriage to Bobby Brown. During several points in their interview, Houston berated at Williams for "going too deep" with certain questions and then telling Williams that she'd "meet (her) outside" if she wasn't "a lady with class". Houston also told her that "only (her) mother had privy to information" about her drug use saying "you talk to your child about that 'cause I'm not a child, Wendy!"
Williams has published several books and has won "Radio Personality Of The Year" awards from both Billboard and Radio & Records industry magazines.
In 2003, Wendy interviewed R&B star-singer Blu Cantrell for the album Bittersweet. During the interview, Wendy asked Blu about her sexual activities and practices, criticized other R&B artists, and talked about drug abuse with Blu. The interview was sold on a Bonus DVD with the Bittersweet album, however, it did not boost sales as it was intended to.
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