TV Host Wendy Williams Dismisses Michelle Wolf Critics in Audience: 'Rachael Ray Is Downstairs'

Daytime TV host Wendy Williams shot back at critics of Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner host, comedian Michelle Wolf. Two members of the Wendy Williams Show audience who thought Wolf made "off-color" jokes about White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders even became the target of a Williams joke that drew uproarious applause in the studio.

Williams, who has hosted the nationally syndicated talk show since 2008, lamented what she labeled an excessive amount of backlash and political pearl-clutching from people who think women can't criticize another woman's physical appearance. Speaking on her show Monday, Williams said she enjoyed Wolf's jokes about Sanders's appearance, who was seated very close to the comedian's podium at the dinner.

"Every time Sarah steps up to the podium, I get excited because I'm not sure what we're going to get: a press briefing, a bunch of lies or divided into softball teams," Wolf said Saturday. "I actually really like Sarah. I think she's very resourceful. But she burns facts, and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Like maybe she's born with it, maybe it's lies. It's probably lies." The comedian later clarified the joke on Twitter, but conservative pundits and liberal journalists alike took to social media to say the comedian should apologize.

But while Wolf and others argued about whether her Sanders jokes were insulting, Williams said she doesn't care if they were or not, and such critics are missing the point.

"I thought all of her jokes were funny. You invite a comedian to tell jokes, and now all of a sudden because you're a woman you can't criticize other women's looks?" Williams said on her show Monday, which is filmed in New York City. "You've got to be kidding me. I am a very critical woman, people criticize my looks, and I'll criticize back," she added, as the studio audience loudly applauded.

Williams expressed her incredulity and annoyance at journalists, politicians and social media users she mockingly quoted as saying, "'It's not right for women to criticize each other's looks'...what?"

"OK, co-hosts honestly clap if you think it was an off-color joke that she made and it's not right to criticize other women's looks?" Williams then asked her audience. As the camera cuts to the audience, it appears that only two people, both white women, were the ones applauding. "Well, you're at the wrong show. Rachael Ray is downstairs."

Last week, Williams mocked President Donald Trump's physical appearance by pointing out that he needs a "breast reduction" and has "fatty knock-knees." She said her intention was to point out the hypocrisy of Trump and others who have allowed him to criticize women's looks. Ray, whose similarly self-titled TV show films in the same Chelsea Studios building, hosts a national syndicated cooking program.