Interview by Kelvin Cowans
Part 1
The Wendy Williams TV Show aired from 2008-2022. The incomparable host who made a purple chair famous and powerful, along with her producers was nominated for coveted awards during the height of its run. There were several Daytime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Host, a People Choice Award for Favorite Daytime TV Host and more. Yet, most importantly the show was nominated by fans as their ‘tea’ of choice. Tea, the small yet venomous modern day urban slang word for hot gossip. Wendy Williams, aka ‘shock jock’ aka the “queen of tea’ had a ‘tea’ party five days a week, with a catalog of over one thousands episodes for roughly 13 years. There wasn’t a celebrity excluded and every fan was invited to take a nosy sip. During one episode, staying true to her style of equal opportunity of ridicule, the former Mrs. Williams-Hunter relationship was the day’s tea. Yes, hard work and hardships were twins during her climb to success and she balanced them progressively for years. However, her climb to success and eventual star on the coveted Hollywood Walk of Fame was not achieved alone. As we all proverbially know there are three sides to every story but at least ten sides to every tea.
From the very beginning blazing a trail through Radio to TV, standing firmly in her corner was her former husband Kelvin Hunter Sr., an Executive Producer of The Wendy Williams TV Show. Kelvin currently resides in Florida but his New York born and raised accent reverberated as he passionately shared multiple stories of his life. Capitulation be damned, he desired to share his journey, not his cute Journee, but his life journey, so keep up. There was enough for a memoir of sorts, packed into an article, bursting every paragraph at its modern day Associated Press style seams. His short stories accounting his personal life and business acumen before, during and after his 20 plus years of marriage to Wendy Williams. His transparent and matter-of-fact approach left me believing that Mr. Hunter was being hunted. Not hunted by people or a ghost but more so destiny. It was as if destiny was chasing him to share his side of the story. Sometimes people do become king of a thing right before our eyes. So this attempt is to have him to expound on his regrets and rewards, strengths and weaknesses, smiles and tears. Wisdom tells me that if accessed Hollywood might quickly develop his gut wrenching stories as a prequel to this dope Hip-Hop culture couple we met in the late 90’s. Today, just an honest chat, from that same successful cup of tea.
Back to the Beginning
Kelvin Cowans [KC]: Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to speak with me. If you don’t mind, I’d like to start at the beginning. What was early life like for you being born and growing up in Brownsville New York?
Kevin Hunter Sr.: My mother, Pearlet, was a single parent and I was the middle child with an older sister and younger brother. (Kim, Kevin, Keith) I grew up believing that I and my sister had the same father and my brother had a different father. That didn’t turn out to be accurate because later in life I was confronted by my sisters’ father, James Hunter, while attending a book signing for Wendy. I was around the age of 30 at the time. He wanted to let me know that I wasn’t his child. He didn’t say it in a mean way just that he wanted to put me up on what my mother had done. So technically I and my siblings have three different fathers, although I carry his last name. Ultimately my biological father ended up being whom I thought was my God-father. My father lived twenty minutes from us in Brooklyn. As a child my mother would send me to him when I needed money for things like school projects and stuff. He would help sometimes but normally he would curve me or brush me away. Again, later when I grew up, and found out the truth, I needed answers to my many questions about my father but he and my mother still wouldn’t own up to what I heard. In time she eventually would tell me the truth but by then she had done irreparable damage to our relationship.
KC: How were you affected growing up in a single parent home, with three kids in Brownsville Brooklyn?
Kevin Hunter Sr.: It was the projects, so I grew up working hard. My mother was a hustler, she did hair. She had come from Hemingway South Carolina, in the south. My mother was a character and I inherited quite a few traits from her like her hustle and the ability to have more than one person in my life, as I had watched her juggle men. But as a hustler on any given Saturday around the age of 8 or 9 I’d wake up on the couch in my underwear and the room is filled with women. Our home was my mother’s hair salon, so I had to learn how to wake up quick and get out the way.
KC: What was your first job as a kid?
