Vanessa Williams doesn’t know how she survived the whole “hullabaloo” of her nude photo scandal. “There was a tremendous amount of onus, pressure, shame, judgment,” she recalled to People magazine in a video profile Wednesday. “I took all that on as a 21 year old.
It was global. You can fail quietly, but that was a worldwide fail.” The “Save the Best for Last” singer made history as the first Black woman to be crowned Miss America in 1983.
Then, 10 months into her reign, Puritanical nonsense temporarily derailed her career. On July 13, 1984, she was stunned to learn — in the middle of an interview — that Penthouse magazine was going to release nude photos of her . Williams said her knee-jerk reaction was to call her parents.
“I talked to my parents, and I talked to my attorney,” Williams said. “That’s when we started to strategize what’s going on ..
.because I hadn’t signed a release.” The “Ugly Betty” alum told reporters at the time that she had posed for the photos two years prior — and as a teenager — while working as a photographer’s assistant.
Williams said the photographer told her that the photos would just be silhouettes, that she’d be unidentifiable, and they would never leave the studio. Despite that information, pageant officials told Williams she had 72 hours to resign or be stripped of her title. She decided to step down, and her nude photos hit shelves.
Penthouse sold nearly 6 million copies of the issue and reporte.