Vanessa Williams Reflects on her Penthouse Pics Scandal 40 Years After the Photos Leaked

Singer/actress Vanessa Williams is currently working in London, starring as fashion mogul Miranda Priestly in an upcoming musical adaptation of “The Devil Wears Prada," using her considerable talents once again on the live stage.

Almost 40 years to the day after the controversy that stripped her of her Miss America crown and could have easily waylaid her budding career, Williams gave an exclusive People magazine interview in which, among other things, she discussed those dirty pictures and what she learned from the scandal that followed.

Those Naughty Pics

Back in 1984, there was no Internet to propagate a good sex scandal. A grainy film made years before an actor or actress came into prominence showing them naked or in flagrante delicto, maybe some paparazzi snaps of a politician half-dressed or arm in arm with someone, not their spouse, stumbling drunk from a popular disco, or a tell-all book was all the public got back then. Though, stolen video sex tapes sold to the public by unknown sources would come just a few years later.

So, when nude pictures leaked of Williams, a Miss America, and the first Black woman to win that title at that, it was big news.

A mere ten months after being crowned Miss America, Williams was shocked when Penthouse magazine published nude photos they "acquired" of her cavorting in a photographer’s studio with another woman. Williams said the photos were taken in her teens, when she was working as a receptionist for a New York photographer at a New York modeling agency in 1982. She and her companion were told that only their silhouettes would be visible and of course, she never dreamed there would be so public an airing of the stills.  

The leaked photos engendered shock and outrage from the public, creating a massive scandal. The “worldwide fail,” as Williams calls her pictures’ release, led to the queen being stripped of her Miss America crown, and the scandal shook the foundation of both her burgeoning career and her personal life.

I remember running into big bad New York City in September 1984 to grab a copy of this Penthouse, seeing as it was sold out in my suburban New Jersey environs. Sitting with my buddies in the backseat of my other buddy’s car on the drive home, we rifled through the pages until we came to the photo spread that was gaining so much traction. But beyond thinking that Vanessa Williams and her companion looked damn sexy (and back then, seeing nude pictures of women anyplace, anytime, was wonderful for 20-something hetero guys raging with testosterone!).

We couldn’t understand what all the controversy was about. The pictures were rather "artfully" rendered, black and whites, and I think there were only one or two where the ladies might have been hugging or close enough that their bodies were touching.

But it was the 80s, when the free love of the 60s was over and the sex-positivity of the 2000s was far in the future, Williams was quite young and new to the industry, she was carrying the unbearable weight of the expectations that came with being the first Black woman to win Miss America, and then she was stripped of it, in a humiliatingly public way. Obviously, she was devastated, and so was the public.

Williams told People Magazine that the support of family and friends carried her through the scandal and gave her the courage to forge on with her career. Since then, she's enjoyed a career that has seen her release nine studio albums (she has new music available for download now) star in a ton of movies, even more TV, and on appear on stage.

In 2015, the Miss America organization publicly apologized to Williams for forcing her to give up her crown.

And all these years later, Williams is still thriving. She will be in London when The Devil Wears Prada (music by Elton John, by the way!) ‘struts’ onto the stage in October 2024.

Interesting note: in this same issue, the September 1984 Penthouse, there was a nude centerfold of porn star Traci Lords, who it would later be learned began her porn career, as well as posed for these photos when she was underage.  

A different time, for sure.

Reflecting on the Penthouse scandal in the digital age

As we note in our weekly sex new viral round-up, salacious news about celebrities appears with magnesium flash regularity across our blogs and feeds. We are rendered brain mute to the latest racy pic, post, or story.

And because the news cycle is so stuffed to the gills with… stuff, and no story lasts more than the time it takes to post it, people's sexy faux pas or exploits are no longer scandals. In fact, anyone can become a celebrity in the digital age with a photoshopped pic showing some skin, or a “Hawk Tuah.” 

Occurrences like Williams' leaked photos are so common now, that we can fill a weekly column.

So, we say “Hawk Tuah,” on controversy!