Vanessa L. Williams: on her painful divorce, the pressures of superstardom and her new life as a single mom - Cover Story - Interview

Ebony, Oct, 1997 by Lynn Norment

Pondering the words to describe herself, Vanessa Williams leans back on the sofa in the family room of her Westchester County, N.Y., home, surrounded by children's toys, and reflects for a moment. "I'm assertive, still constantly challenged, and I'm happy," she says.

Then, to illustrate her words, she puts on the video for "Happiness" from her new album. In it a goddess-like Williams dances and prances through the garden of a great mansion while embodying the sentiment she expresses in the song. She says hitmakers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis created the song for her, that her feelings were so clear that Lewis wrote the lyrics in just 40 minutes.

"Terry asked me how I felt, and I said, "Terry, I'm just happy,'" she recalls. "`Happiness is what it's all about.' And I'm very entitled to this happiness."

And that she is.

While this beautiful, 34-year-old woman is blissful now, it was not always that way. In fact, she admits that just a few years ago, even a year ago, she would not have described herself as such. Not before she finally called it quits to a 10-year marriage that she desperately tried to save and considered herself a failure when it finally fell apart three years ago. "It was a painful separation, a painful divorce," she says, and it left her feeling humiliated, hurt and shattered emotionally. But she has survived the ordeal with her self-esteem, her dignity, her career, her life intact.

Vanessa Williams is nothing if not a survivor. The film, stage and recording star has endured more than her share of triumphs and tribulations, including being the first Black woman crowned Miss America (1984), only to have the crown and title taken away after a magazine published explicit photographs of her.

But Vanessa survived that humiliation and triumphed by proving that she has the talent, guts and resolve to overcome scandal and disappointment. She has demonstrated repeatedly that success is the best revenge by building a diverse career that utilizes the God-given talents that were nurtured by loving parents, honed by childhood dance and music lessons and fine-tuned during her studies at Syracuse University.

After being crowned Miss America, she endured criticism from some Blacks that she was "not Black enough," and insults from Whites who were not happy to see a Black woman wear the prized symbol of all-American beauty. And then she set about building a show-business career while hampered by controversy and the stigma of being a beauty queen.

But Williams persevered and today is considered one of the brightest, most talented artists of her generation. She currently is starring in the critically acclaimed Soul Food, and also co-starring with Laurence Fishburne in Hoodlum. And her new album, Next, is gracing the music charts.

Williams' career has skyrocketed since she received rave reviews for her 1994 starring role in the Broadway musical Kiss of the Spider Woman, which was followed with her performing "Colors of the Wind" on the platinum, Academy Award-winning soundtrack to Disney's Pocahontas, and by starring in the television miniseries The Odyssey, and playing opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1996 action-thriller Eraser, which made more than $100 million.

"Arnold said to me, `Your career is very similar to mine because people didn't take us seriously at first. They knew us for our bodies, Mr. Universe and Miss America, and they had no idea what we really wanted to to with our lives, so they wrote us off. You showed them that you have guts.' And he admired that," Williams says, "because he loves strong women."

She recently completed filming the ballroom dance musical Shut Up and Dance, due out in February. In the meantime, Williams is touring with Luther Vandross, a longtime friend. Offers continue to pour in, but after the tour, Williams wants to stay in the New York area and spend the school year with her children -- Melanie, 10, Jillian, 8, and Devin, 4.

Vanessa met her former husband, Ramon Hervey, when he was a public relations specialist brought in to consult with her during the Miss America flack. He was 33-older, experienced and savvy in the ins-and-outs of the entertainment world. They fell in love and married two years later. Soon after she started having children, while at the same time pursuing a career with Hervey as her manager.

Understandably, Williams is reluctant to divulge details of the problems that led to her divorce, but friends of the entertainer confirm rumors circulating in entertainment circles that for years she endured a number of marital problems, including the usual ones involving competition from other women. Ironically, in Soul Food, Vanessa plays a character who is having marital problems.

"It's one thing to forgive once, but when a pattern of behavior that is dangerous for my health, embarrassing and humiliating for me and my family, and I'm working my a-- off, it's intolerable," says Williams. "We started marriage counseling in 1989 or 1990. The dynamics changed as I got bigger and bigger and made more money...," she says, pausing to find the right words to articulate her feelings. "If a person is not into kids when you get married, then all you can do is hope and pray.. .. It's very hard to change a person into being equally passionate."