Montel Williams

Williams enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1974.[2][4][7] He completed the one-year Naval Academy Preparatory School course and then in 1975, he was accepted as the first black Marine into the four-year officer training program at the U.S. Naval Academy.[1][3][7]

He graduated in 1980 with a degree in general engineering and a minor in international security affairs.[2] He completed Naval Cryptologic Officer training, and spent 18 months in Guam as a cryptologic officer for naval intelligence.[2] He was later supervising cryptologic officer with the Naval Security Fleet Support Division at Fort Meade, Maryland.[2] It was there Williams worked for the National Security Agency,[4] where he was involved in the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983, known as Operation Urgent Fury.[2][8] On several occasions, he worked to secure the release of United States citizens — typically military personnel who had been captured in foreign lands — returned to U.S. soil.[2] After 17 years of active duty and 5 more as a reservist,[1] Williams retired in 1996 from the Naval Reserve at the rank of lieutenant commander[3] after 22 years of service.[1][2][3][4] His awards include two 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.[1][2][8][9][10]

Williams began The Montel Williams Show (syndicated by CBS Paramount Television) in 1991.[11] In 1996, Williams received a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host. Ratings for the show peaked during the 1996–97 season, with a 4.4 average rating. He was again nominated for Outstanding Talk Show Host in 2002, and the Montel Williams Show was nominated for Outstanding Talk Show in 2001 and 2002.

On January 30, 2008, Variety reported that CBS TV Distribution had terminated The Montel Williams Show when key Fox-owned stations chose not to renew it for the 2008–09 season.[12] On May 16, 2008, the last episode of The Montel Williams Show aired.[13] Speculation followed the end of The Montel Williams Show, which was cancelled immediately after Williams criticized mainstream news media's preference for stories about Hollywood stars over those about military personnel and events. Commentators felt his statements may have alienated the Fox TV Network.[14]

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. This was the first time that the fellow talkers had appeared together since their programs left the air.[15]

Williams work has been criticized by the Independent Investigations Group, which declared The Montel Williams Show to be noteworthy Truly Terrible Television with its satirical TTTV award (for similar reasons, awarded to "every episode featuring Sylvia Browne").[16]

Controversial self-declared psychic Sylvia Browne featured frequently on The Montel Williams Show from 1991 until its finale in 2008. Williams described Browne as "the most-appearing guest on a talk show in the history of television" and "the longest-running guest in daytime television",[17][18] and her appearances included particularly controversial incidents relating to kidnap victims Shawn Hornbeck and Amanda Berry. Williams was criticized for allowing his high-profile show to serve as a channel for Browne, notably by fellow retired military officer Hal Bidlack, with Bidlack publicly asking, "Commander Williams, have you lost your honor?"[19][20] In February 2019, an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver featured a segment on television psychics and Williams' association with Browne was criticized.[21]

Williams has also guest-starred in episodic television and off-Broadway plays. Among other roles, he portrayed a Navy SEAL, Lieutenant Curtis Rivers, in three episodes of the television series JAG. He also produced and starred in a short-lived television series called Matt Waters, which appeared on CBS in 1996. He played an ex-Navy SEAL turned inner-city high school teacher.[22] In 1997 he played Lt Col Northrop, a USAF nuclear missile silo commander, in the fictional movie The Peacekeeper. In 2002, he played the judge presiding over Erica Kane's (Susan Lucci) murder trial on the ABC soap opera All My Children. In 2003 he made a guest appearance on the soap as himself to promote an episode of his own show on which several AMC stars were scheduled to appear. In 2004 he hosted American Candidate, a political reality show on Showtime. Williams has also guest-starred on The New Adventures of Robin Hood and Guiding Light.[23]

Williams also appeared in a Perry Mason movie in 1993 titled The Case Of The Telltale Talk Show Host. His character, Boomer Kelly, was a former football player who was appearing on a radio talk show whose owner was found murdered. He was also a voice actor in 2008 in the political satire film War, Inc., providing the voice of the main character's GPS tracking device/counselor.[24]

On October 1, 2019, Williams appeared in an episode of the Fox drama The Resident entitled, "Flesh of My Flesh". Williams played himself, as a TV personality covering a nearly impossible cancer surgery being performed on an adoptive mother of seven.

Williams produced and narrated the Starline Films documentary film 4CHOSEN: The Documentary, which tells the story about the New Jersey Turnpike shooting in 1998, and the racial profiling case that followed the incident.[25][26] In 1999, Williams directed the film, Little Pieces, starring Grace Morley and Amy Acton.[27][28]

Williams was a national spokesman of the Partnership for Prescription Assistance (PPA), a patient assistance program clearinghouse that helps low-income patients apply for free or reduced-price prescription drugs. On November 30, 2007, while in Savannah, Georgia, to promote PPA, he threatened reporters following an earlier interview at which Courtney Scott, a 17-year-old high school intern reporter for the Savannah Morning News, had asked him whether restriction of pharmaceutical profits would discourage research and development of new drugs. Angered by the question, Williams retorted, "I'm trying to figure out exactly why you are here and what the interview is about,” and subsequently terminated that videotaped interview; Williams later ran into Scott in his hotel and approached her, reportedly 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".[29]

Williams's public relations representatives later apologized for his hostile outburst in an issued statement: "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".[30] In 2010 Williams became chief spokesman for the Poker Training Network,[31] now Card Geniuses, a MLM-based poker instruction and playing website.

Williams was a paid spokesperson for MoneyMutual, a lead generator for a payday lending service.[32] In early 2015, a controversy around this position erupted when an education activist, André-Tascha Lammé, accused Williams on Twitter of supporting a company that harms African-American consumers.[33] Williams denied the allegations, stating that Lammé was fundamentally incorrect in his assessment of the loans and their terms.[34] 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".[35] He added that the department had found that "Using Mr. Williams's reputation as a trusted celebrity endorser, MoneyMutual marketed loans to struggling consumers with sky-high interest rates - sometimes in excess of 1,300 percent".[35] SellingSource, the parent company, was fined $2.1 million and ordered to stop advertising to New Yorkers.[35][36]

Williams is an outspoken advocate for US military veterans. He has publicly lobbied for government action to promptly resolve the Veterans Affairs scandal.[37]

On April 6, 2009, Williams began hosting a daily radio show, Montel Across America, on Air America Media.[38] On January 21, 2010, Air America ceased broadcasting, leaving Williams without a radio outlet.[39]

As of May 2009, he started hosting an infomercial for the Living Well Healthmaster, a blender product. It is presented under the title Living Well with Montel; the infomercial is structured similarly to his old talk show, featuring guests talking about their health problems, with the Healthmaster mixer being the solution. Later episodes of Living Well with Montel advertised a home pressure cooker and an identity theft protection service. In June 2010, Williams began doing infomercials for LifeLock, a security fraud company.[40]

On October 1, 2014, Williams spoke in front of a Congressional committee in support of Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, who was arrested in Tijuana, Baja California, for carrying guns across the U.S.-Mexican border.[41]

Williams was once a Republican, leaving the political party in 1993 and registering as an independent.[42] He is a supporter of LGBT rights.[43] He endorsed Hillary Clinton for president as the superior choice, writing that Donald Trump posed a "clear and present danger" to the nation.[44]

On September 2, 2021, Williams was appointed as a Director on the Board of Better For You Wellness, Inc.[45]

Williams has marketed cannabidiol (also known as CBD oil) products. According to Forbes, Williams "spent years working to develop medicinal-quality CBD to treat his own multiple sclerosis".[46]