Montel Williams

Fran talked about her brave battle with uterine cancer.  She had to fight for years to get a diagnosis but was then heartbroken when she was told she needed a hysterectomy.  She had never had children.

Scott Hamilton was on tour when he started to feel unwell.  He went to the hospital and learned that he had testicular cancer.  Within months, he was also diagnosed with brain cancer.  He said that his wife immediately started praying when he told her the news and he realized that he drew strength from her and from God.

Magic Johnson talked about the shock of learning he had HIV 18 years ago (can you believe it’s been that long!?).  He said that driving home from the doctor’s office to tell his wife was the hardest thing he ever had to do (along with being forced to retire from basketball) but he believes that, because his wife and son were spared from contracting the virus, he will live longer with their love and support. 

Montel Williams discussed his battle with Multiple Sclerosis and it brought tears to my eyes.  He talked about his daily, never-ending pain and how he uses his medication, exercise and psychological tools to cope.  He also recounted a story when he was sitting in his closet with a gun in his mouth contemplating suicide but decided against it because his children were in the house.  He later tried to throw himself under a taxi but, not only did the cab driver break in enough time, he recognized Montel and helped him get up and walk across the street.  He said that it was a life-changing moment since he felt he didn’t have the right to take his own life. 

I suffer with chronic pain and several other health problems and I can relate to having to fight through it every single day.  I’m so glad that they had this episode.  I believe it can help a lot of Oprah’s viewers and it looks like Montel needed to share his story so I hope this was helpful to him as well.

Dr. Oz had some suggestions to “Prepare to Get a Bad Diagnosis”

• Take support to your doctor’s appointment.
• Don’t forget to breathe in order to handle the stress of the situation and remind yourself that you will keep going.
• Find a health advocate who will fight for you tirelessly.
• Get a second opinion but do not tell the second doctor what the first one said.  Let them come to their own conclusions.
• Become an expert on your illness, do your research.

image: Bauer-Griffin

Post from: Daytime Talk

Veteran talk show host, Montel Williams will end his show’s 17-year run with this season. 

“I can’t say thank you enough to those who’ve welcomed me into their homes for the past seventeen years,” Williams says in a statement. “It has been both an honor and a joy.”

Next season, CBS is planning to do a full-year of programming highlighting “the most exciting episodes from the last 17 years.” 

Wow… I’m pretty surprised, actually.  I know that his show will be missed by many but I hope that this just creates more opportunities for him. 

Good luck, Montel, and thank you for putting your show on the air for nearly two decades.  It will be missed. 

image by CBS via People.com

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Talk show host, Montel Williams, made some great looking smoothies and talked about his book on Fox LA!  He says that because of his health problems, he tries to put pounds of vegetables into his body every day.  Sounds like a good idea!

Watch the video of him making his green shake (it looks good)!

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Montel Williams acted like a crazy person the other day when he got into a fight with some reporters.  At least he has apologized.

Apparently, Montel was in Savannah to promote a free prescription program for low-income people when things went sour.  Some of the reporter’s questions angered Montel and he terminated the interview.

The Celebrity Cafe reports that "later, when the Savannah Morning-News reporters returned for an unrelated assignment, Williams walked up a high school student intern at the paper, Courtney Scott, and got in her face pointing his finger saying, “Don’t look at me like that. Do you know who I am? I’m a big star, and I can look you up, find where you live and blow you up,” said Joseph Cosey, an employee of the paper."

Scott (the high school intern) said, “I’m not sure if he meant ‘blow me up’ and ruin my career or really blow us up, but it was threatening.”

Williams responded later saying “I mistakenly thought the reporter and photographer in question were at the hotel to confront me about some earlier comments. I was wrong, and I apologize for my overreaction.”

Nice… Well, that high schooler just got a dose of the "real world."   Too bad Montel lost his cool like that.

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Montel Williams

Talk show host Montel Williams will try his hand at movies by executive producing a series of feature films in partnership with production companies.

Romantic comedies include That’s Amore, about a gay Italian man who inadvertently finds himself engaged to a Jewish girl next door.

This reminds me the Canadian film, “Mambo Italiano” which was rather amusing so I hope this doesn’t copy it!

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Talk show host, Montel Williams, got married this weekend.

Montel and his fiancée, Tara Fowler, “wed before an intimate gathering of friends and family Saturday afternoon on a beach in Bermuda, according to People magazine.

Williams, 51, proposed to Fowler, 36, a former American Airlines flight attendant, on July 12, 2006, in front of both of their families at Manhattan’s Tavern on the Green restaurant.

This is the third marriage for Williams, who has four children – two from each of his previous marriages. It is the first for Fowler.”

Congratulations and best wishes!

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Montel Williams suffers from multiple sclerosis and, since being diagnosed in 1999, he has made it his personal obligation to raise awareness about the illness and the treatment options. Here is a great interview:

Paternity tests and psychics made the “The Montel Williams Show” a hit but after Williams was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999, he began taking on a more serious cause – the nation’s healthcare system. Williams tells the Resident about his sometimes controversial causes and why he thinks U.S. healthcare is “an abomination.”—Heather Corcoran

Has there been one moment on the show that sticks out as the most memorable?

