Vanessa L. Williams, a former model who made a name for herself in music and television is opening up about a very dark period in her life. “Ugly Betty” actress Vanessa Williams appeared on OWN’s “Oprah’s Master Class” on Sunday where she decided to give a detailed account of the sexual molestation she endured at age 10.
The former Miss America revealed that she was visiting California the summer before fifth grade with a friend’s family when the abuse took place.
Williams recalls meeting an 18-year-old female while in the Golden State that she describes as “one of the cool girls.”
“The Right Stuff” singer initially thought they could be friends, because the woman treated her like a “grown-up.”
What she did not know is that the so-called cool girl had other plans in mind. One night the woman came to the room where young Vanessa was staying and asked her to leave her bed and get on the floor, which she did.
Williams stated:
“She told me to lie down on the floor. She took my bottoms off and she said, ‘Be quiet.’ She went down on me.”
The music star who received eleven Grammy nominations in her career also described how she felt as all of this was happening. The mother-of-four shared:
“I had no idea what it was, but I knew it felt good. I knew it felt good, but was also something that was not supposed to be happening.”
Vanessa Williams now 51 blames the event of that night for being very promiscuous later on in her life. She explained:
“Had that not happened in my life and had I had an opportunity to have a normal courtship with a boyfriend at 16 or whatever… there wouldn’t have been that shame that was always haunting me. It made me more sexually promiscuous and more curious at a younger age than I should have been.”
The entertainer never opened up about her sexual molestation to her parents, because when she returned home that summer, her uncle had died and she did not want to inflict more pain to her father.
Vanessa Williams went on to become the first black woman to win Miss America in 1983 but she was stripped from her title after Penthouse magazine published nude photos of her including some depicting lesbian sexual acts.
Although this story has gone viral this week, Sunday night was not the first time Vanessa Williams talked about her molestation. In 2012 via her book “You Have No Idea” she did touch on the topic but the imagery was more vivid on “Oprah’s Master Class” and therefore resonated more.
