Family

Wendy Williams calls it quits

ROLLINGOUT.COM — After years of marital toxicity and rancid rumors of infidelity and a love child, talk show host Wendy Williams is filing for divorce from her longtime husband and manager Kevin Hunter.

Published

5 years ago

April 13, 2019

Oakland Post

By Terry Shropshire

After years of marital toxicity and rancid rumors of infidelity and a love child, talk show host Wendy Williams is filing for divorce from her longtime husband and manager Kevin Hunter.

A source close to Williams told People magazine that the media maven will finally split from her husband after more than two decades of marriage.

Moreover, Williams had the legal papers served to her husband while he was at work — which also happens to be “The Wendy Williams” show, for which he is a co-producer, TMZ reported,

Williams, 54, and Hunter, 46, wed on Nov. 30, 1997, and have one son together, Kevin Jr., who is 18.

The news of the divorce comes less than a month after reports that Hunter’s alleged mistress, Sharina Hudson, had given birth in a Philadelphia hospital in March. Learning this may have sent Williams over the edge and spiraling into a destructive period of alcohol and drug abuse, multiple media outlets contend.

Wendy — she is mostly known by her first name — admitted on her eponymous morning talk show that she’d been staying at a sober house for months due to her continued dependence on legal and illicit drugs.

The drug recovery is what some pop culture pundits say was the real reason for her self-imposed moratorium from her show from January to March 2019, and not what she detailed earlier this year as her recovery from Grave’s disease and a fractured shoulder. Those two conditions, however, may have played a small part in her stint away from the show, pundits said.

“My husband was extremely concerned,” Wendy told People two years ago when addressing his attentiveness to her physical and emotional state. “He’s not just my husband, he’s my business partner, one of the executive producers on the show and he’s also my manager. He and I are glued at the hip.”

They may have been inseparable from a business standpoint but that unbreakable bond didn’t seem to carry over into their home lives. As Williams admitted in her book, Wendy’s Got the Heat, Hunter cheated on Williams after she gave birth to their son.

Rumors of chronic infidelity — and physical abuse — have plagued their marriage ever since.

Williams initially tried to put a positive spin on what Hunter’s cheating did to their union.

“It has made our marriage — and I know this is cliché, but it’s true — it’s made our marriage stronger,” she told VladTV in 2013. “No, I’m not back to the girl I was before him, because when you get stung like that, you never go back to who you were — only a fool does. But I love him, and he loves me, and we addressed it head-on.”

This year, with the rumors of Hunter’s relationship with Hudson raging to deafening levels, Williams was forced to address it on live TV.

“I’m still very much in love with my husband,” she told her talk show audience as a way to check her critics.

“Marriages have ebbs and flows, marriage isn’t easy. And don’t ask me about mine until you see this gone,” she added, pointing to her wedding ring. “And it ain’t going anywhere, not in this lifetime.”

Well, now it looks like the wedding ring is going into the trash.

This article originally appeared in Rollingout.com.

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Bay Area

Emiliano Zapata Street Academy Celebrates 40 Years Serving Oakland Families

The Oakland Emiliano Zapata Street Academy, a public alternative high school, celebrated its 50th anniversary this year with a community party and festival last Saturday with live music, good food, vendors’ booths, and activities for adults and children.

Published

1 day ago

May 4, 2024

Oakland Post

Live music was part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the Emiliano Zapata Street Academy, a public alternative high school, on April 27, at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church on Telegraph Avenue and 29th Street. Photo by Ken Epstein.

By Ken Epstein

The Oakland Emiliano Zapata Street Academy, a public alternative high school, celebrated its 50^th anniversary this year with a community party and festival last Saturday with live music, good food, vendors’ booths, and activities for adults and children.

Attending the Saturday, April 27 celebration were current and past students, families, faculty, and supporters of the school. The school is located at 417 29^th St., and the celebration was held nearby at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland.

For more information, go to www.streetacademy.online or call 510) 874-3630 or (510) 879-2313.

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Alameda County

A Safe Place, Bay Area Domestic Violence Community Organization, Opens New Service Center in Oakland

Oakland-Bay Area non-profit, A Safe Place, announces the grand opening of its newly purchased building in Oakland that will be a service center for families that have suffered from domestic violence. The new, two-story building has over six new service rooms for counseling, mental health support groups, legal services, children’s treatment, safe space for community engagement, and partnership activities.

Published

1 day ago

May 4, 2024

Oakland Post

Façade of the new community center for A Safe Place opening on May 10 in Oakland. Courtesy photo.

By Courtney Slocum Riley

Special to The Post

Oakland-Bay Area non-profit, A Safe Place, announces the grand opening of its newly purchased building in Oakland that will be a service center for families that have suffered from domestic violence.

The new, two-story building has over six new service rooms for counseling, mental health support groups, legal services, children’s treatment, safe space for community engagement, and partnership activities.

Domestic violence occurrences and offenses account for a considerable amount of all violent crimes in Alameda County. A Safe Place is attempting to provide a safe place for families to heal. A Safe Place is the only comprehensive domestic violence assistance program including a safehouse, in Oakland.

The grand opening celebration will also serve as a fundraiser to build out healing, therapeutic spaces for children and adult victims and survivors and survivors of domestic violence (male and female).

The new service center will expand the work of the organization, founded in 1976 when a group of women working in San Francisco came together to address the urgent need for a shelter in the East Bay. A year later, they founded A Safe Place (ASP) in Oakland. Run solely by volunteers, they set up a crisis line to offer crisis counseling and information to battered women and their children.

The organization serves over 500 adults and children annually through a host of services including crisis counseling via 24-hour crisis line, emergency motel and safehouse sheltering, mental health services (counseling and support groups).

Under the leadership of Executive Director, Carolyn Russell, the organization has grown from a single program into the comprehensive domestic violence and assistance program. ASP strives to meet the growing and diverse needs of our growing community.

The organization hopes to complete all the upgrades and therapeutic room improvements by August 2024. The public is invited to donate to the effort by using the website at www.asafeplace.org/donate. The organization also accepts in-kind gifts as well as items from the organization’s Amazon Wishlist.

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Bay Area

Obituary: Former California Education Superintendent Delaine Eastin Passes at 76

Delaine Eastin, who served as a former state Assemblymember representing parts of Santa Clara and Alameda County — and the first woman elected as State Superintendent of Public Instruction — died at age 76 on April 23. Eastin passed away from complications caused by a stroke.

Published

2 days ago

May 3, 2024

Oakland Post

Former California Education Superintendent Delaine Eastin.

By California Black Media

Eastin passed away from complications caused by a stroke.

Known for her power of persuasion, Eastin used her influence to be a champion for bipartisan issues that helped raise academic standards, lower class sizes, and emphasize the importance of conserving nature and the environment in schools.

Former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown and fellow legislative colleagues said that Eastin was in demand on the speech circuit while serving as a legislator.

“Few could engender the kind of emotion and passion she delivered in every speech,” Brown said.

State superintendent Tony Thurmond called Eastin a trailblazer who inspired fellow public servants.

“California lost an icon in our school system today. Delaine Eastin’s legacy as a trailblazer in public education will forever inspire us. Her unwavering dedication to California students — from championing Universal Preschool and the “A Garden in Every School” program to honoring our educators by establishing the California Teachers of the Year Awards — has left an indelible mark on our state’s educational landscape,” said Thurmond.