Vanessa Williams looked back on having her world upended when scandal forced her to relinquish her Miss America crown
Forty years after a nude photo scandal forced Vanessa Williams to relinquish her Miss America crown, she can look back on the experience with some perspective and pride.
Williams was crowned Miss America 1984 the previous September, becoming the first Black woman to ever claim the title. The next July, however, scandal rocked her world when she learned Penthouse had acquired nude photos of her that she believed had been destroyed. “There was a tremendous amount of onus, pressure, shame, judgment,” she recalled. “I took all that on as a 21-year-old. It was global. You can fail quietly, but that was a worldwide fail.”
The Miss America Organization publicly apologized for its response to the scandal in 2015, with Chairman and CEO Sam Haskell III saying, “You have lived your life in grace and dignity and never was it more evident than during the events of 1984 when you resigned.”“I look back at my 19-to 20-year-old self and think, ‘Oh my God you were so naive, so trusting, so vulnerable,’” Williams told People. “In your mind you think, ‘I’m old, I know what I’m doing.
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