Dr. Oz gave Us Weekly some insight into Wendy Williams’ battle with Graves’ disease and hyperthyroidism while attending National Geographic’s America Inside Out With Katie Couric event on Monday, April 9, and revealed how he helped her.
Speaking about the Halloween 2017 incident where Williams passed out on live television, the doctor — who was Williams’ first guest on her daytime talk show host after she took a brief medical leave in February — told Us, “When she fainted, I immediately called, texted. Both she and her husband called back. We talked a little bit about it. We arranged for her to see some docs that are great in the city… in fact, my doctor, who I trust a lot.”
“The diagnosis is a very treatable problem, but a very common problem. She asked me to come on to walk everyone through what had gone down with her. What’s beautiful about Wendy Williams is that she just tells you the truth,” he continued. “What she’s suffering from is what a lot of people are walking around with and they don’t acknowledge it — the frustration, the weakness, the lethargy.”
“To write it off as just not being your best is not true,” Dr. Oz added. “If you go right now and google ‘why am I,’ it will autocomplete ‘so tired.’”
As previously reported, Williams, 53, took a three-week hiatus from The Wendy Williams Show in order to focus on restoring her health as she dealt with complications from the autoimmune disease affecting her thyroid. The former Dancing With the Stars contestant later revealed she cried when she was told to take medical leave and admitted she was afraid she would lose her audience during her short time away.
However, she made it clear she doesn’t want any special treatment despite her health condition, saying on Good Morning America in March, “When I see you in the streets, the grocery store, don’t ask me with the woo-woo-woo and the puppy eyes. Then I’m going to snap.”
