Vanessa Williams Personal life Did Vanessa Williams grow up in a poverty stricken neighborhood or affluent one? I don't know.
What year did Vanessa Williams win the Miss American pageant?
What year did Vanessa Williams win the Miss American pageant?
Williams and her mother Helen co-authored a memoir entitled You Have No Idea, published in April 2012. In the book, Williams discusses her childhood, rise to fame, and personal struggles (including life with type 1 diabetes), including the fact that she was sexually molested by a woman when she was 10 years old. She also spoke candidly about having an abortion while she was in high school. Williams is a Roman Catholic, something she spoke about on the ABC News program, Focus On Faith with Father Edward L. Beck. Williams is also involved with a number of humanitarian causes. She is a supporter of gay rights and same sex marriage, and in 2011 she participated in a human rights campaign entitled "New Yorkers for Marriage Equality". She is also partnered with Dress For Success, an organization that provides professional attire for low-income women, to help support their job-search and interview process. In addition, Williams is involved with The San Miquel Academy of Newburgh, a school for boys at risk. Williams has been married three times. She married her first husband, Ramon Hervey II, at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in 1987 just a few years after giving up her crown, and gave birth to her first child at this time. Hervey was a public relations specialist who had been hired to resuscitate her career after her resignation as Miss America in July 1984. They have three children (Melanie, Jillian Hervey, and Devin) and divorced in 1997. She then married NBA basketball player Rick Fox in 1999. They have one daughter, Sasha Gabriella Fox, and divorced in 2004. In 2015, Williams married Jim Skrip, a businessman from Buffalo, New York. Her daughter Jillian Hervey is an American singer, dancer and member of the group Lion Babe. CANNOTANSWER
July 1984.
Vanessa Lynn Williams (born March 18, 1963) is an American singer, actress, and fashion designer. She initially gained recognition as the first African-American woman to receive the Miss America title when she was crowned Miss America 1984 in 1983. However, a scandal arose the following year when, a few weeks prior to the end of her reign, Williams learned that Penthouse magazine would be publishing nude photographs of her in an upcoming issue. Amid growing media controversy and scrutiny, Williams resigned as Miss America in July 1984 (under pressure from the Miss America Organization) and was replaced by first runner-up Miss New Jersey Suzette Charles. Thirty-two years later, Miss America CEO Sam Haskell offered her a public apology (during the Miss America 2016 pageant) for the events of 1984.

Williams rebounded from the scandal with a successful career as a singer and actress. In 1988, she released her debut studio album The Right Stuff, whose title single saw moderate success before "Dreamin' peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in the United States in 1989. With her second and third studio albums, The Comfort Zone (1991) and The Sweetest Days (1994), she saw continued commercial success and received multiple Grammy Award nominations; this included her number-one hit (in early 1992) and signature song, "Save the Best for Last", which she performed live at the 1993 Grammy Awards ceremonies. Her later studio albums include Everlasting Love (2005) and The Real Thing (2009).

As an actress, Williams enjoyed success on both stage and screen, receiving an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture for her portrayal of Teri Joseph in the film Soul Food (1997). Her best-known television roles are that of Wilhelmina Slater on Ugly Betty (2006–2010), for which she was nominated three times for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, and Renee Perry on Desperate Housewives (2010–2012).

Early life and education
Vanessa Lynn Williams was born in the Bronx, New York City and raised in Millwood, New York. with a birth announcement that read: "Here she is: Miss America."

A paternal great-great grandfather was William A. Feilds, an African-American legislator in the Tennessee House of Representatives. Her mother Helen Tinch met her father Milton Augustine Williams Jr. (1935–2006) while both were music education students at Fredonia State Teachers College in the late 1950s. They both became elementary school music teachers after marriage, though their teaching positions were in separate districts. Milton also served as the assistant principal of his school for an extended period of time.