MW: At the end of this year, I will have completed my 3,400th show. I’ve had over – this is really insane – almost 30,000 guests seated in my primary chair. We’ve talked about, easily, 2,000 different issues. I’m proud to say I know that over the course of the last 17 years we’ve done shows that have changed the nation. Talk shows were the first shows to talk about the fact that AIDS even existed, really. We made that more aware by bringing that into your household; Phil Donahue opened the door and started that.

For viewers, one of the most memorable moments was when you first talked about your diagnosis with MS. How has your outlook changed since then?

MW: It’s pretty much the same. I work tirelessly. I don’t say that to pat myself on the back, but I just came from a two-hour meeting on research about MS. It’s my life, not just because it’s killing me, but because I’m in a position that I can get information out to the public. I can bring resources together that would have never spoken together to work on ideas and projects to help cure this illness.

Could you tell me about the Montel Williams MS Foundation?

MW: The Montel Williams MS Foundation was founded in October of 2000. I started the Montel Williams MS Foundation because after I held a press conference and announced that I had MS, that I wanted to raise money, I had no place for the money to go. Initially, all money that we raised — over $400,000 in about four months – went to the Harvard foundation for neurological disease. After I established the Montel Williams Foundation, all funds that have come into the foundation that have come from private individuals we have re-dispersed to some of the top hospitals in the world that are working on specific MS projects. And that’s over $1.2 million.

What has been the high point and where have the lows been?

MW: The disease itself has its own lows. It took me a long time to understand and actually seek out the right medical help to clearly understand that MS – like a lot of other diseases – also causes things like depression. So it’s been a battle. The dark part of this disease is that unseen and unspoken little nasty secret, that a lot of us suffer from depression and don’t seek the proper help to deal with it. I’ve had to work at that; now I’m dealing with it. But the highs from this have been the tremendous opportunity to bring different voices together.

Which reminds me of another project you’ve worked on – the Partnership for Prescription Assistance, which provides free medication to people who can’t afford it.

MW: Most incredible thing I’ve done in my entire career. There’s nothing more rewarding. We can say what we want to say about the pharmaceutical industry, and a lot of people have a lot to say about them. I think they need to be vilified when they do things wrong, but they need to be vindicated when they do things right. This is one of those programs that they got right. In less than two years I’ve been able to use my face and put medication into the hands of over 4 million people in America who would not have otherwise gotten medication and saved their lives.

What do you think about the current state of healthcare in the U.S.?

MW: It’s an abomination, but it’s not an abomination for reasons that a lot of people think. We think prices are out of control; well in some ways, some are, but technology has costs. The recipients of that technology have to understand that. Where we miss the boat in the United States, where we could be the leader in the world, it’s not as much about a socialized medical system as it is about providing medical insurance to every single American.

Do you feel optimistic that a change is coming?

MW: I don’t think it’s going to get better, I think it’s only going to get worse. And unfortunately that is not because of the medical industry, it’s because of the policy and leadership we have in America.

One of the more controversial things that you’ve advocated is medical marijuana.

MW: I’m an advocate for the same thing that our federal government is an advocate for. Does that not sound like an oxymoron?

Could you explain it?

MW: I support the right of a doctor to make a decision for his patient. And if we think that doctor is smart enough to prescribe for his patients morphine, cocaine, barbiturates and other things, if that same doctor states that he feels that marijuana – or let’s just call it MD640, make up a name – if he felt that that worked for his patient, why should he not be the one that has the ability to prescribe it?
To explain what I meant by that earlier statement: For the last 27 years, and it may be 28, the United States government, our federal government, every single 17th of the month, through a program at the University of Mississippi, distributes medicinal marijuana to, now, five patients. For the last 20 years it’s been between 20 and five; as each patient dies they stop distributing it to that one. We have a government that’s supposed to do no harm. We have a government that should not be distributing anything that it doesn’t think [has efficacy] as far as medication. They’re distributing it to patients because they studied it for 25 years and determined that it works, so why do then they flip the coin and lie to the American public and claim that it doesn’t and continue to lock people up for doing the same thing that they do? So I am a proponent for medicinal marijuana. I want the same thing the federal government does.

The Montel Williams MS Foundation has two fundraisers scheduled in the New York area in September, a Westchester walk-a-thon on Sept. 15 and a bike-a-thon in Sag Harbor on Sept. 29. For more information visit montelms.org.

Tags: montel williams, marijuana, montel marijuana, multiple sclerosis, ms

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Wow… I didn’t even know he was getting married! Montel Williams is set to tie the knot later this year. Here are some details:

American talk show host Montel Williams will spare no expense when he gets married in Bermuda later this year.

The 51-year-old will wed Tara Fowler at a glitzy ceremony at Tucker’s Point Club on Saturday, October 6.

