Vanessa Williams Quotes

Success is the best revenge

Jay has a singular voice which manages to be indulgent and gossipy, while still incredibly smart and sharp.

Sometimes the very thing you're looking for is the one thing you cannot see.

Tom Arnold is already waiting at the bar when I arrive, and Vanessa purrs loudly when she spots him. I ignore the slut and stand next to him, waiting for him to notice me, bopping my head slightly to Andy Williams singing Can’t Take My Eyes Off You. At last, he turns and smiles at me. “Pip! You look lovely,” he tells me with an appreciative glance. I simper. “So do you,” I tell him, attempting to bat my eyelids like Vanessa would. “Have you got something in your eye?” he frowns. “Contact lens is playing up,” I mutter. “I didn’t know you wore contacts,” he says in surprise. “All the better to see you with, my dear,” I respond in a deep voice, and he gives me a strange look. I clear my throat. “It’s a free bar tonight, isn’t it?

But even in their imperfect executions, the mere existence of Black Barbie and Hispanic Barbie in 1980 was a landmark. Like the coronation of Vanessa Williams as Miss America in 1983, the dolls commented on the evolution of popular taste. Slowly (with the speed of a glacier, critics might say), standards of so-called beauty were changing.

My Thomas used to call me that. I take him with me on this journey. I always will. I take Cells and Prince William, too. They each shaped and reshaped my heart with fire.

When Mom told me not to do something, I did it anyway. The thrill of the adventure, the adrenaline rush and the escape trumped all consequences and there were always consequences because no matter how quiet, sneaky and brillant I thought I was, I couldn’t outsmart Mom.

Susan whispered, “Be quiet.” She told me to get out of bed and lie down on the rug. I was confused. I looked over at Nancy, who was sleeping soundly. Are we going to play a game? As I tried to make sense of why this older girl wanted me to lie on the rug, Susan pulled down the yellow bloomers of my cotton baby-doll pajamas. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Don’t worry. It’ll feel good.” I lay there paralyzed as she moved her tongue between my legs. What was going on? I didn’t speak. She kept at this for I don’t know how long, but it felt good, weird and definitely wrong, all at the same time. She slid my bloomers back up and whispered, “Don’t tell anyone.

I climbed in my bed, still tingling at 10 years old, trying to figure out what had just happened. Why had she done that? Was it something teenagers did to each other? Only girls? I thought it had to be something bad. Why would she have told me not to tell anyone?

It took me almost a decade to realize that I was an innocent victim and Susan was a 18-year-old predator. She had manipulated me the entire trip just so that she could take advantage of me and I wouldn’t speak a word of it.

Mom wasn’t the huggy, touchy, “I love you, sweetie” type mom. She didn’t show affection much, but I thought this time would somehow be different.

Mom was a schoolteacher and I was her most challenging student. Throughout my life, Mom’s lessons have helped me survive it all: scandal, love, marriages, divorces, disappointments, children, death, failures, sucess. I’m still learning. Mom has yet to say, “I told you so.

When Vanessa was growing up, I didn’t care if she liked me. She could hate me as far as I was concerned and sometimes I think she did. I wanted her to understand that I reacted the way I did because I knew she would continue to do things she would eventually regret. That was always my instinct with Vanessa.

I knew why Mom said, “Don’t take nude pictures.” Mom believed I had a future that could be bright and those pictures could one day haunt me. She also told me, “Men can be dogs.” She was trying to protect me. She knew men would prey on me and she knew how trusting I was: “You’re just like your father. You’ll give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

When I saw the pictures, I wasn’t angry, just very sad. I stared at them and tried to get into Vanessa’s head. I knew exactly what had happened. I understood how the photographer was able to cajole her. He fed into Vanessa’s need to be daring. While the world focused on her naked body, I looked into her eyes. They looked so confused, so sad. The look said to me, “Oh my god, what am I doing here?” As daring as Vanessa wanted to believe she was, she wasn’t really daring at all. I could see she was so uncomfortable, so out of place. I could also see that she was thinking of me. She was hearing my voice telling her not to do the very thing she was doing.