Williams was raised Catholic, the religion of her father. Her mother, who had been raised Baptist, converted to Catholicism when she got married. Williams was baptized at Our Lady of Grace Church in the Bronx. Her mother played the organ at St. Theresa's Church in Briarcliff Manor for weddings and at Mass, and Williams used to assist her mother by turning the pages of sheet music.

Williams and her younger brother Chris (who would later become an actor) grew up in Westchester County, a predominantly white middle- to upper-class suburb of New York City. Williams believes she may have been the first African-American student to go from the first grade to the 12th grade in the Chappaqua Central School District.

A child of music teachers, Williams grew up in a musical household, studying classical and jazz dance, French horn, piano, and violin. She was offered the Presidential Scholarship for Drama to attend Carnegie Mellon University during the college application period, (one of 12 students to receive it) but decided instead to attend Syracuse University on a different scholarship. Thus, in 1981, Williams joined Syracuse's College of Visual and Performing Arts, Department of Drama as a musical theater major. She stayed at Syracuse through her second year until she was crowned Miss America 1984 in September 1983.

In May 2008, Syracuse granted Williams a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. According to Syracuse News, "Williams earned the remaining credits for her degree through industry experience and her substantial performances on stage and screen." Williams also delivered the 2008 convocation address, telling Syracuse seniors to "treasure this moment. These days are irreplaceable and are the beginning of the rest of your life."

Name
Williams is most often publicly recognized simply as "Vanessa Williams". There is, however, occasional confusion with the similarly named actress Vanessa E. Williams. It has been reported that Vanessa L. first became aware of Vanessa E. in the 1980s when her New York University registrar told her that another, similarly aged student with the same name and from the same state had applied. When Williams appeared as Miss America in a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Vanessa E. accidentally received her check for the appearance, which she returned.

In the area of acting, the two ran into name conflict when Screen Actors Guild rules prohibited duplicate stage naming. Vanessa E. had registered the name "Vanessa Williams" first, so as a compromise, Williams was occasionally credited as "Vanessa L. Williams" in acting credits. To compound the confusion, both actresses starred in versions of the drama Soul Food (Williams in the film version, and Vanessa E. in its TV series adaptation). The Screen Actors Guild eventually took the issue to arbitration and decided both actresses could use the professional name "Vanessa Williams".

Miss America 

Williams was the first African American recipient of the Miss America title when she was crowned Miss America 1984 in September 1983. Several weeks before the end of her reign however, a scandal arose when Penthouse magazine bought and published unauthorized nude photographs of her. Williams was pressured to relinquish her title and was succeeded by the first runner-up, Miss New Jersey 1983, Suzette Charles. Thirty-two years later in September 2015, when Williams served as head judge for the Miss America 2016 pageant, former Miss America CEO Sam Haskell made a public apology to her for the events of 1984.

Career

Music
Williams first received public recognition for her musical abilities when she won the preliminary talent portion of the Miss America pageant with her rendition of "Happy Days Are Here Again" (Williams would later be crowned Miss America 1984). Four years later in 1988, Williams released her debut album, The Right Stuff. The first single, "The Right Stuff", found success on the R&B chart, while the second single, "He's Got the Look", found similar success on the same chart. The third single, "Dreamin'", was a pop hit, becoming Williams' first top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 8, and her first number one single on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The album reached platinum status in the U.S. and earned her an NAACP Image Award and three Grammy Award nominations, including one for Best New Artist.

Her second album The Comfort Zone became the biggest success in her music career. The lead single "Running Back to You" reached top twenty on the Hot 100, and the top position of Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart on October 5, 1991. Other singles included "The Comfort Zone" (#2 R&B), "Just for Tonight" (#26 Pop), a cover of The Isley Brothers' "Work to Do" (#3 R&B), and the club-only hit "Freedom Dance (Get Free!)." The most successful single from the album, as well as her biggest hit to date, is "Save the Best for Last". It reached No. 1 in the United States, where it remained for five weeks, as well as No. 1 in Australia, the Netherlands, and Canada, and was in the top 5 in Japan, Ireland and the United Kingdom. The album sold 2.2 million copies in the U.S. at its time of release and has since been certified triple platinum in the United States by the RIAA, gold in Canada by the CRIA, and platinum in the United Kingdom by the BPI. The Comfort Zone earned Williams five Grammy Award nominations.

