Norman Baker, Wendy Williams
Producer Norman Baker is getting candid about the final days at The Wendy Williams show.
According the series longtime producer, details of the controversial finale episode were not decided by the production team. Instead, Norman Baker says the finale – which only included a video tribute to the shows host Wendy Williams, was decided by people “above” them.
Joining Carlos King on his podcast Reality with the King, Norman was asked:
“How do you feel when people say they hated the way….the show ended and they felt like she didn’t get the tribute she deserved?”
To which Norman responded:
“Honestly that’s above me. It’s above me now.”
Continuing, the daytime producer went on to explain the process of how the shows finale episode came to be. He stated:
“I actually don’t know, what the process was, or I don’t know anything about it honestly….There were internal talks about like you know, between us, like what are we going to do, how we’re going to do it. But those are decisions are made above us,”
Concluding:
“I wasn’t really involved in those talks, so I don’t really know exactly how that happened.”
EXCLUSIVE: On my podcast #RealitywiththeKing , I chat with #WENDY producer Norman Baker on his career, his experience on the show, how fans didn’t like the way the show ended and his thoughts on #rhobh ! Such a GOODT interview! Link ?? //t.co/imZRszp61Y pic.twitter.com/xanQnX5K0r
— Carlos King (@thecarlosking_) July 8, 2022
Wendy and her shows production company Debmar-Mercury publicly feuded for months following her extended vacation due to health concerns. By the time the media personality expressed desire and readiness to make her TV return after almost a year, it seemed Debmar-Mercury had already went another direction. The production company shortly after announced Sherri Shepherd, who was the last/longest guest host for The Wendy Williams Show during Wendy’s time away, would be hosting her own show in Wendy’s former time slot.
Despite the drama leading up to the finale episode, Norman says he’s proud of what was accomplished. He stated:
“I felt like what we did was from the heart, and it was like good. And it was you know what we were supposed to do,”
He continued:
“There’s actually no way to end that show. Like there’s no actual, really sufficient way to encapsulate what we feel in our hearts for her anyway….No matter what I do for the rest of my career, I know I was apart of something great for like 12 years.”
Wendy Williams
Earlier this month, Wendy took to her Instagram page promoting her upcoming podcast, The Wendy Experience Podcast. At this time there is no official launch date for the media personality’s next talk show project.
Do you agree with Norman’s thoughts about the final episode? Tell us in the comments.
Wendy Williams’ reign as the queen of daytime television and celebrity gossip has ended, at least for now. The final season of her talk show featured all guest co-hosts as reports of Williams’ mental and physical health declining ran rampant. Williams has stated that she’s returning in the form of a podcast. In the meantime, she’s already been replaced by Sherri Shepherd. Williams’ longtime producer Norman Baker recently revealed how he feels about Williams’ show ending, and he says his concern is more about Williams’ health.
Norman Baker was a producer on ‘The Wendy Williams Show’ since the beginning
Baker moved to New York from Chicago with dreams of being a television producer. He landed a gig as a receptionist for Ananda Lewis while she was working on her television show. From there, he worked on VH1’s Best Week Ever. Baker learned of Williams’ show from a colleague and was hired as an entry-level producer.
His chemistry with Williams was there from the start. He told Carlos King during an appearance on the Reality With the King podcast that Williams surprised him by having him be an intricate part of her daily “Hot Topics” segment. Baker worked his way up to supervising producer for the show’s first half.
He will assume the same role on Shepherd’s new talk show set to premiere this Fall. Shepherd replaced Williams’ time slot on FOX and was one of the guest co-hosts who filled in during Williams’ absence.
He says he is mourning the loss of their relationship versus the show because Wendy Williams is not in the best health
Baker says he was thankful to Shepherd and all of the guest co-hosts who stepped in and allowed the staff to keep their jobs in Williams’ absence, but he does feel a level of sadness now that Williams’ show has ended. But, it’s not for the reasons one may expect.
Source: YouTube
“I’m still kind of in the grieving process. I luckily have like a couple of months off to recharge and re-center for Sherri Shepherd,” he said. “But it’s sad for the culture, it’s sad for my relationship with her. We’re good, we just kind of – we had a working relationship, so I don’t really speak to her as much. There were points where we talked all day, every day. But you know, she’s not doing well, so we don’t really speak as much.”
Baker says he has not spoken with Williams since she went on leave prior to the final season that featured all guest co-hosts. “It’s been a while, it’s been since before this season started. Honestly, if she called me right now, we’d pick up like nothing ever happened. I don’t take it personally,” he added. “Obviously, she’s not in the best of health. It is what it is. Actually, that’s the saddest part about it – is that she’s not in the best fighting form because she’s the G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time). And I remember – you can give her one name, you can just say ‘Kenya Moore,’ and she can just talk for 20 minutes about Kenya Moore, unprompted. So that’s the sad part, and the part I’m still kind of grieving.”
How he feels about Wendy Williams’ lackluster send-off
The show put together a montage of Williams’ best moments throughout her show’s run. Williams did not physically or virtually appear in the final episode. Baker says that was not his decision.
“Honestly, that’s above me. It’s above me now,” he insists. “I actually don’t know what the process was, or I don’t know anything about it, honestly. There were internal talks about what we were going to do, and how we were going to do it. But those are decisions [that] are made above us.”
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