Vanessa Williams

1. BY KEVIN CHAPPELL
PHOTOGRAPHY BY RUVEN AFANADOR
DECEMBER 2010 / JANUARY 2011 l EBONY 73
STYLING BY FREDDIE LEIBA
VanessaBeing
What does the eternally sexy, Maserati-driving
adrenaline junkie want? More.
SWEET DREAMS
On Vanessa: Leotard
sweater, Michael Kors;
belt, Maxmara; ring,
Kimberly McDonald;
shoes, Christian Louboutin.
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2. RESH OFF THE RED EYE FROM LOS AN-
GELES, Vanessa Williams is people watching at
an outdoor café in New York City during the
heart of rush hour.
In the midst of the moment, her thoughts scatter like midnight
confetti covering these sidewalks on New Year’s Eve. “I feel like
I’ve lived many lifetimes,” she says. “After all, who would have ever
thought I would be where I am today?”
Where she is today is in the coveted position as one of the
hottest stars on television. Not since Diahann Carroll has a Black
woman successfully channeled sexy, inaccessible glamour in prime
time, parlaying the “diva” archetype into such acclaim on not one,
but two TV shows.
Williams recently ended her three-time Emmy nominated role
as villainess magazine editor Wilhelmina Slater on the critically
acclaimed series Ugly Betty, then sashayed her way directly onto
Wisteria Lane, creating the role
of Renée Perry, a vixen who has
created the biggest buzz on the
hit comedy-drama Desperate
Housewives.
In fact, as she pairs her wine
with a small piece of cheese, she
says that she is finally being “seen
the way I should have been seen
before. Now, it’s not all about
what the audience is going to
think. Or I can’t do this or that
because I’m going to lose my
audience. I’m not into that at
all,” she says. “Of course, I con-
sider that in the larger scheme of
things. But I have felt that when
you work hard, and you’re good
at what you do, you will reap the
rewards.”
Some 27 years after being
thrust into a fairy-tale life as the
first Black woman to be crowned
Miss America in 1983—only to
be dethroned 10 months later
when nude photos of her were
published in Penthouse maga-
zine—Williams says that she now feels redeemed. “I was not only
seen as a beauty queen, but a scandalized beauty queen,” she says
of the years following the pageant brouhaha. “So coming in the
door to get any kind of fair judgment was impossible because I came
with so much baggage. [Since then], my whole life has been about
getting respect.”
Williams credits her singing with allowing her to stay in the
game long enough to let go of the scandal, embrace the woman
she has become and move forward without worry about the past.
And, lucky for us, she now sees her sexuality as an asset instead of
a liability. “I became a singer first. So I was able to define my own
image,” says Williams, who put out a string of Top 10 songs in the
’80s and ’90s, including “Save the Best for Last,” which topped
the Billboard charts for five weeks in 1992. “Then, I became a singer
who could act. And now, I’m just multitalented.”
To say that the mother of four has come into her own is an
understatement. Men are more infatuated than ever with her sen-
suality, femininity and her body. And women love her confidence,
attitude, grace and poise.
Williams has taken it all the way to the bank.
In fact, she says that she is making more money now than she’s
ever made in her life, enough dough to pay several mortgages (foot-
ing the bill for two of her children and her nanny, her makeup artist
and homes for herself in New York City and Los Angeles) and car
notes (including one for a $125,000 Maserati GranTurismo that
she bought two years ago after having a damnit-I’ve-worked-hard-
and this-is-the-car-I-want moment), each month.
Of late, Williams has been extremely good at being bad. She
describes her characters in both Betty and Housewives as “strong and
powerful and dangerous” women, whom she patterns in many ways
after her 70-year-old mother. “My mother has great posture. She’s a
pip-squeak. She’s five feet tall.
She walks in the room and takes
control,” Williams says. “She’s
always been the shortest one. But
she’s always been a fighter and a
survivor. I took that courage that
she has.”
She is quick to point out, how-
ever, that the characters are the
“furthest from who I really am,
but it is so much fun,” she says.
“Because I get a chance to say
things that I never would have
the guts to say to people in a
room—not that being conde-
scending or putting people down
or putting them in their place is
proper—but it sure is fun when
it’s not you that has to pay the
consequences.”
