Wendy Williams

A native of New Jersey, talk show maven Wendy Williams (not to be confused with the Plasmatics singer of the same name) grew up in a conservative, middle-class African American family. She made her name not on television but on East Coast radio, touting a brash, brazen form of celebrity-oriented gossip that hinged on by-the-throat comments, branded her as a "shock jock," and drew more than one legal threat from A-listers (in the most widely reported incident, Williams got into a lengthy brouhaha on the air with controversial diva Whitney Houston that quickly turned foul and nasty). Williams spent nearly two decades on the air in this format and shuffled back and forth between New York and Philadelphia-based stations, including Manhattan's Hot 97 and Philly's Power 99, then in 2003 made the leap to television with VH1's similarly themed celebrity gossip talk program Wendy Williams Is on Fire (2003). In 2008, a follow-up talk program debuted on Fox, the Los Angeles-based Wendy Williams Show. In addition to her television hosting duties, Williams has also written several books, including the New York Times best sellers Wendy's Got the Heat: The Queen of Radio Bares All and The Wendy Williams Experience: Queen of Radio, as well as the Ritz Harper series of novels.