vanessa williams

BY KEVIN CHAPPELLPHOTOGRAPHY BY RUVEN AFANADOR

DECEMBER 2010 / JANUARY 2011 l EBONY 73

STYLING BY FREDDIE LEIBA

VanessaBeingWhat does the eternally sexy, Maserati-driving adrenaline junkie want? More.

SWEET DREAMSOn Vanessa: Leotardsweater, Michael Kors;belt, Maxmara; ring,Kimberly McDonald;shoes, Christian Louboutin.

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RESH OFF THE RED EYE FROM LOS AN-GELES, Vanessa Williams is people watching atan outdoor café in New York City during theheart of rush hour.

In the midst of the moment, her thoughts scatter like midnightconfetti covering these sidewalks on New Year’s Eve. “I feel likeI’ve lived many lifetimes,” she says. “After all, who would have everthought I would be where I am today?”

Where she is today is in the coveted position as one of thehottest stars on television. Not since Diahann Carroll has a Blackwoman successfully channeled sexy, inaccessible glamour in primetime, parlaying the “diva” archetype into such acclaim on not one,but two TV shows.

Williams recently ended her three-time Emmy nominated roleas villainess magazine editor Wilhelmina Slater on the criticallyacclaimed series Ugly Betty, then sashayed her way directly ontoWisteria Lane, creating the roleof Renée Perry, a vixen who hascreated the biggest buzz on thehit comedy-drama DesperateHousewives.

In fact, as she pairs her winewith a small piece of cheese, shesays that she is finally being “seenthe way I should have been seenbefore. Now, it’s not all aboutwhat the audience is going tothink. Or I can’t do this or thatbecause I’m going to lose myaudience. I’m not into that atall,” she says. “Of course, I con-sider that in the larger scheme ofthings. But I have felt that whenyou work hard, and you’re goodat what you do, you will reap therewards.”

Some 27 years after beingthrust into a fairy-tale life as thefirst Black woman to be crownedMiss America in 1983—only tobe dethroned 10 months laterwhen nude photos of her werepublished in Penthouse maga-zine—Williams says that she now feels redeemed. “I was not onlyseen as a beauty queen, but a scandalized beauty queen,” she saysof the years following the pageant brouhaha. “So coming in thedoor to get any kind of fair judgment was impossible because I camewith so much baggage. [Since then], my whole life has been aboutgetting respect.”

Williams credits her singing with allowing her to stay in thegame long enough to let go of the scandal, embrace the womanshe has become and move forward without worry about the past.And, lucky for us, she now sees her sexuality as an asset instead ofa liability. “I became a singer first. So I was able to define my ownimage,” says Williams, who put out a string of Top 10 songs in the’80s and ’90s, including “Save the Best for Last,” which toppedthe Billboard charts for five weeks in 1992. “Then, I became a singerwho could act. And now, I’m just multitalented.”

To say that the mother of four has come into her own is anunderstatement. 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 artistand homes for herself in New York City and Los Angeles) and carnotes (including one for a $125,000 Maserati GranTurismo thatshe 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. Shedescribes her characters in both Betty and Housewives as “strong andpowerful and dangerous” women, whom she patterns in many waysafter 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 takescontrol,” Williams says. “She’salways been the shortest one. Butshe’s always been a fighter and asurvivor. I took that courage thatshe 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 saythings that I never would havethe guts to say to people in aroom—not that being conde-scending or putting people downor putting them in their place isproper—but it sure is fun whenit’s not you that has to pay theconsequences.”

She admits that it is strange toplay women who have no chil-dren, don’t like children and haveno domestic desires. She says thatshe’s just the opposite. “I cook. Iclean, even though I do havehelp 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 sowell? Williams says that she hates to shop. “I love beautiful clothes,but I figure, why waste a day shopping when there are so manyother things to do?” she says. “I wear boots, sweaters and jeans. Inthe 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 walkin the woods than take a walk along Rodeo Drive. She loves sunris-es, sunsets, good food and good wine. She also likes adventure. Shehas been to Brazil on New Year’s Eve, ridden an elephant throughthe bush in South Africa, taken cooking classes in Italy and gonehorseback riding on a black-sand beach in Argentina. “That’s whatlife is all about,” she says. “It gets you exhilarated.”

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ANIMALATTRACTIONOn Vanessa: Fur coat, Malandrino; ring, Melody Rodgers.F

FEARFUL,would have

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DDAAUUGGHHTTEERRSS

GRADE-A MILFOn Vanessa: Sweater,Michael Kors; ring,Melody Rodgers; shoes,Steve Madden.

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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 eatcrazy 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, andhow 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 herown traditional Broadway show. “I’ve come close; it hasn’t hap-pened, but it will,” she says. “That’s one of those things, growing upoutside 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 saysthat she recently turned down $600,000 to divulge intimate detailsabout her marriage to her first husband, Ramon Hervey II, and her

second marriage to retired Los Angeles Laker Rick Fox, which endedin divorce in 2004. “I don’t want to rehash the past,” she says. “I wantto talk about what makes me me, and why I am a survivor. And [thepublishers] 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 knowif she will ever remarry. “You never know what’s going to happen inlife,” she says. “I think marriage is great when it works. But I want apartnership. If I ever were going to get married again, I want to bewith 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 doorsshe 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 choicesthat make you who you are.”

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I don’twant to

talk about

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CRUISECONTROLOn Vanessa:Turtleneck, Ralph Lauren

REHASHthe past ...

I want towhat me me,and why I am aSSUURRVVIIVVOORR..

makes

Vanessa Williams:Styling, Freddie Leiba;hair, Oscar James;makeup, Sam Fine.

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vanessa williams

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