Wendy Williams Lives Like a Prisoner Under Highly Restrictive Guardianship

Wendy Williams can relate to hardcore criminals -- not that she's committed a crime -- but her life mirrors someone confined to a jail cell.

TMZ has dropped a documentary on Tubi, "TMZ Presents: Saving Wendy" ... which explores her guardianship which has now gone on for years. As she says, her life is isolated. She's in a New York City assisted living facility, where she is confined to a room on the 5th floor.

Wendy cannot leave the floor without permission from the staff. She says she's been outside in the fresh air twice in the last 30 days ... both times for dentist appointments.

Almost no one is allowed to visit her. No one can call her. She can make calls out, but that's it. She has no access to the internet. She eats in her room because she says it's extremely depressing to be around 90-year-olds with serious health problems.

Harvey and others have spent hours on the phone with Wendy, and to a person everyone says she's back to the old Wendy. She's lucid, following conversations, and is engaging ... she's herself again.

The guardian says Wendy is permanently disabled as a result of Frontotemporal Dementia ... problem is, the condition never gets better. Wendy was in bad shape a few years ago when she was drinking heavily, but she's sober now and her mental state has radically improved ... many say back to normal, yet she's still under an incredibly restrictive guardianship.

The only way we could shoot the documentary was to have a camera placed on the sidewalk where we shot her at the window on the 5th floor as she spoke with us by phone.