Entertainment
Vanessa Williams, Who Resigned as Miss America in 1984, Will Judge 2016 Pageant
Vanessa Williams backstage at the NAACP Image Awards in 2011 (Dan Steinberg/AP Photo)
(People) – The latest judge of the 95th Miss America pageant has been revealed – and it’s a bit of a shocker!
Vanessa Williams is joining the judging panel of this year’s competition.
The former beauty queen made history in 1983 as the first African-American woman ever to be crowned Miss America, but was famously forced to resign 10 months into her reign after nude photos from her past appeared in Penthouse.
“For years, I’d walk into an audition and feel the judgment,” Williams told PEOPLE in 2012 of the aftermath. “I was a scandalous Miss America. Vanessa the Undressa. But I silently thought, one day you’ll see what I’m made of.”
