Several weeks before the end of her reign, however, a scandal arose when Penthouse magazine bought and published[2][3] nude photographs of Williams.

[I had] no idea that winning a Miss America title in 1983 would actually be so significant to people that had lived through the civil rights movement.

"[12] Williams would later comment that she was one of five minority contestants that year, noting that ballet dancer Deneen Graham "had already had a cross burned on her front yard because she was the first black Miss North Carolina [1983].

I saw an advertisement in a local newspaper reading "models wanted", so I called up and talked to Tom Chiapel, who was the photographer and part-owner of TEC studios.

In July 1984 (two months before the end of her reign), Williams learned that nude photos of her, taken before her involvement with the pageant, would be published without her consent in a future issue of Penthouse.

[3] The black-and-white photos dated back to the summer of 1982 (after her freshman year at Syracuse University) when she worked as an assistant and makeup artist for Mount Kisco, New York photographer Tom Chiapel.

At the time, Williams stated that Chiapel said that "he had a concept of having two models pose nude for silhouettes, basically to make different shapes and forms.

And there's a part of me that, I do give people the benefit of the doubt ... it's also being free ... that was the mode I was in at that particular time, when I took those racy pictures, because I was already in college so you can't tell me what to do.

[5]After learning that Penthouse would be publishing these photos, the Miss America Organization responded by giving Williams 72 hours to resign.

The title subsequently went to the first runner-up, Miss New Jersey Suzette Charles, who served out the final seven weeks of Williams' reign.

She would also later state that these events delayed her career by about ten years,[23] as "it seemed like an eternity in which I was the punch line to every late-night monologue ... Joan Rivers, whom I adored and met on The Tonight Show during my reign, was particularly relentless.

She was denied the role, however, because "the wife of lyricist Ira Gershwin decreed: 'Over my dead body will that whore be in my show.

'"[23] In addition, her parents experienced "an incredible amount of shame and humiliation" and were equally the subject of harassment at the time.

[16][22] Thirty years after the scandal broke, Amanda Marcotte suggested in The Daily Beast that we owe a lot to Vanessa Williams for being a pioneer when it comes to showing the world how to recover when you've been unjustly shamed for being sexual.

Sleazy people tried to drag Vanessa Williams down with accusations of being sexual 30 years ago, but she moved on, showing she had nothing to be ashamed of.

[24]In addition, Williams commented on her ability to persevere after these events in a 2015 interview with Entertainment Tonight by stating that "you can't give up ... you always have to remember what you're made of and not let circumstances get in the way.

[16][26] After this performance, former Miss America CEO Sam Haskell issued a public apology to Williams, stating: I have been a close friend of this beautiful and talented lady for 32 years.

"[26][28][29] A few months after the pageant, Williams discussed the apology in an interview with Gayle King, Charlie Rose, and Norah O'Donnell for CBS This Morning.

King asked her about the circumstances that led to it stating, "I think many people were touched when the Miss America pageant issued an apology to you.

While both she and her mother initially responded with hesitation to the invitation, Williams finally agreed to participate on the condition that she could sing her song "Oh How the Years Go By" (to symbolize the passing of time since she was Miss America).

Williams said that one of the most important outcomes of the apology was the positive impact that it had on her mother, who "endured a lot" during that period.

[30] After the pageant, Williams' replacement Suzette Charles stated in an interview with Inside Edition that she was perplexed over the apology and suggested that it was given for the purpose of ratings.

"[16] In the same interview, Roberts mentioned to Williams that in the present day (c. 2015), "people now release [similar] things to make a career.