The talk-show host was emotional as she revealed her secret struggle.
Wendy Williams was in tears as she made a shocking revelation Tuesday that she is living in a sober house.
"For some time now, I have been living in a sober house,” she revealed to her stunned viewers. “You know I struggled with cocaine in the past and never got treatment."
Williams said she'd kept the secret from everyone except her husband and son. "Only Kevin knows about this. Not my parents, nobody. Nobody knew because I look so glamorous out here,” she said.
When her talk show is over, she said she is taken to a secret location until the next day.
"I am driven by my 24-hour sober coach back to a home that I live in the tri-state with a bunch of smelly boys who have become my family,” she said.
Williams explained that she goes to a nondescript brick building in an industrial neighborhood in Queens, New York, a long way from the talk-show titan’s multimillion-dollar mansion in New Jersey.
Inside the sober living facility the apartments are modest, with a basic kitchen and living area. The bedrooms are open, with no doors. It’s run by the Pure Recovery Network.
Williams said life inside the facility is different — the front door is locked by 10 p.m. and lights are out at the same time. Williams falls asleep while staring at the ceiling and then wakes up only to go to work, she said.
Howard Samuels, an addiction specialist, described to Inside Edition what living in a sober space is like.
"What happens in sober living is that there are usually chores, you are usually up early, you are going to 12-step meetings, you are getting connected to other people in the house,” he said.
Williams is shadowed 24/7 by her sober living coach. She cannot even go to the bathroom alone.
"It is like a companion that you can talk to, that you can get close to, that is with you 24/7, that takes you to meetings," Samuels explained of a sober living coach.
Williams recently returned to the show after a two-month hiatus, triggered after she fractured her shoulder. Before Williams goes to the sober living facility, she said she does two hours of Pilates and then attends a daily substance abuse meeting.
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