The Sweetest Days, her third album, was released in 1994 to highly-favorable reviews. The album saw Williams branch out and sample other styles of music that included jazz, hip hop, rock, and Latin-themed recordings such as "Betcha Never" and "You Can't Run", both written and produced by Babyface. Other singles from the album included the adult-contemporary and dance hit "The Way That You Love" and the title track. The album was certified platinum in the U.S. by the RIAA and earned her two Grammy Award nominations.

Other releases include two Christmas albums, Star Bright in 1996, and Silver & Gold in 2004; Next in 1997, Everlasting Love in 2005, and The Real Thing in 2009, along with a greatest-hits compilation released in 1998, and a host of other compilations released over the years.
Chart performances from subsequent albums, motion picture and television soundtracks have included the songs "Love Is", which was a duet with Brian McKnight, the Golden Globe- and Academy Award-winning "Colors of the Wind", "Where Do We Go from Here?", and "Oh How the Years Go By".

In 1996, Williams performed the national anthem at Super Bowl XXX.

In April 2018, she announced she was working on a new studio album due in the Fall which would incorporate her R&B, pop & Broadway influences.

Television and film

Williams has had a successful career in television. Her first television appearance was on a 1984 episode of The Love Boat followed by guest appearances in a number of popular shows. In 1995, Williams starred as Rose Alvarez in a television adaptation of the 1960 Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie  and portrayed the nymph Calypso in the 1997 Hallmark Entertainment miniseries The Odyssey. In 2001, Williams starred in the Lifetime cable movie about the life of Henriette DeLille, The Courage to Love  and in 2003, Williams read the narrative of Tempie Herndon Durham from the WPA slave narratives in the HBO documentary Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives. In 2006, Williams received considerable media attention for her comic/villainess role as former model/magazine creative director turned editor-in-chief Wilhelmina Slater in the ABC comedy series Ugly Betty. Her performance on the series resulted in a nomination for outstanding supporting actress at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards and in 2008 and 2009, she was nominated in the outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series category for Ugly Betty. Williams next joined the cast of Desperate Housewives for its seventh season, where she portrayed Renee Perry, an old college "frenemy" of Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman). In 2016, she joined the cast of The Librarians, as recurring villainess General Rockwell. She starred as Maxine in the VH1 television series Daytime Divas during its one season in 2017.

Williams has appeared in a number of feature films. She received a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture for her portrayal of Teri Joseph for the 1997 feature film Soul Food. In 2007, she starred in the independent film My Brother, for which she won Best Actress honors at the Harlem International Film Festival, the African-American Women in Cinema Film Festival, and at the Santa Barbara African Heritage Film Festival. She also notably co-starred with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Eraser, Samuel L. Jackson in the 2000 soft reboot of Shaft, the characters from Sesame Street in The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland (as the Queen of Trash), and with Miley Cyrus in Hannah Montana: The Movie.

Theatre 
Williams began her career on stage in the 1985 production, One Man Band, as one of "the women." She followed it in 1989 as "Laura" in Checkmates.

In 1994, she broadened her ascendant music career into a theatrical role when she replaced Chita Rivera as Aurora in the Broadway production of Kiss of the Spider Woman. In 1998, she portrayed Della Green in the revival of St. Louis Woman, and Carmen Jones in the 2002 Kennedy Center Special Performance of Carmen Jones. In the same year, she was also featured in the Tony/Drama Desk Award-winning revival production of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, for which she was nominated for a Tony and Drama Desk Award for her performance as the Witch.  This production included songs revised for her. In 2010, Vanessa starred in a new Broadway musical revue entitled Sondheim on Sondheim, a look at Stephen Sondheim through his music, film and videotaped interviews. Sondheim ran from March 19 to June 13 at Studio 54 in New York City. In 2013, she starred as Jessie Mae Watts in the Horton Foote play The Trip to Bountiful, which was later turned into a 2014 television film. In 2014, she starred in the Broadway musical, After Midnight and in 2015 she appeared in a PBS production of Show Boat as Julie La Verne.

