Product Description

She's the kind of media personality that artists love because she builds them up -- and fear because she can bring them down. She's interviewed many of the biggest names in entertainment -- Jennifer Lopez, Whitney Houston, and Queen Latifah among them -- and is known for her ability to disarm and get them to reveal their secrets. Known as both a "shock jock diva" and "the biggest mouth in New York," Wendy Williams is always at the top of her game, whether she's doing color commentary for the VH1 Fashion Awards or giving romantic advice on her daily drive-time show. But there's more to the Queen of Urban Radio than meets the mike. Wendy's Got the Heat is her story -- about growing up in a predominately white suburb, recovering from drug addiction, struggling to launch a successful career in one of the most male-dominated media industries -- and it's by turns painful, hilarious, triumphant, and totally true.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #385082 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-03
• Released on: 2004-08-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Drug addiction, divorce, miscarriages, infidelity-such is the stuff of gripping biography-but the story of Williams' rise to radio fame is less than the sum of its parts, at least as it's told here. Williams, a deejay on New York R&B and hip-hop station WBLS, is something of a rarity in the industry: a top-rated African-American woman. She relates that she always felt like an outsider: "I was the black girl in a practically all-white school. And among the handful of blacks, I was the 'white girl,' the outcast." But she was sure great things were ahead. "I knew that one day my being different would pay off," she writes. While Williams goes on to explain that her success came through hard work and dedication, she doesn't show the nitty-gritty of her job-how a studio operates, how she came up with her style, what she actually does at work-which is a shortcoming in a book about a radio personality. Instead, Williams offers a very readable but standard-issue confessional autobiography, told in a smooth vernacular; she relates her long-term drug abuse, which began with marijuana in college and progressed to cocaine; her problems with men; her desire for happiness and success. The story might be inspirational for some, but it's not always deeply analytical: her drug use, for example, helps her realize that "getting high with muthafuckas doesn't do anything for you except give people something to talk about or worse. Nobody's going to stick around if something goes down. And nobody's got your back." This is an worthy tale, but it's best suited to serious Williams fans, who will welcome information on her hard-won sobriety, her liposuction and breast implants, her love for her son and her tips for keeping a man.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Amy DuBois Barnett Honey magazine With the incredible success of her daily program -- full of celebrity dish and frank advice -- Wendy is at the top of her game....The best part? Wendy achieved her success by being herself.

New York Post If you're dying to find out everything there is to know about radio scandal-monger Wendy Williams, she has a story for you.

About the Author
Wendy Williams, a graduate of Northeastern University, lives in New York with her husband and son.

Karen Hunter is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a celebrated radio talk-show host, and co-author of numerous New York Times bestsellers, including Confessions of a Video Vixen, On the Down Low, and Wendy's Got the Heat. She is also an assistant professor in the Film & Media Department at Hunter College