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While promoting her upcoming Lifetime biopic, Wendy Williams: The Movie, the daytime talk show host made an alarming accusation about deceased R&B singer, Sherrick. During a live panel, Williams alleged that she had been a victim of date rape at the hands of the singer.
“He mesmerized me with his twinkling eyes,” she told journalists Tuesday, according to People. “He flipped the interview around to where he was interviewing me — I was just gaga over this man and he asked me to go to an opening party, an album release party, with him that night.”
The night quickly went left and Williams says that the crooner assaulted her before the party.
“And before the party, I was date-raped by him,” said Williams before adding that she was date raped in college. “Those types of things happen to girls all the time. And they’ve been happening a lot, to a lot of our mothers, grandmothers, great-great-grandmothers, and their great-great-grandmothers, too.”
After catching wind of the allegations, the late singer’s widow, Lynne Conner Smith, spoke to Page Six, telling them that Williams should let Sherrick “rest in peace,” because he “is not here to defend himself.”
“Sherrick was a beautiful man, a genius with a voice like an angel,” Smith told the publication on Thursday. “We have three amazing children. This is quite painful to not only us but his nieces and siblings.”
Smith then went on to challenge the validity of Williams’ allegations.
“Why would Wendy not call the police if it were true?” she said “Why did she go out with him? We have questions, too!”
She pointed out that Williams “waited 25 to 30 years” to tell her story when she “tells the truth as a career!”
“It’s hard to believe,” she added. “Why now?!”
Smith’s family also released a separate statement in connection to the allegations, which reads:
“The man that others knew as ‘Sherrick’ passed away 21 years ago. He was loved and adored by his family and we miss him every day. As I will never minimize or dismiss the horrid actions of sexual assault, I am saddened that Ms. Williams feels the need to publicly make these allegations when the man she is accusing is no longer on this earth to defend himself. Our family does not know Ms. Williams and are not aware of any relationship or encounter they may have had.”
Wendy Williams: The Movie is set to premiere on Lifetime on January 30.
