Wendy Williams, who rose to fame during the shock jock era of radio, has been known to offend people. But lately, Williams has been courting controversy to a dangerous degree. Most recently, it was with the controversy she had discussing Tabitha Brown. Now, she’s courting controversy for how a TikTok star’s murder was featured in Hot Topics.


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During Thursday’s episode of The Wendy Williams Show, Williams spoke about 19-year-old Tik Tok star Matima Miller, who went by the name “Swavy,” by comparing his fame to hers, leading the audience to laugh, as reported by HITC. She poked more fun at Swavy’s supposed irrelevance to her before announcing to a shocked audience that the media personality was killed Monday.

“I have no idea who this is,” she says, before asking her audience to clap if they know to Swavy is.

“He’s a Tik Tok star. He’s got more followers than me,” she continues. “2.5 million.”

“On Tik Tok, but on Instagram you have more followers,” said producer Norman Baker, leading the audience to clap.

“Well, as my son Kevin would say, no one uses Instagram anymore,” said Williams. “And as far as TikTok, I don’t use that, at all. I don’t know what that is, I don’t want to be involved.”

It was only after looking Swavy’s picture up and down that she finally announced to the audience he was murdered.

Viewers have taken to Twitter, Williams’ Instagram page and YouTube page to complain about WIlliams’ statements.

“I don’t like what you said about the young man that was killed,” one commenter wrote on Instagram. “You never said Rest In Peace or anything uplifting to his grieving family. You have a young son as well. I’d be furious if his life was discounted like that. Not nice Wendy. I expect better from YOU.”

“How can you ridicule a dead boy before letting us know he’s murdered,” another commenter said on YouTube. Another YouTube viewer wrote in part, “Wendy Williams tell me how you’ll feel if someone announced your son’s death that way…Swavy is someone’s son, friend, brother, nephew, favourite tik tocker he was someone’s whole world…I wouldn’t in a million years expect this kind of behaviour from big people…He was just 19 years old and he suffered a tragic death and you disrepsected his name.”

“I feel for the folks who were [led] to laugh at Swavy before they knew the nature of the story,” wrote one Twitter commenter. Another wrote, “Wendy Williams is so tasteless and disrespectful for making fun of Swavy’s death. At this point it’s beyond me how people still defend and stan her. let alone have a show still.”

“Wendy Williams is vile,” wrote another commenter on Twitter. “You mean that your followers are more important than the death of a 19 year young man? I cannot fathom what I just watched. This is disgusting.”

In an Instagram post announcing his death, Swavy’s family wrote that the viral star was “taken from us due to a senseless act of gun violence” and that they couldn’t give the public much information on the incidents surrounding his death “due to legaity.” This contradicts what Williams said in her segment regarding an Instagram Live where a person claimed to be Swavy’s killer.

Also, according to Cleveland’s Praise 94.5, the GoFundMe set up to help Swavy’s family has overexceeded its fundraising goal after Williams’ comments went on air.

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