Vanessa Williams is in the news again, as last night she received an apology during her appearance on the televised Miss America pageant. It was previously announced and reported that Williams would be head of the celebrity judges for last night performance—with no mention of the 1984 scandal that forced her to resign her crown. According to Gawker, while presented as a surprise, the apology was evidently in the works for a while:
“Williams replied that Haskell’s words were ‘so unexpected, but so beautiful,’ but that’s bullshit since TMZ ran an item Friday regarding the behind-the-scenes bickering about who was going to apologize to whom onstage (Vanessa wanted Miss America officials to do so; they wanted her). Regardless, the right party won that minor battle, though giving up the crown was probably the best thing that could have happened to Williams’s career. Williams has been winning for the past three decades.”
For those of us who are old enough to remember, Vanessa Williams was the first black woman to win the Miss America competition in the event’s history when she was crowned Miss America 1984. (This was a big deal, as until 1970, some of the most recognized contests—such as Miss America and Miss U.S.A.—refused to allow women of color to participate.) Ten months after her crowning, nude photos were published in Penthouse magazine, causing what was at the time considered a major scandal, and she was forced to resign with less than eight weeks left of her reign.
I remember at the time many speculated that Williams was forced to resign not necessarily because she posed nude, but that she posed nude for risqué images with another woman with more than just a suggestion of lesbian overtones. This attitude inched the pictures away from “art” and closer to “porn”—and that was something that was not acceptable back in 1985.
The following year, Madonna would also have nude pictures, taken years earlier, sold by the photographer and published in Penthouse and Playboy. The NY Post, July 9, 1985, reported on Madonna’s defiance with the headline, “Madonna on Nude Pix: So What?” But Madonna had the luxury of public indignation that Vanessa Williams, as Miss America, unfortunately did not.
It’s worth noting that Vanessa Williams wasn’t the only thing “scandalous” in that issue of Penthouse. It was the same issue that featured a centerfold of Traci Lords, later found to have been only 15 years old at the time.