Kevin Hunter Sr.: I was 13 years old and my first job was packing bags at the supermarket for quarters. Then the opportunity came around where I and my two best friends Typhone Chisolm and Damien Dupree ventured outside of Brooklyn to explore stuff in the other Burroughs. We would jump on the L Train and go to the city to see what was going on there. We regularly went to The World Trade Center. The World Trade Center was mostly closed on the weekend so we’d find a way to get up in the parking lots and run through and just play around but nothing mischievous. Eventually we ended up getting a marketing job in which we would have to put coupon pamphlets in people doors for supermarkets, furniture stores and so on. We would go and work all weekend long putting in 8 to 12 hours days at thirty-five dollars a day, and make around seventy to seventy-five dollars for the entire weekend. They gave us shoulder packs full of those things and that was like 15 to 20 pounds of paper, heavy for a little kid. They would then load us up in a van, drive us around to the corner of a block and put us out. We’d then walk 7 to 10 blocks putting out these pamphlets and they’d pick us up on the other end. It was hard work but we made money so it was cool.
KC: What year did you graduate High School?
Kevin Hunter Sr.: I didn’t graduate High School but I did eventually get my G.E.D. Which is weird because I was certified as gifted as early as the 3rd and 4th Grades. Anyway mother had complications in the projects and we moved and my high school situation only deteriorated from there. I couldn’t focus on school as my daily life changed drastically. When we lived in the projects my mother was cheating with this guy named John who had a family on the 8th Floor of our building and we lived on the 5th Floor. He had a good job with Transit, driving buses and things. But he was cheating with my mom and wanted to get away from his wife and kids and get with my mom. He soon moved us away from the projects to another spot out in Malverne New York. But my mother couldn’t let go of the projects. She was still doing hair and getting money in that apartment and also doing her thing, messing around with men. She just couldn’t let it go. It was during one trip back to the projects my mother and I were walking down the street and John’s ex-wife ran down on us and sliced my mother up with a razor blade and I witnessed it all. That brought a lot of resentment towards my mom from John because he never wanted her going back to the projects after he divorced his ex-wife and married my mother. He didn’t want my mother coming back acting all top shelf in front of them. On top of that he had three kids with that woman and along with all of the other dysfunctions the projects produced in both our families, drugs reached one of his daughters. That and stress and other factors led to her committing suicide. I just remember John developed a very bad drinking problem and began to treat us really bad. Sometimes my mom wouldn’t come home for three and four days at a time. John would yell at us and lock us out of the house when my mother wasn’t there. We had to survive so when I was in the 9th Grade I plotted and stole working green cards from our attendance counselor at the school so I could legally work as if I was sixteen. I stole a whole stack of cards and was able to go out and get a job at McDonald’s. I sold some of the cards to other kids for fifty dollars apiece because many of them were trying to work also. Still, as usual, my employers would eventually find out I wasn’t old enough to work and they would fire me. All I did was go into my stash get another card and go get another job somewhere else. I was working and saving my money in the 9th and 10th Grade. I worked at several places from McDonald’s to Roy Rodgers, Nathan’s Famous, Kentucky Fried Chicken and even Macy’s. I worked at all those places before the age of sixteen. Looking back even when my mom was home, she’d join in with John taking out her frustrations with him on us. I’d be banging on the door sometimes, missing curfew because I’m working or with my friends and she wouldn’t open the door. I couldn’t deal with the pressure of going to school, their arguments and all this crap at the house and dropped out. A lot of times, when I was locked out I’d have to stay with friends and when I couldn’t stay with friends, I’d sneak into this empty Police substation and sleep there. I remember a time there was a blizzard and the place was just too cold so I had to call the 800 runaway hot-line and they took me to a shelter. That was the point when I knew I had to get my own place and I was just fifteen years old at the time. Frankly, me and my mom we’re not close like that. I really didn’t have my mother’s love as a child.
When Night Club met Radio
KC: Fast forward, time pass, you grew up and you have your own place. To quote another Brooklyn native Notorious B.I.G. “However, living better now Gucci sweater now.” As an adult, did your Night Club ventures start immediately?
Kelvin Hunter Sr.: Yeah, I use to throw parties with a couple of partners in Brooklyn. There was Ron and Typhone. I was hustling hard by selling a little weed and taking the profits to try and be a part owner in salons, as well as throwing parties. We would rent spaces in and around Brooklyn. It was hard in the beginning because we didn’t know what we were doing, our parties weren’t sexy.
So then we started investing more into our sound systems to make our parties more live. Then we started selling bootleg liquor and that helped tremendously. What I eventually found out was that our DJ Mister Cee needed a hot Host. We were considered the hottest promoters in the area at the time but we wanted to go to a higher level. Coming from Brownsville Brooklyn I had a presence, a certain appearance so I wanted to maintain what we built. In my search to level up I attended an event with DJ Mister Cee out in Plainfield New Jersey. It was at a skating rink where Wendy was hosting from Hot 97. This was like 1992 or 1993. I saw a guy I knew was with Wendy and her entourage and I told him to have her give me a call. I truly was trying to get at her for entrepreneurship purposes because I knew she was on radio and there might be some opportunity there for my parties. On the spot my man took me over to meet her and when we spoke, I said something slick like, maybe we can both get our pathfinders muddy together, because we both had pathfinders at the time.
