Gossip guruWendy Williams has been privately struggling with "alcohol-related" brain damage that is believed to be the root of her cognitive decline, RadarOnline.com has learned.
Sources close to the former daytime talk show icon claimed she got the diagnosis in 2019 while at rehab in Florida, according to a report ahead of her upcoming Lifetime documentary. They said a brain scan was done as part of her stay.
A neurologist then sat down with Williams, her son, Kevin Hunter Jr., and her then-husband, Kevin Hunter Sr., to share their findings, according to a report from The U.S. Sun.
"They told her that her alcohol abuse had done permanent damage to the layers in her brain," alleged the insider. "She was warned then and there that if she continued to drink, the damage would only get worse."
"They told her that if she kept drinking she would continue to grow more forgetful, that she wouldn't remember people's names, and eventually, she could forget who people even were."
According to the report, Williams has nearly died several times.
Her team has yet to confirm or deny those claims in the report but did share a health update on Thursday, first noting that she has been open about her struggles with Graves' Disease and Lymphedema as well as other significant challenges to her well-being.
"Over the past few years, questions have been raised at times about Wendy's ability to process information and many have speculated about Wendy's condition, particularly when she began to lose words, act erratically at times, and have difficulty understanding financial transactions," they shared in a news release. "In 2023, after undergoing a battery of medical tests, Wendy was officially diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia."
RadarOnline.com has learned that Williams' guardian filed a lawsuit against the network's parent company, A&E Television Networks, just days before the explosive documentary is set to premiere on Lifetime.
Lifetime will still be debuting the doc Where is Wendy Williams? despite pushback.
Executive producer Mark Ford told PEOPLE in a recent cover story that "Wendy's attorneys and the guardianship attorneys were consulted and signed off on" the project long before it was set to air.
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Interestingly, RadarOnline.com exclusively learned today that one of the parties filed a separate case to appeal the original decision that was reached on the matter, but the records are sealed.