Wendy Williams, Queen of Radio?
PUSSSYKATT
N.Y. Daily News Feature Writer
Are you a lesbian?" WBLS radio personality Wendy Williams asks a guest one
recent Friday afternoon.
"No," rapper Queen Pen coyly replies, shifting noticeably in her seat.
"Well, have you ever been with a girl?" Williams pushes.
"Yes," the popular Brooklyn-bred artist reveals, as a loud hush falls over the
room. "Two."
By the end of their racy, hour-long exchange, Pen will have turned herself
inside out, telling Williams about her soured relationship with a male R&B
singer, her unhappiness with her breast implants and her days as a drug dealer.
"You know when you come visit Wendy you're going to have to talk," Pen says
with a shrug. "If you're not going to talk, you might as well leave."
It has been three years since Wendy Williams ruled the airwaves in this town.
Infamous for outing gay celebrities and dishing dirt (or "downlowing") on
everyone from Whitney Houston to Mary J. Blige, Williams' Hot 97 afternoon show
was, at one time, the highest rated in the city. Listeners loved her brash,
hell-raising style, but stars called for her head. LL Cool J once called her,
of all things, a poor role model, and she earned Puff Daddy's ire when she
posted an unflattering photo of a gentleman on her Web site that she identified
as the rap mogul. (P. Diddy repeatedly denied it was him, and it's rumored that
he was instrumental in making things uncomfortable for Williams at the
station.)
After a series of suspensions and a protracted dispute with Hot 97 owners Emmis
Broadcasting in 1998 — one that involved lawsuits, protests and loads of
mudslinging — Williams fled to Philadelphia's WUSL.
Now she's back in New York on Hot 97 rival WBLS. And judging from the number of
well-wishers who flood her phone lines, listeners couldn't be happier.
"I think a lot of celebrities were sitting on their little high horses when you
were gone," says one giddy caller to her show. "But now that you're back,
they're scared."
As well they should be. In the month since she returned, Williams has already
grilled Lil' Kim about her nose job, talked with Foxy Brown about her battle
with prescription pills and questioned Alicia Keys about her sexuality. Knowing
that good dish translates into great ratings, in true shock-jock fashion she
has little regard for petty things — like feelings.
"She goes for the gut, but that's what people want to hear," says Kevin Hunter,
Williams' husband, business partner and one-man security team. "People love the
fact that she keeps it real."
Not all people. Bring Williams up around certain industry insiders and you're
liable to get a range of reactions not printable in a family newspaper. One
high-level label spokesman called her a "lunatic," while a music exec referred
to the unconventional jock as "a disgusting piece of [bleep], a
silicone-injected drag queen." And those were some of the kinder comments.
Quite unlike Hot 97's afternoon personality Angie Martinez, who tends to avoid
anything remotely resembling a hard-hitting question, Williams is not
interested in making nice with her guests. "I do this for the fans," the
scandal maven says with all the syrupy graciousness of a prom queen riding atop
a peony-covered float.
The self-described "Queen of the Radio" says that over the years, her loyal
subjects have become her most credible spies, often contacting her in the wee
hours with juicy gossip morsels.
"My sources are the doctors and the nurses, the lawyers for the guilty,"
Williams says, quickly skimming over a faxed tip about a rap executive who
refuses to pay child support. "They are the limo drivers and the girls that
have [bleeped] a rapper and want to tell me about the size of his privates."
As a child growing up in an all-white, uppermiddle-class section of Ocean
Township, N.J. ("very '90210'"), Williams was extremely inquisitive. "I've
always asked a lot of questions," she says. "I was curious to the point that,
at times, it was embarrassing to my family."
Standing at a formidable 5-foot-10, Williams clearly subscribes to the notion
that bigger is better. Big diamonds, big hair weave, big, big breasts. "They're
a double D, small E," she says, chewing on a stick of chocolate licorice.
Williams, a size A six years ago, proudly admits to plastic surgery.
But it's not just the implants, tummy tuck or liposuction that she speaks
freely about. The jock is equally candid about the two miscarriages she had a
few years ago. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she calls the experiences
"devastating. I've never suffered such a severe loss."
Williams, now a mother of a 14-month-old boy, says she has chosen to be open
about her private life because "I'm not a good liar. I think too many people in
the light lie. Like people who lie about their nose jobs and you pull out their
yearbook and their noses look like a ham sandwich, a big old KRS-One-looking
nose," she says, taking a shot at the Jimmy Durante of rap.
So what won't Wendy Williams talk about? Hot 97.
"It's not worth the air I breathe," the gabby diva says with a flick of the
wrist. (Representatives of that station did not return a call for comment.)
When one caller mentions the competing station, Williams dismisses it, saying:
"There's no competition. I'm here with blinders on. Anyone in my way will be
mowed down."
And while people close to her note that "she has definitely matured," that
doesn't mean she won't still go for the jugular. "Wendy knows all, and if you
come up here I'm asking you about it," Williams warns. "So if you've got
something to hide, you'd better be prepared."
SEND EMAIL TO PUSSS...@aol.com
AGC FAQ and FUN STUFF
http://members.aol.com/pusssykatt/agcfaq.html
BLIND ITEM REHASH:
http://members.aol.com/agcgossipqueen/mainpage.html
Payton
agcgoss...@aol.com (PUSSSYKATT) wrote in message news:<20011030073803...@mb-fd.aol.com>...
Billie
http://www.wblsi.com/wbls/music/WendyWilliams.htm
"STUPIDITY IS NOT A HANDICAP. Park elsewhere!"