Montel Williams Starts New Wellness Web Series; Throws Shade at Current Talk Shows

Montel Williams is best known as a talk show host during the 17 years from 1991 to 2008 that he hosted his self-titled daytime show. Now, he’s finding a new career as a health activist. When diagnosed with MS in 1999, he was told he would be in a wheelchair in four years. Over a decade later, with the help of diet and exercise and his own unbreakable will, Williams has greatly improved his health outcome and wants to help others do the same. His new web series “Living Well With Montel Williams” will air on his website starting on Tuesday, October 15 at 1 p.m. EST New episodes will debut every Tuesday at 1 p.m.

“I built a new ‘Living Well With Montel’ community,” Williams told the Tom Joyner Morning Show. “The last 13 -14 years of my life, I’ve been dealing with MS. I’ve been working at this every single day and what I’ve learned along the way I think it’s time I started sharing with people. What I’ve learned to help me mitigate my symptoms from MS can help people make it with anything from cancer to Alzheimer’s’ to lethargy, apathy or even laziness. I’ve found a couple of things that can keep me going when times are really tough.”

Williams has said that medical marijuana has helped him deal with the pain stemming from MS, but that was just one factor. He says that supplements and diet have helped him even more, some of the tips that he wants to help others with through his website and web series.

“I changed my diet completely,” Williams says. “One of the things that [The Tom Joyner Morning Show] talks about a lot is that the African-American community doesn’t pay attention to our health. We are leaders in multiple cancers in this country right now. The things that I’m doing to help mitigate inflammation in my body reduced some of my symptoms of MS. I liquefy about 70% of what I eat. I eat one really good cooked meal a day. Everyone has talked about the fact that fruits and vegetables are nature’s anti-inflammatories. And the root cause of chronic illness in this country is inflammation.”

Williams says that he’s not likely to return to daytime TV, which he believes has been dumbed down since he left the airwaves, he says, over contract disputes in 2008.

“They’ve got stuff on TV, I don’t know if you want to call it talk shows, because if I see another Captain Kangaroo trying to deliver information to people acting as if the viewing audience is not even in preschool, I don’t know if you can call it a talk show. They try to give you information about medicine but they call it ‘Pin the tail on the colon.’ Come on. The viewing audience is smarter. And that’s why I’m not back. I’ve been asked to see if I’m interested in coming back and I have no interest whatsoever. Look at television today – it’s all built on one thing – conflict. I wanted to create a new thing.”