Wendy Williams has confirmed rumors of "a major indiscretion" by her estranged husband, saying he fathered a daughter with another woman.
The syndicated talk-show host opened up to The New York Times Magazine about the breaking point in the relationship to her husband of nearly 20 years, Kevin Hunter, that caused her to file for divorce in April.
"Kevin had a major indiscretion that he will have to deal with for the rest of his life,'' Williams said after noting the divorce is not finalized.
"An indiscretion that I will not deal with. He will always be my family, because we have a 19-year-old son, and we were together for 25 years and married for 21. But there was no vacillating. I’m out. That’s all I can say."
Williams, 55, started crying when talking about trying to be respectful when discussing Hunter despite his indiscretion.
"People want me to hate and scream and talk,'' she said. "I won’t. It bothers me that people say, 'Keep it as clean as you can, because you have a child together.'
"That’s not the main reason to keep it clean. The main reason I won’t talk badly about Kevin is that he was my first true love. I will not have people talk badly. I talk filthy about him, but that is when I get in my apartment and the door is closed and I am talking to myself in the mirror. I never thought that I would be in this position. I’m a very forgiving person, but there’s one thing that I could never be a part of, and that one thing happened."
Williams then confirmed tabloid reports that Hunter fathered a child out of wedlock when pressed about the "indiscretion." Hunter declined comment to The New York Times.
"Kevin has a daughter,'' she said. "I was sitting on a plane two days ago. I was next to a man who was probably wondering, Who the hell is this lady with a negligee? I love a negligee. He was watching 'Page Six TV,' and he said, 'Is that you?' And I said: 'Yes, it’s me. Please don’t tell me what they’re saying.'''
Williams also opened up about her decision to enter a sober living home for addiction treatment, which she revealed on her show in March.
"I was concerned based on what was going on around me,'' she said. "I’d done my detective work. I knew what was about to happen, and I was like, 'Let me go someplace where you’re not allowed to have the whole bottle of wine.' Cocaine has been off my map for years. I don’t take pills. I wasn’t doing anything off the wagon."
"When you see your husband’s mistress with a burgeoning belly and you’re a blabbermouth on TV with a successful show, you know what’s about to happen. I needed to go someplace quiet. When you go to a sober house, it’s like being in jail. I needed to not be interrupted by anyone. There was not one friend that I could call, because everyone would have dumbbell answers to a very serious situation."
Williams has been open on her show about past struggles with a cocaine addiction as well as other health issues, including being diagnosed last year with Graves' disease, which affects the thyroid.
She also said last month that she has been diagnosed with lymphedema, a swelling caused by a blockage in the lymphatic system that usually occurs in the arms or legs.
Her time in sober living helped her have some quiet to deal with the end of her marriage.
"My husband was about to have a baby, and I knew that I was about to divorce,'' she said. "I knew that there would be headlines. I had to process it so that once I came out, I came out on top. I didn’t work for three decades to land at the bottom over some (expletive) like this."