- Source: WENN
Wendy Williams is being sued. No, not by some disgruntled celebrity but by a former intern who says the daytime talk show diva failed to pay proper wages.
One intern, Anthony Tart, has filed 12-page complaint against The Wendy Williams Show, Lionsgate, and Debmar-Mercury claiming he and more than 100 other interns were “illegally classified as minimum wage-exempt workers for the chat show,” reports Black America Web. If this is the case, this is a violation of state and federal laws in New York.
But Deadline reports that a potential class-action suit filed in federal court last week claims that this has been the norm at The Wendy Williams Show since 2008. This move allowed the company to minimize labor costs.
According to Tart however, he received no “educational or vocational training” while doing work that full-time employees would typically handle.
“Tart was hired by Defendants in or about August 2012 and performed various tasks including, but not limited to, washing dishes, getting coffee, picking up art supplies, stocking printers, throwing out garbage, and creating a tape library,” court documents state.
Tart wants an undisclosed amount, to be determined by a judge at trial, for the work he did just for one month — between August and September 2012. During that time, he worked there two days per week. So a relatively short stint.
This isn’t the first time Williams has been sued. Former Williams publicist Nicole Spence filed suit against the talk show host and her husband Kevin Hunter claiming that Hunter sexually harassed her. Williams settled the lawsuit out of court.
