On the last night of New York Fashion Week, in September, Wendy Williams, the former talk-show host and onetime gossip queen of New York, given permission to leave the locked floor of her assisted-living facility, where she is held against her will, was seated in the front row of designer LaQuan Smith’s runway show, showing the world just how well she was doing. She was polished up in long lashes, makeup perfectly set, dirty-blonde hair in smooth, loose waves. Smith had dressed her in a cropped black-and-white fur jacket over black shorts and fishnet stockings.

Williams, 61, had begun reappearing in public early this year after a long stretch of silence: In 2022, she was placed under court-appointed guardianship; then, last year, her guardian announced that the star had dementia, an asses

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