Wendy Williams Hunter (born Wendy Joan Williams on July 18, 1964) is an American media personality and New York Times bestselling author. She calls herself the "Queen of All Media" and hosts her own syndicated talk show, The Wendy Williams Show. Williams has gained notoriety for her on-air spats with celebrities. Williams was a contestant on the twelfth season of Dancing with the Stars. She was eliminated on April 5, 2011. Wendy Williams also sells a line of jewelry products on the home shopping network, QVC, called "Adorn by Wendy Williams" Wendy Williams was born to Thomas and Shirley Williams, as the middle child of three children. She and her siblings were raised in the Wayside section of Ocean Township, New Jersey.She graduated from Ocean Township High School. From 1982 to 1986, Williams attended Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, where she graduated with a B.A. in communications and was also a DJ for the college radio station WRBB. Williams also interned at WXKS-FM ("Kiss 108") in Boston. She later became a DJ for radio station WVIS in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, and after ten months there, accepted a job at oldies station WOL in Washington D.C.. In 1989, Williams began at urban contemporary WRKS ("Kiss FM") in New York City as a fill-in DJ. As rival station WBLS began hiring away staff from that station, WRKS hired her full-time for its morning show and gave her a non-compete clause contract; at this time she started her trademark of talking about African-American celebrities by giving listeners the dirt on the celebs' personal lives. A year later, Ms. Williams landed her own afternoon drive-time shift[citation needed], eventually winning the Billboard Award for "Best On-Air Radio Personality" in 1993. In December 1994, Emmis Broadcasting purchased WRKS and switched Williams to the company's other New York property, hip-hop formatted WQHT ("Hot 97"), as WRKS was reformatted into an urban adult contemporary outlet. Williams was fired from WQHT in 1998 for using the airwaves to promote her own events, in which the station received no compensation. The media reported that Williams allegedly got into a fight with her co-worker, Angie Martinez, while outing her romantic relationship with rapper, Q-Tip. In her New York Times bestselling autobiography, Wendy's Got the Heat, Williams praised Martinez, while acknowledging a mostly verbal confrontation. Williams stated that the station used the incident as an excuse to terminate her contract, and suggested that it was really pressure from Hip-Hop mogul, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, which led to her dismissal. She alludes to this in her second book, The Wendy Williams Experience, as she wrote, "He single-handedly tried to ruin me...". After the WQHT incident, Williams was hired by a Philadelphia urban station, WUSL ("Power 99FM"), claiming her New York fans "left her for dead". In 2001, Williams returned to the New York airwaves when WBLS hired her full-time for her own syndicated 2--6 p.m. time slot. Williams' friend, MC Spice of Boston, offered his voiceover services to the show, often adding short rap verses tailored specifically for Williams' show. Williams' interview style is brash, and she refers to herself, à la Howard Stern, as the "Queen Of All Media." In her television and radio shows, she regularly provides celebrity gossip. Williams has published several books, including the paperback novel, Drama is Her Middle Name: The Ritz Harper Chronicles Vol. 1 (2006), which is co-authored by Karen Hunter. In 2003, Williams interviewed R&B; singer, Blu Cantrell, asking questions about her sexual activities and practices, her criticism of other R&B; artists, and her drug abuse. This interview was sold as a bonus DVD with Cantrell's Bittersweet album. In October 2007, Williams filled in for Jodi Applegate on WNYW's morning television show, Good Day New York. On July 13, 2008, Williams debuted her daytime talk show, The Wendy Williams Show a 13-week test run on Fox owned-and-operated stations in New York City, Dallas, Detroit, and Los Angeles, during the summer of 2008. Fox Television Stations signed a deal with syndication company Debmar-Mercury at the end of the test to broadcast the show on its station group beginning in July 2009. The "shock jockette" remains true to her moniker when in her television trailer, she refers to exercising and crunching for her "belly flatness" and "kegeling" (strengthening her vaginal muscles). As part of the show Williams also drinks tea from various Wonder Woman themed coffee mugs from wiki.

• published: 06 Oct 2013