Additional roles
Williams served as the host of the 1994 Essence Awards, co-host of Carnegie Hall Salutes the Jazz Masters: Verve Records at 50, host of the 1998 NAACP Image Awards, host of the 2002 documentary, It's Black Entertainment, host of The 6th Annual TV Land Awards in 2007, host of the 36th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards in 2009, and finally host of the documentary Dreams Come True: A Celebration of Disney Animation (2009).

Williams is a spokesmodel for Proactiv Solution, and was the first African-American spokesmodel for L'Oréal cosmetics in the 1990s. In 2018, Williams returned as a spokesmodel for L'Oréal as part of their 'Age perfect' campaign alongside fellow ambassadors Helen Mirren, Julianne Moore and Jane Fonda.
She appeared on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in 2000 as a contestant, and once again on August 10, 2009, as a celebrity guest during the show's tenth anniversary prime-time special editions, winning $50,000 for her charity.

In a commercial that began running during Super Bowl XLVI in 2012, Williams voiced the new character Ms. Brown, a brown M&M.

In 2020 Williams was the winner of episode 2 of RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race, and donated her prize of $20,000 to the LBGTQ charity The Trevor Project.

Fashion
In March 2016, Williams launched her own clothing line, V. by Vanessa Williams, for EVINE Live.

Personal life 
Williams and her mother Helen co-authored a memoir entitled You Have No Idea, published in April 2012. In the book, Williams discusses her childhood, rise to fame, and personal struggles (including life with type 1 diabetes), including the fact that she was sexually molested by a woman when she was ten years old. She also spoke candidly about having an abortion while she was in high school.

Williams is a practicing Catholic, something she spoke about on the ABC News program Focus on Faith with Fr. Edward L. Beck.

Williams is also involved with a number of humanitarian causes. She is a supporter of LGBT rights and same sex marriage, and in 2011 she participated in a Human Rights Campaign entitled "New Yorkers for Marriage Equality". She is also partnered with Dress For Success, an organization that provides professional attire for low-income women to help support their job-search and interview process. In addition, Williams is involved with The San Miquel Academy of Newburgh, a school for boys at risk.

Williams has been married three times. She married her first husband, Ramon Hervey II, at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in 1987 just a few years after giving up her crown, and gave birth to her first child at this time. Hervey was a public relations specialist who had been hired to resuscitate her career after her resignation as Miss America in July 1984. They have three children (Melanie, Jillian, and Devin) and divorced in 1997. She then married NBA basketball player Rick Fox in 1999. They have one daughter, Sasha Gabriella Fox, and divorced in 2004. In 2015, Williams married Jim Skrip, a businessman from Buffalo, New York, at St. Stanislaus Catholic Church, after she received a Church annulment of her first marriage.

Her daughter Jillian Hervey is an American singer, dancer and member of the group Lion Babe.

Honours and awards

Williams is the recipient of many awards and nominations including Grammy nominations for hits such as "The Right Stuff", "Save the Best for Last", and "Colors of the Wind". In addition, she has earned multiple Emmy nominations, a Tony Award nomination, seven NAACP Image Awards, and four Satellite Awards.

She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on March 19, 2007.

In December 2017, Vanessa L. Williams participated at COAF  Gala fundraising event, delivering a special performance of her Golden Globe and Academy Award-winning song "Colors of the Wind" and paid tribute to Patricia Field, with whom she worked on the set of the TV series Ugly Betty.

