Montel Williams Biography
Montel Williams (Montel Brian Anthony Williams) is an American television personality, actor, and radio talk show host. He is best known as the host of the daytime talk show The Montel Williams Show, which ran in syndication from 1991 to 2008. Currently, he hosts Military Makeover: Operation Career on Lifetime. In addition, he is noted for his service both in the United States Marine Corps and the United States Navy. He retired after 22 years of service.
Williams founded the nonprofit MS Foundation after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999.
How Old Is Montel Williams?
He is 66 years old as of February 2023, having been born on July 3, 1956, in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. Montel Williams shares his birthdate with celebrities such as; Brooklyn Queen, Tom Cruise, Corinne Joy, PartyNextDoor, Jason Genao, and many more.
Montel Williams Family
Who are Montel Williams’s Parents?
Montel was born to Herman Williams Jr. (Father, born in 1931), a firefighter who in 1992 became Baltimore’s first African American Fire Chief. And Marjorie Williams (Mother).
Does Montel Williams have Siblings?
News on the internet shows that he visited his sister who lives in Westminster, Maryland.
Montel Williams Education
He received his high school education at Andover High School in neighboring Linthicum, Maryland. In high school, he was elected president of his class in both his junior and senior years.
Montel was raised as a Roman Catholic and also served as an altar boy from age 8 until an altercation with a priest when he was 11 years old.
Montel Williams Wife
Williams has been married three times. He proposed to his girlfriend Tara Fowler, an American Airlines flight attendant in July 2006. On October 6, 2007, the couple married before friends and family on a beach in Bermuda. He was first married to Rochele See. Williams, they married in 1982 but divorced in 1989. On June 6, 1992, he married Grace Morley, a burlesque dancer, and the couple divorced in 2000.
Montel Williams Children | Kids
With his first wife, Williams has two daughters, Ashley Williams (b. 1984) and Maressa Williams (b. 1988). With his second wife he has a son Montel Brian Hank Williams (b. 1993), and a daughter, Wyntergrace Williams (b. 1994).
The Montel Williams Show
In 1991, Montel began The Montel Williams Show. He received a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host in 1996. The shows’ ratings peaked during the 1996–97 season, with a 4.4 average rating. Montel was again nominated for Outstanding Talk Show Host in 2002. In 2001 and 2002, the Montel Williams Show was nominated for Outstanding Talk Show.
Variety reported that CBS TV Distribution terminated The Montel Williams Show on January 30, 2008. The last episode of the show aired on May 16, 2008. Montel began hosting a daily radio show, Montel Across America, on Air America Media on April 6, 2009. Air America ceased broadcasting on January 21, 2010, leaving Williams without a radio outlet.
Oprah Winfrey invited Montel on November 10, 2010, along with former talk show hosts Phil Donahue, Geraldo Rivera, Ricki Lake, and Sally Jessy Raphael as guests on her show. It was the first time that the fellow talkers had appeared together since their programs left the air.
A Career as an Actor
Montel has also guest-starred in episodic television and off-Broadway plays. He portrayed a Navy SEAL, Lieutenant Rivers, in three episodes of the television series JAG. In 1996, Montel produced and starred in a short-lived television series called Matt Waters.
Montel played an ex-Navy SEAL turned inner-city high school teacher and also played Lt Col Northrop, a USAF nuclear missile silo commander, in the fictional movie The Peacekeeper. Montel also played the judge presiding over Erica Kane’s (Susan Lucci) murder trial on the ABC soap opera All My Children.
He also appeared in a Perry Mason movie in 1993 titled The Case Of The Telltale Talk Show Host. He played Boomer Kelly was a former football player who was appearing on a radio talk show whose owner was found murdered.
Montel produced and narrated the Starline Films documentary film 4CHOSEN: The Documentary. The documentary tells the story about the New Jersey Turnpike shooting in 1998, and also the racial profiling case that followed the incident. He directed the film, Little Pieces, starring Grace Morley and Amy Acton in 1999.
Montel Williams Loan
Montel is a paid spokesperson for MoneyMutual, a lead generator for a payday lending service. Controversy around this position erupted when André-Tascha Lammé accused him of supporting a company that harms African-American consumers. He however denied the allegations and stated that Lammé was fundamentally incorrect in her assessment of the loans and their terms.
The New York State Department of Financial Services then investigated the claims and Benjamin Lawsky issued a statement on March 10 that it “made no finding of a violation of law by Mr. Williams.” SellingSource, the parent company, was then fined $2.1 million and was ordered to stop advertising to New Yorkers.
Montel Williams Website
Montel has a website for his company Lenitiv Scientific. Lenitiv is a provider of premium hemp and cannabis-derived products, including its flagship line, Montel By Select. The company was founded in 2017 by Montel and is supported by an experienced, hands-on management team. The company is the culmination of Williams’ life’s work as a champion of the people. It provides patients and adult users with safe, reliable access to the same high-quality CBD (cannabidiol) and THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) oils that Montel personally has relied upon for nearly two decades to improve his own quality of life.
To get to Montel’s website, click here.
A Career in the Military
Montel is also noted for his service in both the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy. After 17 years of active duty and 5 more as a reservist, he retired in 1996 from the Naval Reserve at the rank of lieutenant commander after 22 years of service. His awards in the military include; Meritorious Service Medals, two Navy Commendation Medals, the National Defense Service Medal, the Navy Achievement Medal, two Navy Expeditionary Medals, the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal and two Humanitarian Service Medals.
What Disease Does Montel Williams Have?
Montel was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999. This was four months after making a guest appearance in an episode of Touched by an Angel.
Montel Williams Stroke
On May 30, 2018, he was hospitalized. He suffered a cerebellar hemorrhagic stroke while working out at a gym. Montel immediately knew that he had to act fast after having seen the symptoms of a stroke before on The Dr. Oz Show. He was then taken to New York-Presbyterian Hospital via the hospital’s own mobile stroke unit.
Montel Williams Health Master
Williams started hosting an infomercial for the Living Well Healthmaster, a blender product as of May 2009. The Blender is presented under the title Living Well with Montel; the infomercial is structured similarly to his old talk show. It features guests talking about their health problems, with the Healthmaster mixer being the solution.
Montel Williams Blender | Juicer
Montel invented a blender that is able to take frozen fruits and turn them into smoothly textured smoothies within seconds. It is a fantastic device for anyone looking to improve their health and get into shape and perfect for making green smoothies, healthy meals, and delicious desserts.
Montel Williams MS Foundation
He created the MS Foundation, a nonprofit organization with a focus on research and education in 1992. Williams also openly states that he uses medical cannabis, stating that it helps to ease his multiple sclerosis-caused neuropathic pain.
He has hence become a vocal advocate of cannabis. He supports efforts to pass medical cannabis laws in states and calls for full legalization.
Montel Williams’s Net Worth
Through his wide career and many years on television, Montel has acquired a net worth of $15 million.