KC: Did that spark her interest?
Kelvin Hunter Sr.: No, in fact it was almost a week before she even called. I had forgotten about it when she called. I remember I answered the phone like what’s good? She replied “Oh nothing.” I then asked her did she want to talk about Night Club party stuff. She was like “No.” I said what you want some weed? She said “No.” I then asked her did she want to go out on a date and she said “Yes.” I said oh, okay. I then asked her did she want me to come scoop her up tonight and she said “Yes.” I picked her up at the radio station and we started on our first date.
KC: First date, first impression, you don’t get a second chance.
Kelvin Hunter Sr.: True, it was our first date and before we went to get something to eat I took her to my crib so she could see how I was living. I had a one bedroom in Flatbush New York. She thought it was nice and chill. Boom, we were out, we headed through the Lincoln Tunnel to get something to eat. We ate a Houlihan’s and dinner was good, we had a great time and after that we headed to her place. Wendy was living in a penthouse, very nice place out in Jersey City where you can see the entire city. On the first date she told me that you don’t have to worry about money when you with me. But I told her that I didn’t ask you to do all of that. I told her that if she was use to starting her dates off like that then she’s already in the wrong space and place with me. I told her that I’m going to have to show you something different. At the time she was making more than me but I was like don’t wave me off like I’m a sucka or something, I make what I have work.
We actually stayed up all that night talking and from day one we started spending a lot of time together. We became inseparable. I spent a lot of time out in New Jersey at her place. As time passed I could see that Wendy was a household name, without a doubt but in the streets, they really weren’t messing with her. I didn’t want to say much because we had a genuine romance and that was my girl. I thought to myself, cool, I got to make her fly. I wanted to make sure she was good. So I took my street money and doubled down on my parties so I could level up. I began paying for advertisements on her radio show at Hot 97 which ranged from five thousand a spot on down. I and my business partners graduated to having Culture Club parties on Utica Avenue in Brooklyn. The who’s who of the 1990’s Hip-Hop elite would come through. We had Lil’ Kim, Fat Joe, Onyx, The Lost Boyz, Biggie and Junior Mafia, Method Man and the entire Wu-Tang Clan, it was hot.
Wendy would come and host the parties and it took her street credit up. I didn’t know it at the time but I was branding her. Wendy became a confident swaggalicious chick. At the height of our parties we were making sixty thousand at the door alone. From throwing those parties is where I learned supply and demand and I understood production and not just worrying about being fly but also watching the money.
KC: How did you guys transform from Radio to TV.
Kelvin Hunter Sr.: Yo, first of all Wendy was working for Kiss Radio. It dissolved into Hot 97 where Wendy and only a few others were retained. But in that agreement, she didn’t make more money, her pay remained the same. I began to tell her how great she really was and how valuable she was in the media market. Since they weren’t trying to pay her more, we set out to get her out of her contract. She had a 2 year non-compete contract. Listen, Hot 97 had all the lawyers in the area on retainer and no Entertainment lawyer would take our case and we decided to hire a criminal lawyer that I knew, to get out of a radio contract. It was fought out in Federal Court and if she didn’t get out of that deal you wouldn’t have heard of her. But he fought and won her freedom from them. Not long after that Wendy filled in at Fox Network Good Morning New York Show and the numbers were crazy. I knew then she could be special at this. This was when I began managing her full-time. After going thru a pilot for a TV show where she would’ve been paired with Comedian Monique and a couple of other set ups, we eventually landed with the Debmar-Mercury Company.
Honestly my biggest mistake was not forming our own Production Company and shopping our own show. You know Yo, I was intimidated by a world that I didn’t know I could dominate. That’s all to it.
Multiple attempts to reach Wendy Williams, Wells Fargo Bank and Debmar-Mercury Production for comment were unsuccessful.
Kelvin Hunter Sr. can be reached on: Instagram: @therealkelvinhunter Facebook: Kelvin Hunter Website: hunterpublishingbookstore.com
Kelvin Cowans can be reached at: (kelvincowans@hotmail.com or Instagram: @sixfour901)
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