Discography

 The Right Stuff (1988) 
 The Comfort Zone (1991)
 The Sweetest Days (1994)
 Star Bright (1996)
 Next (1997)
 Silver & Gold (2004)
 Everlasting Love (2005)
 The Real Thing (2009)

Filmography

Film

Television

Books

See also

 List of artists who reached number one in the United States
 List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. dance chart
Children of Armenia Fund

References

External links

 
 
 
 

 
1963 births
20th-century American women singers
20th-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
Actresses from New York City
African-American actresses
African-American Catholics
African-American fashion designers
African-American women singers
American contemporary R&B singers
American dance musicians
American fashion designers
American women pop singers
American film actresses
American soul singers
American television actresses
American voice actresses
Beauty pageant controversies
Concord Records artists
Lava Records artists
LGBT rights activists from the United States
Living people
Mercury Records artists
Miss America 1980s delegates
Miss America Preliminary Talent winners
Miss America winners
Miss New York winners
People with type 1 diabetes
Polydor Records artists
Syracuse University alumni
African-American beauty pageant winners
Catholics from New York (state)
Entertainers from the Bronx
Horace Greeley High School alumni
Singers from New York City
American women fashion designers
African-American history of Westchester County, New York
Vanessa Williams (born March 18, 1963) is an American actress, singer, and fashion designer. She initially gained recognition as the first African American winner of the Miss America title when she was crowned Miss America 1984 in September 1983. Several weeks before the end of her reign, however, a scandal arose when Penthouse magazine bought and published nude photographs of Williams. Williams was pressured to relinquish her title and was succeeded by the first runner-up, Miss New Jersey 1983, Suzette Charles. She was the first Miss America to give up her crown.  Thirty-two years later, in September 2015,  when Williams served as head judge for the Miss America 2016 pageant, former Miss America CEO Sam Haskell made a public apology to her for the events of 1984.

Miss America 1984

When she was 20 years old, Williams was approached by scouts from the Miss Syracuse pageant who had seen her perform while a student at Syracuse University. Despite their encouragement,  Williams was not interested in participating in the pageant. She later changed her mind when she realized that she could earn scholarship money. Although she had never participated in a beauty pageant before, she won the title of Miss Syracuse in April 1983. She then went on to win  Miss New York in July 1983. During the preliminaries for the Miss America pageant, Williams won "Preliminary Swimsuit" and "Preliminary Talent" (with a vocal performance of "Happy Days Are Here Again"). She was also crowned Miss America 1984 on September 17, 1983, becoming the first African American woman to win the title.

During her reign as Miss America, Williams was criticized in some venues for winning. She later stated that "there were a lot of people that did not want me to be representative of the United States and Miss America. And not just white people alone. There were a lot of people who had issues ... I was too light. My eyes were the wrong color. My hair wasn't the right texture and getting criticism for being who I was." She was also the target of persistent racist hate mail and death threats (which she documented in her memoir, You Have No Idea). Thirty years later, when Miss America 2014 Nina Davuluri (who was also a former Miss New York and Miss Syracuse) became the target of a racist social media backlash, Williams recounted the similarities with her own experiences, stating that she "wrote a book about everything that I went through, and I spent a lot of time talking about the death threats, the FBI, the sharpshooters ... it was a graver situation and more dangerous years ago—the change that was happening and the uproar because of the color of my skin."

Williams would later comment that she was one of five minority contestants that year, noting that ballet dancer Deneen Graham "had already had a cross burned on her front yard because she was the first black Miss North Carolina [1983]." She also pointed out that "Suzette Charles was the first runner-up, and she was biracial. But when the press started, when I would go out on the—on the tour and do my appearances, and people would come up and say they never thought they'd see the day that it would happen; when people would want to shake my hand, and you'd see tears in their eyes, and they'd say, I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime—that's when, you know, it was definitely a very special honor."

Resignation

In July 1984 (two months before the end of her reign), Williams learned that nude photos of her, taken before her involvement with the pageant, would be published without her consent in a future issue of Penthouse. Williams believed that the private photographs had been destroyed; she stated that she never signed a release permitting publication or use of the photos in a public format. In contrast, Hugh Hefner, the publisher of Playboy, was also given the opportunity to publish these photos but turned it down, stating: "The single victim in all of this was the young woman herself, whose right to make this decision was taken away from her. If she wanted to make this kind of statement, that would be her business, but the statement wasn't made by her." A Playboy spokesperson also advised that their magazine does not use "lesbian material".

