You Have No Idea: A Famous Daughter, Her No-Nonsense Mother, and How They Survived Pageants, Hollywood, Love, Loss (8 page)

Then there was Ramon, who had come in as a professional. He’s brilliant at what he does. But I thought,
Uh oh, Vanessa’s going to fall for him.
She was leaning on him for support. He was her knight. Vanessa’s always been a romantic—a bit too much of a romantic, if you ask me.

For a while I kept my mouth shut and just observed. I wanted to scream, “He’s too old for you!” He was thirty-three—closer to my age than Vanessa’s.

At first she told me they were just friends. Uh-huh. I don’t look at my friends the way she was looking at Ramon!

There’s always more to the story with Vanessa.

And of course, I was right.

When it comes to Vanessa, I’m almost always right.

Now the Clintons are my neighbors!

CHAPTER

4

You will never escape the scandal. It will always be there. Don’t try to fight it, just accept that it will always be part of your story—a big part.

—HELEN WILLIAMS

A
fter living in my parents’ home and hearing young high school kids scream out of their cars in front of the house, “Vanessa is a lesbian,” I was ready to be on my own and move into the city. I fought for the scholarship money I was entitled to ($25,000 for winning the pageant, $4,000 for winning swimsuit and talent), got it, and decided to put it toward a condo in Manhattan.

Dennis, my attorney, had me meet a Realtor to start the search. Dennis was also managing my career, setting up record company meetings, working on endorsements for Royal Silk, tapping into all the interested parties. I also signed with International Creative Management, the top talent agency in New York. I saw a gorgeous one-bedroom apartment that I fell in love with on Sixtieth Street, kitty-corner to Lincoln Center. It had rounded balconies and plenty of light. I had enough for a down payment and couldn’t wait to
move in. Then the co-op board decided that they didn’t want to sell the unit to me because of my notoriety. Crushed—and it still stings whenever I pass the Upper West Side building—I ended up renting an eastside apartment on Fifty-Fourth Street between First Avenue and Sutton Place. At $2,500 a month, it was very posh—a doorman building. I saw a one-bedroom and decided to upgrade to a bedroom with a dining nook on the nineteenth floor. I had no furniture at all—just my bed from my teenage bedroom, which was out of the question.

I was bed shopping at Macy’s in midtown Manhattan when I heard the whispers. I’d gotten accustomed to being recognized, so I got a pair of fake reading glasses, hoping I would throw people off.

A black woman at a nearby counter saw me and said, “Boooo!”

There was no way to hide. What a disappointment I’d been to the black community—first a symbol of pride and triumph, now a symbol of shame.

I did nothing in response to the lady at the counter. I took the hit, pushed it down, and built up my armor. I wanted to disappear. Frankly, I wanted that woman to disappear! I bought my black lacquer platform bed (how eighties), escaped into the street, and went back to my apartment.

This wasn’t the first time it had happened. Others had expressed disgust with me. But each time it hurt. I’ve had people sneer and spit on the street when I’d walk by. Some would say things like “You should be ashamed of yourself” and “What a disgrace!”

One time a parking attendant at a garage in New York City studied me and said with pity, “I hate to say it, but you look like Vanessa Williams.” On the Millwood A&P parking lot some punks spray-painted
VANESSA’S A LESBIAN
.

But despite the heinous behavior of some, others reminded me that I wasn’t alone. I got letters, phone calls, and telegrams from all over the world. There were lots of supporters.

Jesse Jackson called my dad and left me a message to “hold my head high.” Sammy Davis Jr. took my parents aside at the
Motown Returns to the Apollo
televised concert and said, “I admire your daughter.” He wrote down his phone number. “If you need any help, call me anytime. I’m here for you and her.” Nikki Giovanni, the renowned black poet and writer, sent me a letter: “If I had a daughter, I would be more than delighted if she conducted herself as you have.”

My parents received hundreds of supportive telegrams from friends and people I’d never met from all over the country, including the singer Lionel Richie; Cynthia Dwyer, a former hostage in Iran; and Laurie Lea Schaefer and the actress Lee Meriwether, both past Miss Americas. Lee, who has remained a friend and supporter ever since, sent me a beautiful letter that read as follows:

Dear Vanessa,

This is a sad and terrible time for you, I’m sure. But please! Please don’t let this destroy you! You are a beautiful and talented young woman. USE THESE GIFTS! Remember, you will always be a Miss America and I will always be proud of you. Be brave and strong, my girl, as I know you can and must be.

Love, Your friend and sister,

Lee Meriwether

The local kids, some of whom I used to babysit, organized a Victory for Vanessa rally that paraded by my house. A bunch of the kids rang the doorbell and presented my mom with bouquets of flowers.

It was the only time I think she cried during the whole ordeal. I didn’t witness it because I was hiding down the street, but it was captured in a photo that ran in all the local papers.

The scandal made the cover of newspapers and all the major
tabloids for two straight weeks. Even the
Daily Mirror
in Sydney, Australia, reported on the scandal with a cover story: banned beauty. Most Europeans didn’t get why this was such a big deal.
She was just
naked—
Americans are so uptight!

For me, 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. I had to learn not to take the attacks personally. “She’s a tramp,” she said over and over. (Ironically, “The Lady Is a Tramp” was one of the songs I sang on appearances as Miss America.)

Comedian Chris Rock attacked me on his HBO series
The Chris Rock Show
. Years later, I ran into him at the airport. He hemmed and hawed. I looked him right in the eye. “I heard what you said about me on your special.”

He kind of stammered, “Yeah, well…” And that was the end of it. There was sort of this unspoken understanding. He was doing his job commenting on current events—and I was, unfortunately, the current event.

There were Vanessa jokes that went viral before there was such a thing as going viral: “Jesse Jackson is asking Vanessa Williams to run on his ticket. He knows she is the only one who can lick Bush.”

UGH!

Larry Barton, the mayor of Talladega, Alabama, sent a letter demanding I return the key to the city he had presented to me when I served as grand marshal in their annual Christmas parade and sang the national anthem at the Talladega 500, the big NASCAR race. “… Miss Williams, you have permitted yourself to be exploited and disappointed thousands of Americans by your actions, but more important, you have disappointed God.… Please don’t continue to waste your life. Ask God to forgive you, and ask him for guidance.…”