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Vanessa Williams reflected on her 40-year career in the latest cover of PEOPLE Magazine, including the nude photo scandal that almost derailed it all as it was ramping up.
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Williams was thrust into the spotlight when she won Miss America in 1984, becoming the first Black woman to win the title. She became intimate with the pros (attending White House dinners and meeting her idol Lena Horne) and cons (dealing with racist vitriol firsthand) of fame.
But in July 1984, things took a sharp left turn when Williams learned that Penthouse Magazine had acquired and planned to publish nude photos she’d taken two years earlier when still a teenager, and which she said she took “under the promise of anonymity.”
Having occurred nearly a decade before internet was mainstream, it’s one of the original nude photo scandals; the fallout created pressure on Williams that made her relinquish her Miss America crown.
“There was a tremendous amount of onus, pressure, shame, judgment,” Williams said. “I took all that on as a 21-year-old. It was global. You can fail quietly, but that was a worldwide fail.”
“I look back at my 19-to 20-year-old self and think, ‘Oh my God you were so naive, so trusting, so vulnerable.’ In your mind you think, ‘I’m old, I know what I’m doing.’ I give myself grace now, but as a young adult, I beat myself up, like ‘I should have known better.”
Clearly, the scandal didn’t derail what would become an ultra-successful music, film and television career. Williams is now gearing up for her next act: originating the role of Miranda Priestly in the London musical adaptation of “The Devil Wears Prada.”
“To create a role in a new musical has been one of my dreams,” she said. “I’m still here and I’m still standing,” she added. “I’m still feeling strong.”
