Wendy Williams On Retiring From Her Talk Show: ‘I Want To Leave The Crowd Wanting More’

when you're an outsider or a misfit if you play it smart your motto should be i'll show them i will show you and for me that's been the model of my life you are in the spotlight and there's a lot of people out there who have a lot of lot to say about your career your approach to things and the like but you say though that you just try and listen to yourself how do you drown out that white noise and at what what still gets in at this point in your career the talk show has really been a game changer in terms of uh my entire situation and we're on now for six seasons and i adore meeting celebrities and i adore meeting you know movie stars and stuff but i'm a little long in the tooth now to drink the hemlock and become besties with these wonderful people you know i don't need that like i'm just the regular girl wendy from jersey i'm more like the people who sit in my studio audience than i am the people who sit here on the couch in so many basic ways their opinion matters to me more i'm not pressed to be friends with celebrities so it makes it very easy for me to i know cordial yes fun you know comfortable but um i guess it's easy for me to come out and say the things that i feel because first of all i've always been that way a little bit inappropriate but i'm comfortable with it and i also realized that at this point i'm only saying what other people are feeling so if i don't say it somebody else is kanye you are a madman and every time you open that mouth you prove it i feel so sorry for kim you you though are so well known for this style that is seen as a little bit brash or a little bit harsh but that connects to millions of women how would you describe that relationship and why do you think someone who's so authentic is such an anomaly in this area i am from jersey i don't know whether that matters but you know people where i'm from we are who we are and that's the way it is you see how our governor acts for better for work for better or for worse i think that my audience connects with me because they realize that in more ways than not i am one of them when i get out of here like my kid is in track you don't understand how pissed i am that every single weekday now i gotta pick him up from school at six o'clock or figure out how he's going to get home you know usually you know i'm picking him up but he's in track then i got to sit out there the sweaty track meets and you know i'm in the grocery store squeezing you know toilet paper with other women and and i say that on the show and people don't believe it until they actually see me in the big box store with my big basket you know buying laundry detergent i could have people do that for me but i don't want somebody grocery shopping for me don't pick up my kid no i'll do the carpooling some people would say it's a boring life but i say it's a life like my audience how you doing how you doing wendy my name is wendy oh i know right [Applause] you talk a lot about your family and how important it's been for you and grounding you and helping you move forward but you also said that you wanted to wait until you built a career to really establish this family or that women should wait um if they want to we can debate this all day every woman has a different view and there's some women who have an opinion and are scared to voice their opinion on it but i'm not scared to voice my don't throw tomatoes i do feel like a one like it is difficult for men to accept really successful career women whether it be that we out earn them or that the marquee our name is brighter than theirs or whatever i also feel like marriage and babies stunt a woman's growth career-wise and they don't understand like once you get married and once you have kids you can't do all the things that you used to do and maintain this important precious thing that you built as a family so my suggestion to women is always you use your entire 20s work your behind off in your career and get some ground footing and then you think about meeting that guy or even if you met him when you were 27 don't you get engaged and don't move to where he is this is about you and your career because we're the ones that lose in marriage not men you know what i'm saying men can still have their boys nights out and all that every time we have a girls nights out we're always oh my gosh i gotta leave with soccer practice oh my god and i'm not saying that's a bad thing but i'm saying that as a woman who's married for 17 years we're still expected to empty the dishwasher and we're still expected to maintain our households so what do women do about that if they are still trying to grow their career and be successful in that arena but still as you said have to empty the dishwasher what do they do it's really important that you marry a guy with a full working understanding of what your career is in terms of where you are right now and if you build it to where you want to be how crazy it could be you've had this incredible ethic throughout work ethic throughout your whole career what have you been working toward retirement would you want to stop working soon put it this way i will not be working until i'm 65 years old i will not i'm 50 right now and the timer has officially started ticking what will happen that that makes you go timer's gone off i'm done i want to bow out gracefully i don't want to be kicked off i want to leave the crowd wanting more but i'm trying to set up businesses now so that you know i still have an income but i want retirement to be you know a relatively comfortable retirement you know i have a line of wigs that you know does pretty well um i have a brand new clothing line that um is starting on hsn it's available right now at hsn.com it's just simply called wendy williams i'm trying to set up two little pockets of things and you know as far as the talk show no i'm not going anywhere anytime soon i mean i thoroughly enjoy doing this as long as i have to work this is the best job ever this is the best job ever nothing beats having your own talk show i like that lady wendy williams that's you thank you you don't age at all money's the best lotion in the world i want to live my life being a winner even if i lose at something i'm only sad for 30 seconds before i know how to turn it around and come back winning i get that characteristic from my mom most people call it in lay terms making lemons into lemonade i've always been very good at that