Wendy Williams' Fierce Devotion to Husband Kevin Hunter: Inside Their Complicated Relationship

Wendy Williamsis not one to hold back when there's scandalous celebrity news unfolding—and true to form, she didn't shirk the issue when it was her own life's turn in the hot seat this week.

"It's weird doing Hot Topics and being a hot topic," she said coyly on The Wendy Williams Show Tuesday. "It's some sort of weird story going around the Internet regarding my husband. Now look, I'm a straight shooter, pow-pow. All you've got to do is Google him and you see the story. You can believe what you want, but..." She flashed her massive diamond ring. "I stand by my guy," she continued. "We commuted this morning. The paparazzi was outside, catching me in the cutest negligee...All is well in Hunterville. Don't believe the hype and if there was hype, believe me you—I would let you know!"

Williams quipped at the end, "By the way, I'll be following this story, so I guess I'll have to watch to find out what happens."

The story she felt compelled to address was a report originating with DailyMail TV that her husband of almost 20 years, Kevin Hunter, had been carrying on a decade-long affair and living a double life, even living part-time with Williams in New Jersey and part-time with the other woman, a massage therapist. 

Williams obviously felt no need to rehash the details, nor did she explicitly refute the story, point by point. What she did do was encourage inquiring minds not to get into a tizzy over any of it.

"One plus one does not equal three. This woman is a friend of Mr. Hunter but there is no 'there' there," Williams' spokesman Ronn Torossian also said in a statement obtained by E! News.

It's no surprise that the outspoken talk show host, who never met an opinion she didn't mind sharing, wanted to do what she could to brush the story aside (though being the pop culture connoisseur that she is, surely she knows it's liable to come up again). Also understandable is that Williams would deny that she's in the midst of any drama—by her own accounts, she loves her husband and is very committed to him.

But theirs is a complicated bond.

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Divorced from her first husband, whom she used a pseudonym for in her memoir Wendy's Got the Heat, Williams married Hunter on Nov. 30, 1997, about four years after they first met. After suffering two miscarriages with previous pregnancies, they welcomed their son, Kevin Hunter Jr., in 2000.

Shortly after Kevin Jr. was born, Williams caught Hunter cheating.

She recalled in a 2013 sit-down with VladTV finding out through "a late-night telephone call and some clandestine whispering," because she wasn't back to work yet and was awake, as usual, being a mom. "When you deliver a baby, the mother doesn't get much sleep anyway. Little Kev might have been 1 month old, like fresh from the hospital."

Her parents happened to be staying with them at the time, to help Williams get the hang of parenting, but she only involved them as far as clarifying what they might have overheard between her and Hunter. "I never went to my mother and talked to her about it, I never talked to my father about it. I'm sure my father wanted to punch Kevin out...but this was a problem that was between me and Kevin...They minded their own business and we've all healed, it's not just me who's healed. My mom and dad played their position [they stayed out of it] and love him like their very own son today. Just love him, respect our union, understand how hard we go for our love, and when they hear passionate talk at our house, they know to mind their own business."

Williams has spoken frankly and written multiple times about the experience—and about forgiving him, which seems to be the less relatable part of the story for more people.