In a new interview with Westside Kevin Hunter Sr. shared his side of his split from Wendy Williams and his departure from ‘The Wendy Williams Show.’
Speaking to The Westside Gazette Newspaper, Kevin had a lot to say about how he and Wendy ended things as well as how his influence on her show was the key to its success.
Check out a few excerpts from the interview below:
Kelvin Hunter Sr.: We had a vision and I didn’t want anyone at the show messing up the vision. They couldn’t hang money over our heads and tell us to just do something because we showed up with money. We were already iced out, already driving the Lamborghini and Ferrari or what have you. So their money didn’t make us, we made us. So early on during production Debmar-Mercury had no idea about the culture Wendy embodied. That culture that they use to frown on and say people didn’t want to hear about Hip-Hop and all that. However after a while Hot Topics, which I created, became nothing but about Hip-Hop Artist. I told them quick that they were over killing it and that Hot Topics had to be more defined and we did that. To Wendy’s credit she was talented and had the longest monologue on TV including Daytime and Night time. Wendy’s monologue lasted between 18 to 24 minutes, that was almost the entire show. That’s a long time to just be sitting in a chair talking. Yo, the purple chair was her idea, dope idea and she held the audience for sure. When I look back at what we did for an entire decade it makes me upset.
Kelvin Hunter Sr.: It’s clear to say that after I left, the show tumbled hard. My intellectual property of the creation of The Wendy Williams Show and how it had to come across was key. They would not have experienced the success they had without me. Wendy brought in 1.3 to 1.8 Million viewers daily. Once I was gone the people around her had her looking crazy sitting on that screen.
They certainly didn’t care that she kept getting the help that she needed away from TV, but I cared, I always cared. My heart was always in the right place about her. Yes, we had our problems but it was so personal of what I and she built. That’s why all the Hot Topics suddenly was about me. They tried their best to make her feel like, you can be tough and have power over him, to be really mean but she could not front and it was killing her inside. Wendy wasn’t built like that. When I was around Wendy’s day ended when she left that building but mine didn’t. There was always something that needed to be done or a call that needed to be took. I was the common denominator in every department, including decor, wardrobe and guest. You know Yo, my thing is this, with all of the things she accomplished and as influential as she was, they chose to make everything about the scandal. The Life Time Movie and the Documentary, it was all about the scandal and that’s pathetic.
Kelvin Hunter Sr.: Wendy was coming out of rehab, we were going through a divorce and the news of my baby came out. I wasn’t going to miss the birth of my daughter and people saw me at the hospital. Truth be told we should’ve got a divorce ten years earlier. Even our son, Kevin said that to us. But anyway when the news was out I told her I would step down from the show and Wendy told me I need to stay because I was having a kid. I stayed, only to later be lined up.
Kevin’s still trash. You can read the interview in its entirety here.
