Vanessa Williams opened up about the difficult period that followed her historic Miss America win on a recent episode of the Great Company with Jamie Laing podcast.
Williams, now 62, took home the crown in 1983 as the first Black woman to win the title. However, she stepped down the following year after Penthouse published nude photos of her without her consent.
After her victory, Williams became the target of racist death threats, which she said were particularly intense in the South.
Around the 22-minute mark of the episode, she revealed that her parents kept a box filled with threatening letters sent to their home so the FBI could monitor them.
“Even getting death threats in the mail when I would do appearances, they would say, ‘Be careful when you go to Chicago,’” Williams recalled. “And I had no idea how extreme it was because they didn’t want me to panic. But I had death threats as soon as I won, at 20 years old.”
Williams added that she would have been far more “terrified” if she’d fully understood the volume and seriousness of the threats at the time. She also remembered spotting “sharpshooters” positioned on nearby rooftops during a hometown parade that was meant to honor her.
“I live in a tiny town, and I was like, ‘Wow, that’s unusual,’” she said.
She went on to recall another appearance in Alabama where she was scheduled to ride in the back of a convertible with the top down.
“Before we started, they said, ‘You know what? We’re going to put the roof up,’” Williams said. “Again, I thought, ‘OK, that’s a little unusual.’”
Williams also shared that the harassment escalated to phone calls made directly to her parents. In one instance, police arrested a man who threatened to kill her mother, Helen Williams, who passed away in December 2024.
She has previously spoken about the Miss America controversy, telling People in 2024 that some critics believed, “You’re Black, so you’re not representing America.”
“That was shocking and terrifying,” Williams said. “Thank God I had my parents there to support me.”
The Los Angeles rap duo PartyOf2 later paid tribute to Williams and her Miss America legacy on their 2025 track “VANESSA WILLIAMS,” which they discussed during a BET interview.
PartyOf2 member Swim explained to BET that the story still resonates today, especially given the current climate in the country.
“I think the idea that she was the first Black Miss America and her position was robbed feels very familiar to a lot of us, especially where we are right now in our country. I think there are a lot of times where we feel robbed of the place that we were promised,” Swim said.
