Wendy Williams can’t quite put the NAACP and black college controversy behind her.
Three top producers for the daytime talk host have been sacked, in the wake of an uproar this summer over Williams’ on-air comments about the civil-rights group and historically black colleges and universities (HBCU), two insiders have told TheWrap.
Now the staff is “up in arms,” one insider said, over the belief that the fired producers are being scapegoated for a controversy for which they were not responsible. One of the fired producers, Jason Gabel, had been with the show since it started in 2008.
David Perler remains the executive producer of the syndicated “Wendy Williams Show,” which is made by Debmar-Mercury. The names of the other producers who were let go were not immediately available.
A spokeswoman for the show had no comment.
After Jesse Williams lambasted the state of race relations in a widely quoted speech at the BET Awards in June, Williams told her audience that the speech was “poignant” — but she was critical of historically black institutions such as the NAACP.
“I would be really offended if there was a school that was known as a historically white college. We have historically black colleges,” the host said. “What if there was the National Organization for White People, only? There’s the NAACP.”
The remarks stirred widespread outrage and led Chevrolet to drop a sponsorship deal for Williams’ show.