Montel Williams

Montel Williams

Montel Brian Anthony Williams is an American former television host, actor and motivational speaker. He is best known as host of the long-running daytime tabloid talk show The Montel Williams Show, which ran in syndication from 1991 to 2008. Williams is active with the nonprofit MS Foundation, which he founded after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999.

About Montel Williams in brief

Summary Montel WilliamsMontel Brian Anthony Williams is an American former television host, actor and motivational speaker. He is best known as host of the long-running daytime tabloid talk show The Montel Williams Show, which ran in syndication from 1991 to 2008. Williams is active with the nonprofit MS Foundation, which he founded after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999. Williams has also guest-starred in episodic television and off-Broadway plays, including a short-lived television series called JAG. In February 2019, an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver featured a segment on television psychics and Williams’s association with Browne was criticized. Williams’ father, Herman Williams Jr., was a firefighter who in 1992 became Baltimore’s first African American Fire Chief. He also played an ex-Navy SEAL turned high school teacher in the fictional movie The Peacekeeper in 1997. In 2003 he made a guest appearance on the ABC soap opera All My Children’s murder trial over Erica Kane’s death. On November 10, 2010, Oprah Winfrey invited Williams, along with former talk show hosts Phil Donahue, Geraldo Rivera, Ricki Lake, and Sally Jessy Raphael, as guests on her show. The show was cancelled after Williams criticized mainstream news media’s preference for stories about Hollywood stars over those about military personnel and events.

On January 30, 2008, Variety reported that CBS TV Distribution had terminated The Montels Williams Show when key Fox-owned stations chose not to renew it for the 2008–09 season. On May 16, 2008 the last episode of The MontEL Williams Show aired. Williams was awarded a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host in 1996. He was again nominated for Out outstanding talk show host in 2002, and the MontelWilliams Show was nominated for outstanding talk show show in 2001 and 2002. His awards include the Meritorious Service Medal, Navy Commendation Medal and the Navy Achievement Medal. He left the navy at the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Williams described Sylvia Browne as “the most-appearing guest on a talk show in the history of television” and her appearances included particularly controversial incidents relating to kidnap victims Shawn Hornbeck and Amanda Berry. Williams also portrayed a Navy SEAL, Lieutenant Curtis Rivers, in three episodes of the television series AGAGAGAG, which appeared on CBS in 1996 and 1997. He has also appeared on The American Candidate, a reality show on Showtime in which several stars were scheduled to appear on The Showtime reality show American Candidate. In 2004 he appeared on American Candidate to promote his own show on AMC.