Wendy Williams spoke with The Tom Joyner Morning Show today, to set the record straight on a letter she read to her studio audience last week, which she said was from Oprah Winfrey.
The talk show host told Tom Joyner and his co-hosts, “I have no reason to lie about this.” And that the letter she read during her live broadcast was from emails she received from a woman who claimed to be on Oprah Winfrey’s staff.
“I read the initial letter,” said Williams, “By the time I got to the second one, I was just like ‘This is so ridiculous.’ I read the first letter on [air], and the only thing I changed was I put ‘Love, Oprah’ at the end.”
Williams said she received the letters after stating on her show that she disapproved of Gayle King abandoning OWN to co-host The Early Show on CBS.
The next day, I get to work, and I’m told by my staff that an email came from Oprah’s staff,” Williams said. “The person’s name who sent the email is Chelsea Hettrick, just so everyone knows … H-E-T-T-R-I-C-K. Chelsea Hettrick sends a letter to the show not once, but twice. She sent it the first day, and then she sent another one with different writing the second day.”
During her live broadcast last Thursday, William’s read the letter, that she said Oprah sent, in attempt to clear up rumors that she and her longtime best gal pal Galye King were no longer friends.
The letter stated, “I know there’s been some speculation that Gayle and Oprah had a falling out because Gayle will be hosting the new morning show on CBS. I wanted to make sure everyone knows that there is only happiness for Gayle and this wonderful opportunity.”
The letter was signed “Love, Oprah. P.S. Stay black!”
Last Friday, Gayle King called into The Tom Joyner Morning Show and said that Oprah never sent The Wendy Williams Show a letter.
“The letter that I heard Wendy read, I didn’t see it, I know Oprah never wrote a letter to Wendy,” King told Joyner. “I said, ‘I’m getting all these messages that you wrote a letter to Wendy,’ and she goes, ‘Gayle, you know more than anybody knows that that’s not true.’”
King went on to say Oprah wholeheartedly supported her decision to leave OWN to co-host The Early Show on CBS.
“When this opportunity was presented to me – and make no mistake; it is an opportunity – the first people I talked to were Oprah, my son and my daughter. And I said, ‘I don’t know; I don’t know. They approached me, but I don’t even know if I should even entertain it,’ She [Oprah] said, ‘Are you kidding? This is so what you do, the news is what you love … you would be crazy to pass this up, Gayle don’t be foolish.’”
It has yet to be confirmed if Chelsea Hettrick is indeed employed by Oprah Winfrey or OWN.
