So much for Wendy Williams' guardian insisting Wendy is allowed to leave the confines of her assisted living facility to visit with family, because the guardian just torpedoed a night out with Wendy's niece ... according to sources with direct knowledge.
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00:00Wendy Williams has to be wondering, what in the hell was that letter her guardian sent to us?
00:05To TMZ!
00:06Saying, stop saying that Wendy can't leave her assisted living facility.
00:10She is free to go and go visit with family, go to dinner, whatever she wants to do.
00:16Whatever she wants to do.
00:18That's what was said to us in that letter.
00:20Which is very recent.
00:21But last night, Wendy's niece, Alex Finney, who we've shown you before, Alex was in New York and wanted to take Wendy to dinner.
00:32There was a third person who was going to go to this dinner as well.
00:36Which is probably critical to this.
00:37I think so.
00:38His name is Joe Tacopina.
00:39You may know him from, oh God, so many trials, including recently him kicking the prosecutor's ass in the A$AP Rocky case.
00:47Well, Joe now represents Wendy as a personal lawyer.
00:52And Joe, if push comes to shove and the judge will not end this guardianship, Joe is going to try the case before a jury.
01:00Right.
01:01He told us as much when we had him on last week, while you were on vacation.
01:04And so, um...
01:07The three of them were planning to go out to dinner.
01:08So at 7.05...
01:09Alex and Joe.
01:10So at 7.05 last night, Wendy talks to the guardian and says, I'm going out to dinner in about an hour.
01:17And the guardian says, no, you're not.
01:21Period.
01:21No, you're not.
01:22You're not going to leave the fifth floor where you need approval to even go down the elevator.
01:28Were Alex and Joe on their way to go pick up Wendy at that point?
01:32I would imagine.
01:33I think they were going to...
01:36Wendy needed a ride, so I think they were going to pick her up.
01:39Alex and Joe ended up going to dinner together.
01:45Wendy never went.
01:47But what's the deal with the guardian saying, hey, she's free to come and go?
01:52Here's the deal.
01:53And this is something we know.
01:55The guardian is suing A&E over this Lifetime documentary where Wendy was off the rails drunk,
02:01and it just was cataclysmic for her.
02:04And suing saying A&E should never have put her in that position.
02:08Wendy does not want this lawsuit.
02:10Wendy says, if anybody's at fault, it's the guardian who should have protected me and said,
02:15you're not doing it.
02:16A&E just did what A&E does.
02:18But Wendy doesn't want this lawsuit.
02:20We know that the guardian's lawyer called Joe Takapina and said, we want you to try the case for us.
02:30The case against A&E.
02:31The case against A&E.
02:33And Joe also knew Wendy wanted to hire him to fight the guardianship.
02:40And Joe chose the latter.
02:42Joe chose representing Wendy.
02:43First of all, what a moment for Joe Takapina.
02:46I mean, not only does he get A$AP off, he's now sort of being fought over by these two warring parties
02:51between Wendy Williams and the guardian to represent their various interests.
02:55But B, it's a fascinating time for Wendy Williams, who is being told that she can leave and come and go as she wants,
03:00and then is restrained from doing so for a meeting with her lawyer.
03:04Obviously, there's got to be accommodations made for her to meet with counsel.
03:07And the idea that they're going to be restrained from doing that really does seem to run at odds
03:11with everything they've been saying before.
03:13And the other thing is, she missed out on a fabulous dinner.
03:16Oh, gosh.
03:16This guy has been going on.
03:18Il Molino.
03:18He found out that the restaurant they went to is Il Molino.
03:21Go ahead.
03:22Just rant about it.
03:24Do we have the menu?
03:25Do we want to put up the graphic?
03:26Do we have the menu?
03:26It is.
03:27Oh, we don't have that?
03:28Even before the menu.
03:29I'm sure Harvey's got it pulled up on his computer.
03:30Even before the menu, they have this cheese and garlic that they bring out.
03:35It is fantastic.
03:37But I got to tell you, this is really interesting because, you know, ultimately,
03:43I think this thing's going before a jury because it does not seem they want to release her.
03:48And boy, it's going to be interesting.
03:50We should say, despite the horror for Wendy of missing out on an Il Molino dinner.
03:56You haven't been.
03:56She did actually get out of the facility today.
04:01To go to court.
04:03To go to court.
04:04They let her out for that.
04:06She did not have much to say.
04:08But obviously, we know that she is upset about it.
04:11It's not a significant court hearing.
04:14But at a point, it's unclear to me.
04:16Why aren't, you know, that's one of her new lawyers, you know, and this is a guardianship lawyer.
04:22I don't know why they're not going to court and saying, pull the plug now on this guardianship so the judge can say no and they can start the jury trial process.
04:29But that's got to happen sooner rather than later.
04:31Frankie from Washington, D.C.
04:34She was denied dinner with her niece and lawyer.
04:37This sounds less like care and more like control.
04:40I feel like they're trying to almost sabotage her so that she doesn't have that much of a relationship with who's potentially going to be her lawyer.
04:49Well, she has a relationship.
04:51She does have a relationship.
04:53Just to button this up.
04:56They have this linguine with this white truffle that like two months out of the year that is just ridiculous.
05:06Ridiculous.
05:07Okay.
05:07Anyway, we're going to move.
05:08Any more restaurant reviews you want to do?
05:10We're going to move on.
05:10Can we do some more news?
05:11I'm telling you, it's amazing.
05:12We're going to move.
05:13We're going to move.
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