In 1983, Vanessa Williams was crowned Miss America. Then Penthouse published nude photos without her consent.

In 1983, Vanessa Williams made history when she became the first Black woman to be crowned Miss America.

Williams' victory was short-lived. Within a year, the aspiring actress and singer was swept up in a 'nude photo scandal' and was forced to hand her crown back.

In the years after the scandal, through sheer hard work and tenacity, Williams slowly built a successful career as a singer and an actor.

Watch: Vanessa Williams speaks up about getting older on the Jennifer Hudson Show. Post continues after video.

Now, decades later, Williams' nude scandal is being reframed in a new light.

Williams was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1963 and her birth announcement read: "Here she is: Miss America". When she was 10 years old, she was molested by an 18-year-old female family friend.

"It happened one night where she told me, 'Come over here,'" she recalled to ABC News. "I didn't know that it was wrong, but I knew that it wasn't right because I wasn't supposed to tell anybody."

It was a secret Williams kept to herself for years, as she threw herself into working towards her dream of becoming a Broadway actress.

In 1983, when she was 20 years old, Williams became the first Black woman to be crowned Miss America. The move was groundbreaking at the time and Williams was forced to defend her win from the moment the crown was placed on her head.

Vanessa Williams crowned as Miss America in 1983. Image: Getty.

"I was chosen because I was qualified for the position," Williams told The New York Times shortly after her win. "The fact that I was Black was not a factor. I've always had to try harder in my life to achieve things, so this is regular."

The racist backlash to Williams' win was immediate and loud. "I was getting hate mail from white people who hate black people and mail from black people who said, 'You're not really black, because you don't look black,'" she told People in 1989.

The Ugly Betty star told the publication that people would say her 'green eyes and light skin' were the only reason she won. "I didn't like having my accomplishments negated because of the way I looked," she said. "That was harder to live with than anything else."

Vanessa Williams as Wilhelmina Slater in Ugly Betty. Image: Disney Plus.

But it wasn't just people's words that were causing concern to Williams and her family, she was also being threatened physically. Her parents even had to work with the FBI to keep her safe during her public appearances as Miss America.

"They had an FBI box that they would keep all the death threats in. And a hotline with the FBI saying, 'She's going to be in Chicago. What should she be aware of?' I had sharpshooters on the top of the buildings when I had my first parade. In one of the parades down South... usually they have Miss America in a convertible. I had to be inside," she told ABC News in 2015.

Despite all this, Williams loved her time as Miss America. She got to travel around the United States; she met presidents and athletes and Hollywood royalty, and she felt she was one big step closer to reaching her dreams of becoming a Broadway star.

Ten months into her reign as Miss America, everything changed for Williams. On July 23, 1984, the model found out that Penthouse magazine planned to publish nude images of her that were taken two years prior while she was working as a photographer’s assistant. She had not given the publication nor the photographer permission to publish the images.  

Williams told People that at the time the photographer had assured her the images, some of which involved "two models pos[ing] nude for silhouettes ... to make different shapes and forms," would never be published.

When Williams became a household name, Penthouse offered the photographer the highest fee in the magazine's history and ran them. The photos were a roaring success for the magazine, which quickly became the highest selling edition in Penthouse's history.

The backlash against Williams was swift. Pageant officials gave her 72 hours to resign or they would strip her of her title.

After Williams handed back her title, she became a source of national ridicule. She was sl*t-shamed. Her sexuality was questioned. The racist abuse only increased.

"People would ride by the house and beep things and yell stuff," Williams told ABC News. "They took down the sign in Millwood, New York; 'Home of Miss America'."

Once again, Williams was forced to defend herself publicly, and she vowed to rise from the ashes of her short-lived public career.

"I am not a lesbian and I am not a sl*t, and somehow I am going to make people believe me," she told People magazine at the time.

And she did. But it took years, and it wasn’t without its challenges. In a 2016 Town Hall, the now 60-year-old recalled how she once auditioned for a Broadway show, only to have the lyricist's wife veto her casting, saying, "Over my dead body will that whore be in my show."

The 'scandalous beauty queen' stigma followed her around for years. "For me, it seemed like an eternity in which I was the punch line to every late-night monologue… I had to learn how not to take the attacks personally," Williams wrote in her 2012 memoir You Have No Idea. "All in all, I lost about two million dollars in endorsements and countless other offers that would have come my way once I finished my reign."

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While people have told Williams to be grateful for the scandal and that it made her the woman she is today, she has a slightly different perspective.

"Many people say that everything that happened to me was for the best, that I wouldn’t be famous if it weren’t for the scandal. But I think I’ve shown that it didn’t do me any good," she told People magazine in 1989. 

"There was obviously nowhere to go but up."

If this has raised any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732).

Feature Image: Getty/Mamamia.