‘The Wendy Williams Show’ To End With Sherri Shepard Taking Over With New Show

After 13 seasons, The Wendy Williams Show will be winding down to an eventual end this fall after eponymous host Wendy Williams stepped down from hosting this season amid continuous health concerns.

Williams first revealed that she has been battling Graves’ Disease for nearly two decades in 2018. The condition particularly causes hyperthyroidism, which has severe symptoms and caused Williams to take her first break from the show in February 2018 after not missing a taping since its 2008 premiere. She also revealed that another reason for her 2019 hiatuses from the show was to confront a longtime cocaine addiction and spend some time in sober living.

Previous guest host Sherri Shepherd will be taking over the Fox show’s daytime timeslot with her own show that will be dubbed Sherri. The show will have the same distributer-producer in Lionsgate’s Debmar-Mercury and even be ran by Williams’ longtime showrunner David Perler.

Debmar-Mercury co-presidents Mort Marcus and Ira Bernstein released a statement confirming the switch on Tuesday, saying Sherri has been a “natural” choice as a new host. “Since Wendy is still not available to host the show as she continues her long road to recovery, we believe it is best for our fans, stations, and advertising partners to start making this transition now. We hope to be able to work with Wendy again in the future,” Marcus and Bernstein said, to further clarify why they decided to end The Wendy Williams Show.

In a statement provided by spokesman Howard Bragman, Williams apparently was “grateful to Debmar-Mercury, to Sherri and everybody else who has supported the show.” The statement also read that she “understands the reality of syndicated television – you can’t go to the marketplace and sell a show that’s The Maybe Wendy Show.”

A new Instagram account also featured a five-minute-long video of Williams walking along a windy beach in Florida talking to a young man offscreen who seemed to be her son, which was recorded about a week ago. The show host rambled a fair amount and didn’t directly reference her show much, but did say she was on “a break from New York,” after some questioning from her son on light topics.

She said she wishes to return to New York, but obliquely referenced some of her health battles. “I am going back stronger. Admittedly so, at 56 years old, things usually start at about 40, and they go up from there. So you’ve got to eat the right food … I want to be all I can be, and then get back to New York. And then get on down for the Wendy Williams Show.”