The Williams matriarch was a retired school teacher and regularly appeared on ‘The Wendy Williams Show’ and captivated audiences
Shirley Williams, the mother of Wendy Williams, has passed away, the TV host confirmed on her talk show on Monday.
“My mom passed away many, many, many, many weeks ago,” Williams told her millions of viewers. “She passed away beautiful and peacefully.”
Mrs. Williams regularly appeared on The Wendy Williams Show throughout its 12 years on-air. The love between Wendy and Shirley Williams often on full display on the daytime talk show, as Shirley and her husband Thomas Williams Sr. appeared on camera as special guests in the live audience.
And while like most celebrity moms, Shirley Williams, a retired school teacher, remained behind the scenes of her daughter’s meteoric career, she often won over audiences and Wendy fans with her endearing personality and humor.
One particularly memorable moment between Wendy and her mother ended with the talk show host in tears. In 2010, Shirley Williams shared a story with viewers about how Wendy’s birth brought “a ray of sunshine” to their family, as it occurred just months before Shirley Williams’s mother died of colon cancer.
“In 1964, my family was full of stress and in a lot of darkness because my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer. It was not a good time for my family. But then a ray of sunshine came into our lives,” Shirley Williams said at the time.