She admits that it is strange to
play women who have no chil-
dren, don’t like children and have
no domestic desires. She says that
she’s just the opposite. “I cook. I
clean, even though I do have
help cleaning the house once a
week,” she says. “I pick up my kids from school. I do my daugh-
ter’s hair in the morning. I wash clothes. My nanny doesn’t live in.
I hang my own pictures. I touch up paint if I need to.”
And the “slave to fashion” thing that those characters channel so
well? Williams says that she hates to shop. “I love beautiful clothes,
but I figure, why waste a day shopping when there are so many
other things to do?” she says. “I wear boots, sweaters and jeans. In
the wintertime, I’ll throw a scarf on and a cap and a parka.”
Williams says that she would much rather go on a nice long walk
in the woods than take a walk along Rodeo Drive. She loves sunris-
es, sunsets, good food and good wine. She also likes adventure. She
has been to Brazil on New Year’s Eve, ridden an elephant through
the bush in South Africa, taken cooking classes in Italy and gone
horseback riding on a black-sand beach in Argentina. “That’s what
life is all about,” she says. “It gets you exhilarated.”
DECEMBER 2010 / JANUARY 2011 l EBONY 6364 EBONY | DECEMBER 2010 / JANUARY 2011
”
“Being a
has led to
that, if Iwere
preventedme
frombeing
RISK
TAKER
whereIam
opportunities
TODAY..
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ANIMAL
ATTRACTION
On Vanessa: Fur
coat, Malandrino;
ring, Melody Rodgers.F
FEARFUL,
would have
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“
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At times, I look at
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DDAAUUGGHHTTEERRSS
GRADE-A MILF
On Vanessa: Sweater,
Michael Kors; ring,
Melody Rodgers; shoes,
Steve Madden.
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4. DECEMBER 2010 / JANUARY 2011 l EBONY 6378 EBONY | DECEMBER 2010 / JANUARY 2011
She believes that her inner spirit shows itself in outward beauty,
although staying in shape helps. “I work hard. I go to the gym a lot,”
she says. “I’d rather enjoy my life and work hard than diet and eat
crazy things.”
Does she feel sexy?“I feel sexy at times,” she says. “When I’ve got my Spanx on and
everything is in place, I feel sexy. At times, I look at my older daugh-
ters, who are 23 and 21, and I see how effortless their beauty is, and
how unaware they are of it. They have that innocence that you kind of
grow out of as you get older. I kind of relish watching them from afar,
watching them grow up as ladies and discovering their womanhood.”
Eventually, Williams says that she wants to develop and star in her
own traditional Broadway show. “I’ve come close; it hasn’t hap-
pened, but it will,” she says. “That’s one of those things, growing up
outside of New York [City], that I’ve always wanted to do.”
One thing that she says she won’t do is write a tell-all book. She says
that she recently turned down $600,000 to divulge intimate details
about her marriage to her first husband, Ramon Hervey II, and her
second marriage to retired Los Angeles Laker Rick Fox, which ended
in divorce in 2004. “I don’t want to rehash the past,” she says. “I want
to talk about what makes me me, and why I am a survivor. And [the
publishers] didn’t want that. They wanted to know about my ex-hus-
bands. But I’m not going to throw my kids’ dads under the bus.”
She says that she is not presently dating anyone, and doesn’t know
if she will ever remarry. “You never know what’s going to happen in
life,” she says. “I think marriage is great when it works. But I want a
partnership. If I ever were going to get married again, I want to be
with someone who wants to be married and stay married. I want
someone who is willing to work at marriage.”
In the meantime, Williams says that embracing who she really is
has allowed her to make gutsy career moves that have opened doors
she thought would never open following the Miss America scandal.
This is her moment to shine, and she’s having the time of her life.
“Being a risk taker has led to opportunities that, if I were fearful,
would have prevented me from being where I am today,” she says.
“I understand that choices have consequences. But it’s those choices
that make you who you are.”
DECEMBER 2010 / JANUARY 2011 l EBONY 79
I don’t
want to
talk about
”
”
CRUISE
CONTROL
On Vanessa:
Turtleneck,
Ralph Lauren
REHASH
the past...
Iwant to
what
me me,
and why I am a
SSUURRVVIIVVOORR..
makes
Vanessa Williams:
Styling, Freddie Leiba;
hair, Oscar James;
makeup, Sam Fine.
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