Vanessa Williams Video Interview On Her Book ‘You Have No Idea,’ Nude Playboy Photo Scandal, ‘Ugly Betty’

For three decades, Vanessa Williams, 49, has entertained audiences as both a recording artist and actress. Whether belting out such ballads as “Save the Best For Last,” and “Colors of The Wind,” starring on Broadway in Kiss of The Spider Woman, or making life miserable for her employees as Wilhemina Slater on Ugly Betty, Williams has earned a reputation as a multi-faceted performer. Now, along with her mother Helen, she has released a memoir, You Have No Idea, about her life, career and relationship with her mother.

Williams speaks candidly about the scandal in 1984 in which she lost her Miss America crown after Penthouse Magazine published nude photos of her. “I really had no idea what was about to come,” she told Uinterview exclusively. “So, you know, at 21 years of age it’s sheer panic and terror …. I think the initial response is, you don’t want to disappoint your parents. The reaction was, ‘How am I going to tell my parents?’”

CHECK OUT: VANESSA WILLIAM’S uBio

Mom Helen also discusses seeing the photos and how she comforted her daughter. “It was not something that she was proud of, and that I could see the sadness, a great deal of sadness, in her eyes,” Helen told Uinterview. “And when she told her dad and me about it, we both gave her big hugs and just told her that we loved her, we supported her, and we knew that there were going to be a lot of bumpy roads ahead and we were prepared to ride those roads with her.”

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