It might have been the lowest point in her life, as she told People in 1984, but the scandal that led Vanessa Williams to resign her post as Miss America also set her up for one of the greatest comebacks in entertainment history.
On this day, July 23, in 1984, then-21-year-old Williams handed over her crown — making her both the first black Miss America and the first to give up the title — after Penthouse announced that it would publish raunchy photos she had posed for two years earlier while working as a photographer’s assistant. The photographer had assured her at the time, she told People, that the photos were merely silhouettes, in which she’d be unidentifiable and that they would never leave the studio.
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