The celebrations are expected to kick off the day before with a pre-wedding sunset cruise around the island. The couple, who started dating in 2005, will whisk guests off for a four-hour party on the 101ft yacht ‘Venetian’.

The following evening, guests will be shuttled to the Tucker’s Point Club for a 6.30pm ceremony.

Up to 75 of the couple’s family and friends have booked rooms at the Elbow Beach Resort. The couple will stay at the resort’s ‘Bird of Paradise’ cottage. The one-bedroom beachfront cottage boasts the best views at the resort and also has an open beamed ceiling, a 32″ flatscreen LCD TV with surround sound DVD system.

The couple, who live together on 55th Street, New York City, met in Florida. It will be the third marriage for Montel, who has four children – two from each previous marriage.

Montel proposed to Tara, an American Airline flight attendant in her 30s, at the New York restaurant Tavern on the Green in front of both their families. They were celebrating Montel’s 50th birthday in July last year.

There are believed to have chosen Bermuda as they wanted an intimate ceremony with just close family and friends.

The couple have visited Bermuda twice this year and are expected to squeeze in another visit to finalise plans before the wedding.

Montel, who has been hosting The Montel Williams Show since 1991, was recently quoted as saying his dream wedding plans were taking shape. The Emmy award-winner told People: “I feel like I have a true partner. I think there’s a mutual respect that we have for each other that transcends anything I’ve ever experienced in my life.”

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Post from: Daytime Talk

I thought this piece, written by Montel Williams, was really interesting. Here it is:

You probably know me as a talk show host and, perhaps, as someone who for several years has spoken out about my use of medical marijuana for the pain caused by multiple sclerosis. That surprised a few people, but recent research has proved that I was right: right about marijuana’s medical benefits and right about how urgent it is for states to change their laws so that sick people aren’t treated as criminals. The Illinois General Assembly is considering such a change right now.

If you see me on television [10 a.m. weekdays on Channel 4 in St. Louis], I look healthy. What you don’t see is the mind-numbing pain searing through my legs like hot pokers.

My doctors wrote me prescriptions for some of the strongest painkillers available. I took Percocet, Vicodin and Oxycontin on a regular basis, knowingly risking overdose just trying to make the pain bearable. But these powerful, expensive drugs brought me no relief. I couldn’t sleep, I was agitated, my legs kicked involuntarily in bed and the pain was so bad I found myself crying in the middle of the night.

All these heavy-duty narcotics made me nearly incoherent. I couldn’t take them when I had to work, because they turned me into a zombie. Worse, these drugs are highly addictive, and one thing I knew was that I didn’t want to become a junkie.

When someone suggested I try marijuana, I was skeptical. But I also was desperate. To my amazement, it worked after the legal drugs had failed. Three puffs and within minutes the excruciating pain in my legs subsided. I had my first restful sleep in months.

I am not alone. A new study from the University of California, published in February in the highly regarded medical journal Neurology, leaves no doubt about that.

You see, people with MS suffer from a particular type of pain called neuropathic pain: pain caused by damage to the nerves. It’s common in MS but also in many other illnesses, including diabetes and HIV/AIDS. It’s typically a burning or stabbing sensation, and conventional pain drugs don’t help much, whatever the specific illness.

The new study, conducted by Dr. Donald Abrams, looked at neuropathic pain in HIV/AIDS patients. About one-third of people with HIV eventually suffer this kind of pain, and there are no FDA-approved treatments. For some it gets so bad that they can’t walk.

This was what is known as a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, the “gold standard” of medical research. And marijuana worked. The very first marijuana cigarette reduced the pain by an average of 72 percent, without serious side effects.

What makes this even more impressive is that U.S. researchers studying marijuana are required to use marijuana supplied by the federal government, marijuana that is famous for its poor quality and weakness. So there is every reason to believe that studies such as this one underestimate the potential relief that high-quality marijuana could provide.

In my case, medical marijuana has allowed me to live a productive, fruitful life despite having multiple sclerosis. Many thousands of others all over this country — less well-known than me but whose stories are just as real — have experienced the same thing.

Here’s what’s shocking: The U.S. government knows marijuana works as a medicine. Our government actually provides medical marijuana each month to five patients in a program that started about 25 years ago but was closed to new patients in 1992. One of the patients in that program, Florida stockbroker Irvin Rosenfeld, was a guest on my show two years ago. If federal officials come to town to tell you there’s no evidence marijuana is a safe, effective medicine, know this: They’re lying, and they know it.

Still, 39 states subject patients with illnesses like MS, cancer or HIV/AIDS to arrest and jail for using medical marijuana, even if their doctor has recommended it. It’s long past time for that to change.

Illinois state Sen. John Cullerton, D-Chicago, has introduced a bill — SB 650 — to protect patients like me from arrest and jail for using medical marijuana when it’s recommended by a physician. Similar laws are working well in 11 states right now.

The General Assembly should pass the medical marijuana bill without delay. Sick people shouldn’t be treated as criminals.

Television talk show host Montel Williams is the author, with Lawrence Grobel, of “Climbing Higher” and other books.

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