The black-and-white photos dated back to the summer of 1982 (after her freshman year at Syracuse University) when she worked as an assistant and makeup artist for Mount Kisco, New York photographer Tom Chiapel. At the time, Williams stated that Chiapel said that "he had a concept of having two models pose nude for silhouettes, basically to make different shapes and forms. The light would be behind the models. I was reluctant, but since he assured me that I would be the only one to see them and I would not be identifiable in the photographs, I agreed. He had also gotten another model to agree to this." In a 2012 interview with NPR, Williams discussed these events stating that her mother:

Kept saying, "you're just like your father; you're too trusting". And there's a part of me that, I do give people the benefit of the doubt ... it's also being free ... that was the mode I was in at that particular time, when I took those racy pictures, because I was already in college so you can't tell me what to do. So—I wasn't actually in high school—so my mentality was what—I'm living my own life; I'm a spirited, young woman; I can handle this; I can handle anything. And at 19, you think you rule the world, and you can control things. And a lot of times, you don't.

After learning that Penthouse would be publishing these photos, the Miss America Organization responded by giving Williams 72 hours to resign. Williams later stated that "the heightened spectacle and circus of it all was kind of crazy. I had people saying 'Fight for the crown! Fight for the crown!' and people chanting 'Don't give it up! Don't secede! Williams also later noted that the situation was particularly hard on her mother Helen, who felt that she should not resign as Williams had performed her "duties and excelled at everything I was asked to do plus doing 50% more of appearances that were not scheduled because I was the first African American Miss America." Helen was also upset that "the pageant did not come to my support, they felt I needed to resign."

Williams, however, decided to resign, and formally announced her decision at a press conference held on July 23, 1984. The title subsequently went to the first runner-up, Miss New Jersey Suzette Charles who served out the final seven weeks of Williams' reign.  On September 7, 1984, Williams filed a $500 million lawsuit against Chiapel and Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione; she dropped the lawsuit a year later stating that she wanted to put the scandal behind her. In addition Williams had signed a model release form when the photos were taken, therefore Penthouse had the right to publish the photos.   Ultimately, Penthouse published the authorized photos in its September 1984 issue, which the  PBS documentary Miss America described as "the most successful issue Penthouse magazine ever printed, netting Guccione a windfall profit of $14 million."

1984–2015

After her resignation, Williams rebounded as a recording artist and actress. However, she also faced a long period of what she would later describe as "the betrayal, and the humiliation, that happened to me on a grand scale." Essence magazine concurred stating that Williams was the subject of "public shaming and bullying from the public at large" and The Philadelphia Inquirer noted that her "career and reputation tanked. Overnight, [Williams] went from being America's darling to a national disgrace."

She would also later state that these events delayed her career by about ten years, as "it seemed like an eternity in which I was the punch line to every late-night monologue ... Joan Rivers, whom I adored and met on The Tonight Show during my reign, was particularly relentless. Just when I figured she'd exhausted every possible Vanessa Williams joke, she'd have a whole new slew of them." Williams would also later tell of one audition that she had during the late 1980s for a theatrical role. She was denied the role, however, because "the wife of lyricist Ira Gershwin decreed: 'Over my dead body will that whore be in my show. In addition, her parents experienced "an incredible amount of shame and humiliation" and were equally the subject of harassment at the time.

Thirty years after the scandal broke, Amanda Marcotte suggested in The Daily Beast that

we owe a lot to Vanessa Williams for being a pioneer when it comes to showing the world how to recover when you've been unjustly shamed for being sexual. Williams could have slunk off into the shadows in shame, which no doubt many people at the time expected her to do. Williams picked herself up and kept fighting for a career as an entertainer, first by becoming a successful singer and then becoming a well-known comic actress ... Sleazy people tried to drag Vanessa Williams down with accusations of being sexual 30 years ago, but she moved on, showing she had nothing to be ashamed of.

