Montel Williams: talk show host discusses his battle with MS and his battle with Hollywood

Jet, July 21, 2003 by Margena A. Christian

Montel Williams is a fighter. He knows how to kick down doors and make a way for himself.

He has had his share of curve balls thrown in his path, but none like the one thrown in 1999. That year he was diagnosed with MS (multiple sclerosis), a debilitating autoimmune disease that affects the brain and spinal cord.

Williams recently shared his thoughts with JET about his struggles with MS and Hollywood's perception of him since revealing his illness.

"I have to face the stigma. The fact that people know there is something wrong," says Williams. "We look at illness in America as weakness. I may be ill, but I am for damn sure not weak by anybody's stretch of the imagination. It's a tough one. That's the hardest battle to overcome."

Dealing with the disease has been an adjustment, he says. His body is plagued by pain 24 hours a day. The extreme nerve pain, he says, causes problems in his lower extremities.

"It's mostly in my feet, shins and the back of my calves. In that area it can be so painful that I don't want to put my feet on the floor."

Self-healing and self-thinking, along with a multitiered approach to medication, have helped him in handling the illness.

"I take the traditional medication. I go after a holistic approach and I'm taking some vitamins and some herbs and some things that I know now after four years have benefited me immensely. I'm also on a hormonal replacement kind of therapy. A lot of people find this questionable, but I know how well I'm doing. That's what's important to me. What I take may not work for someone else. That's what's so insidious about this illness."

He also goes to the gym every day. Two years ago he wrote the book Body-Change: Beyond Maintenance along with Wini Linguvic. The book details a 21-day aerobic exercise program that was developed to help Williams take control of his life again.

Working out, he has learned, has assisted in counterbalancing some of the debilitating, spastic kinds of things that affect coordination. Snowboarding has been extremely beneficial for him as well.

"With snowboarding, your feet are locked in. That sport is like a therapeutic training tool for someone who has MS like I do. It puts you back in contact with your feet. Heat can be an exacerbant for people with MS. Summer months can bring me down. It is better for me to do things in the cold, cooler weather."

Now in his 12th season as host of his daily, hour-long "The Montel Williams Show," he serves as the executive producer and corporate owner of the show. Three shows are taped a day, two days a week. Some days he might have 30 different guests. He doesn't use a teleprompter, he relies on memory and research. His work on the show earned him a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host in 1996.

"Our main objective was to make sure we didn't disrespect our viewer's living rooms. That's a part of the reason why the public was able to discern the difference early on that this show is different. Since I've been on the air, like over 140 talk shows have come and gone and we're still here."

His diagnosis has not knocked him off kilter, yet he notices that Hollywood is a bit cautious to reach out to him.

"I've been doing this talk show and going into my 13th year and never missed a day at work. Still there are people in Hollywood who question whether my illness would thwart me from doing a stint in a movie or at another job when I'm very clearly working four jobs at the same time. It's very easy, especially in this profession, once you give people an excuse. They will have an excuse to use."

Williams has always stood out head and shoulders above the rest. The Baltimore native, a former commissioned officer in the Navy, made history in 1975 when he became the first Black enlisted Marine selected to the Naval Academy Prep School. When he graduated, he received a presidential appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy. While there he studied Mandarin Chinese and earned a degree in general engineering with a minor in international security affairs. Later he studied and obtained a degree in Russian from the Defense Language Institute.

He has always known how to make people listen when he opens his mouth. His work as a fiery motivational speaker and as an award-winning talk show host in Denver helped pave the way for his own show in September of 1991.

Having his talk show credentials doesn't mean that he wants to pigeonhole himself as just a talk show host. He has enjoyed acting roles on "JAG" and "Touched By An Angel." In 1995, he developed, executive-produced and starred in his own prime-time dramatic series, Matt Waters. TV viewers might recall seeing him more recently on "American Dreams." Last season he portrayed a minister on the series. He will reprise that character in the upcoming season with a recurring role.

He has also authored books, his best-selling autobiography, Mountain, Get Out Of My Way, and others like Life Lessons and Reflections, Practical Parenting and A Dozen Ways to Sunday.

A personal project that Williams has been passionate about bringing to the silver screen is the story of Bass Reeves, a former slave believed to be the first Black deputy marshal commissioned west of the Mississippi River. It bothers Williams that Hollywood has been reluctant to embrace the project.