Frank Ski, a staple of Atlanta radio, revealed the moment he discovered his former co-host, the legendary Wanda Smith, had passed.
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Smith had been with V-103 since the late 90s, hosting the popular “Frank & Wanda in the Morning” show with co-host Frank Ski for years. After her firing, the duo hadn’t worked together for a bit, but they had talked about reuniting. Of course that will never happened.
A few days ago, he was in his backyard for his son’s Christening party when he got the the news of Smith’s passing.
In an emotional video uploaded this holiday weekend, Ski took to TikTok with a long post talking to the camera about his state of mind since her death, revealing that he has spent the days since trying to reckon with the sudden loss. “I haven’t really had time to process it all like I really wanted to,” he explained, adding that it’s difficult when you “lose somebody you loved.”
He went on to take a trip down memory lane, telling the story of when he first met Wanda. While on a trip to Atlanta, he first saw her while watching her perform one of her standup sets. “She was funny as hell,” he recalled. “I said if I ever do a morning show here, that’s who I want.” Just a few years later, he got his wish.
“We went from 1998 to 2013, and we were number 1 for 15 years,” he explained. “And I say we because me and her, it wasn’t me, it was just the both of us together, the synergy we had.” Explaining that they both encouraged each other, he said that her gift was “empathy” for people.
“She was just an incredible person like that,” he added, remembering all of her volunteer work during major moments of crisis like Hurricane Katrina and 9/11. Later in the clip, Ski shed some light on the state of their relationship at the time of her passing.
In case you forgot, Smith’s viral interview with Katt Williams in 2018 created some distance between the two hosts. The infamously tense “Frank and Wanda” interview with Williams saw the comedian and the radio host trading jabs at each other.
The interview quickly went viral, and the two hosts even took to their radio show during the fallout of the interview to break down their feelings on the matter, with Smith questioning Ski for not stepping in while Williams effectively tore down Smith on her own show. Shortly after the interview, Smith was fired from V-103. In the TikTok, Ski tearfully shared that just a year before her passing, however, the two were able to come to good terms once again.
“Last year, Wanda and I reconnected and we had a really good talk,” he revealed towards the end of the interview, letting fans know that they were in fact supposed to work together once again, but her sudden illness after traveling to Florida halted those plans. “She was public for everybody else but private inside,” he said, emotionally referring to Smith has his “radio wife.” “She was really beautiful.”
Ski also sat down with Fox 5 Atlanta in a segment dedicated to remembering his late co-host, telling the news station that the news of her passing hit him “pretty bad.” He explained, “I heard that she wasn’t doing well. She was a very private person, and I never expected that. It was tough.”
He continued to say that their work dynamic was often “like a husband and wife thing,” saying that, “she looked out for him” like that. “Our families were close like that. We knew everything about each other like that. We just lived in two different houses.”
As Fox 5 reports, Ski would not comment on the cause of death, saying that she was “so private” that she even shut down a fundraiser he and Rickey Smiley wanted to throw for her while she was sick. “She would not let us do it. She didn’t want people to know.”
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