In addition, Williams commented on her ability to persevere after these events in a 2015 interview with Entertainment Tonight by stating that "you can't give up ... you always have to remember what you're made of and not let circumstances get in the way. They might delay your progress for the moment, but you always have to remember who you are, and that will give you the eyes on the prize."

Miss America 2016

Thirty-two years later, Williams returned to the Miss America stage on September 13, 2015, where she served as head judge for Miss America 2016 and sang "Oh How the Years Go By".  After this performance, former Miss America CEO Sam Haskell issued a public apology to Williams, stating:

I have been a close friend of this beautiful and talented lady for 32 years. You have lived your life in grace and dignity, and never was it more evident than during the events of 1984, when you resigned. Though none of us currently in the organization were involved then, on behalf of today's organization, I want to apologize to you and to your mother, Miss Helen Williams. I want to apologize for anything that was said or done that made you feel any less the Miss America you are and the Miss America you always will be.

Williams responded by stating that she did the "best that I could, in my reign as Miss America, from 1983 to 1984."

A few months after the pageant, Williams discussed the apology in an interview with Gayle King, Charlie Rose, and Norah O'Donnell for CBS This Morning. King asked her about the circumstances that led to it stating, "I think many people were touched when the Miss America pageant issued an apology to you." Williams credited Haskell (who was one of her judges during the Miss America 1984 pageant) for orchestrating her return. While both she and her mother initially responded with hesitation to the invitation, Williams finally agreed to participate on the condition that she could sing her song "Oh How the Years Go By" (to symbolize the passing of time since she was Miss America). She did not know what Haskell would say, stating that she was simply told to stand and wait for him during the commercial break that would take place after her song. It was only when he arrived and placed his hand on her back (where she noticed that his hand was shaking) that Williams realized something significant was about to happen. Williams said that one of the most important outcomes of the apology was the positive impact that it had on her mother, who "endured a lot" during that period.

After the pageant, Williams' replacement Suzette Charles stated in an interview with Inside Edition that she was perplexed over the apology and suggested that it was given for the purpose of ratings. Williams had previously commented on the events surrounding her return, stating in an interview with Robin Roberts that "there's a lot of people who feel I should return, so the people who harbor the resentment I understand it but realize that all of those people that were part of the old guard are no longer there." In the same interview, Roberts mentioned to Williams that in the present day (c. 2015), "people now release [similar] things to make a career."
Williams responded: "That's crazy. To think that oh you can look at a scandal and think that that would be good for your career, where for me it took every ounce of credibility and talent that I had and wiped it out."

Notes

Further reading

Articles
"Vanessa Williams: New Miss America (cover story)."  Jet, October 10, 1983.
"Here She is: Beautiful, brainy, and black, Vanessa Williams is by no means your ordinary beauty queen."  Ebony, December 1983: 132–136.
"Ex-Miss America Endures Pain, Embarrassment Sparked by Flap Over Nude Pictures."  Jet, August 6, 1984: 60–62.
"Letters to the Editor: Miss America." Ebony, October, 1984.

Books
 Shindle, Kate (Miss America 1998). Being Miss America: Behind the Rhinestone Curtain. University of Texas Press, 2014.
Wiliams, Vanessa and Helen Williams. You Have No Idea: A Famous Daughter, Her No-nonsense Mother, and How They Survived Pageants, Hollywood, Love, Loss (and Each Other). New York: Gotham/Penguin Group, 2012.

External links
Shin, Annys. In 1983, Vanessa Williams became the first black Miss America, Washington Post, September 14, 2017.
"President Reagan and Nancy Reagan talking with Vanessa Williams during a state dinner for President Karl Carstens of the Federal Republic of Germany in the cross hall." October 4, 1983, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

Video clips
Miss America 2016
"Vanessa Williams Sings Oh How the Years Go By"—Miss America 2016, September 13, 2015 ("Oh How the Years Go By")
"Miss America CEO Sam Haskell Apologizes to Vanessa Williams"—Miss America 2016, September 13, 2015
"Vanessa Williams and Her Mother Receive an Apology From Miss America Organization"—ABC News, September 14, 2015.
Vanessa Williams | Real Biz with Rebecca Jarvis—ABC News, April 27, 2016.

Post–Miss America 1984
 "How Vanessa Williams Endured Her Miss America Scandal"—Oprah's Master Class, Season 4, Episode 7, July 13, 2014.
 ""Vanessa Williams Reflects on Becoming the First Black Miss America" – Oprah's Master Class, Season 4, Episode 7, July 13, 2014.
 "Vanessa Williams at 25—Singing her way up the pop chart"—Journalist Marcus Jones 1988 interview

July 1984 resignation speech
Prep prior to and beginning of Vanessa William's Miss America resignation speech—Getty Images video, July 23, 1984.
First half of  Vanessa William's Miss America resignation speech—Getty Images video, July 23, 1984.
Second half of Vanessa William's Miss America resignation speech—Getty Images video, July 23, 1984.

Miss America 1984
Vanessa Williams crowned Miss America 1984—Miss America 1984,  September 17, 1983
Vanessa Williams performs "Happy Days Are Here Again", Miss America 1984, September 17, 1983.
"Miss America 1984 Vanessa Williams Interview with Bill Boggs"—Bill Boggs 1983 interview

1984 controversies
African-American history
Anti-black racism in the United States
Beauty pageant controversies
History of racism in the United States
Miss America 1980s delegates
Miss America Preliminary Talent winners
Miss America winners
Miss America
Miss New York winners
Vanessa Williams Miss America 2016, the 89th Miss America pageant, was held at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey on Sunday, September 13, 2015. It was broadcast on ABC and streamed to mobile devices and Xbox 360 consoles via the WatchABC app. Tickets for the 2016 Miss America competition went on sale June 5, 2015.

Kira Kazantsev (Miss New York 2014) crowned her successor,  Miss Georgia 2015,  Betty Cantrell at the end of the two-hour nationally televised event. According to Miss America's website, the pageant got around 7.9 million views.

Overview

There were 52 women competing for the title, down from 53 contestants in the 2014 pageant, as the Miss Virgin Islands pageant organization did not renew their license and is no longer sending representatives for the Miss America pageant.

The panel of preliminary competition judges included publicist and talent producer Brian Edwards, Miss America 1979 Kylene Barker, producer Jenni Pulos, fashion and style expert Rachel Zalis, fashion designer Noah Alexander, D.C. lobbyist Lanny Griffith, and actor/model James Brown III.

Vanessa Williams (who was crowned Miss America 1984 but was forced to resign a few weeks before her reign ended) served as head judge and performed Oh How the Years Go By.  The pageant began with Miss America CEO Sam Haskell issuing an apology to Williams, telling her that although "none of us currently in the organization were involved then, on behalf of today's organization, I want to apologize to you and to your mother, Miss Helen Williams. I want to apologize for anything that was said or done that made you feel any less the Miss America you are and the Miss America you always will be." Suzette Charles (Williams' replacement)  said in an interview with Inside Edition that she was perplexed over the apology and suggested that it was given for the purpose of ratings. Williams also commented on the events surrounding her return, stating in an interview with Robin Roberts that "there's a lot of people who feel I should return, so the people who harbor the resentment I understand it but realize that all of those people that were part of the old guard are no longer there."

Results

Placements

* - America's Choice

Awards

Preliminary awards

Quality of Life award

Other awards

Contestants

Pageant notes

Withdraws
 - Due to lack of sponsorships

Notes

External links
Vanessa Williams and Her Mother Receive an Apology From Miss America Organization - ABC News, September 14, 2015.

2016
September 2015 events in the United States
2015 beauty pageants
2015 in New Jersey
Vanessa Williams
Events in Atlantic City, New Jersey