Vanessa Williams - ‘It would be hard to be married to me!’

0:00Hello, wonderful listeners and viewers. Now, don't forget about my subscriber show, Failing With Friends, where my brilliant guests get to be agony aunts, uncles, or non-binary advice givers. Join the family. Just follow the link in the show notes.

0:25Hello, and welcome to How To Fail with me, Elizabeth Day. This is the podcast that believes failure connects us all, whoever we might be, wherever we might have come from. And that's why I ask a guest every single week about three times they failed in their life and what, if anything, they learned along the way. My life goal was not to be Miss America. That was part of the journey. My expectations of what a true man was, was really high. So I think it would be hard to be married to me.

0:59Race the rudders. Raise the sails. Raise the sails. Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger. Wait, is that an enterprise sails solution? Reach sails professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title, and more. Start converting your B2B audience today. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a free$250 credit for the next one. Get started today at linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply. Vanessa Williams grew up in Westchester County, New York, a child of two music teachers. She studied French horn, piano, violin and dance.

1:39And one of her early memories is of turning the pages of sheet music as her mother played the organ for weddings. With such a creative upbringing, it's perhaps no surprise that Williams went on to make her mark in music. As a recording artist, she has earned 13 Grammy nominations and racked up over 212 million digital streams over the course of her eight albums. Her most popular hit, Save the Best for Last, was number one for five weeks in 1992. But her talents are not limited to music alone. Over a four-decade career, she has been a highly successful stage and screen actor, appearing in Desperate Housewives and as the diva-esque magazine boss Wilhelmina Slater in the sitcom Ugly Betty.

2:25She's currently starring on stage as another editorial ice queen, Miranda Priestly in the musical adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada. At 62, then, she is as busy and booked as ever. It's all a long way from her historic crowning as the first African-American Miss America in 1983. She was later forced to resign after unauthorized photos taken when she was a student were leaked without her consent. She described that period as the hardest in my life, but turned it around to pull off an astonishing comeback. As Williams herself says, it's great to be underestimated because there's always that element of surprise.

3:10Miss Vanessa Williams, welcome to How to Fail. Well, thank you. It's such a pleasure to have you here. And I really love that idea of using underestimation to your own advantage. And I wonder if you look back at your life, whether you feel that your knockbacks in certain ways have been setups for comebacks. You know, at 62, and I know your whole premise of the show is looking at failures, but when you examine the obstacles and the triumphs in life, that's what makes you you. every hurdle that you had to jump over uh every hoop that you had to soar through every door that you had to open or bang and force open all give you um those notches in your belt to be the champion then you that you are so um that's my journey um i wouldn't change it because i wouldn't have my kids through that.

4:19I wouldn't have my career. I wouldn't have the respect. I wouldn't have the fortitude. And it's all delicious. I mean, I'm just so happy that I can be doing what I dreamt about. Again, you mentioned that I grew up in New York and I used to go to Broadway all the time. And I was like, oh, that would be fun to do that. And then to be able to start performing and have parents say, you know what, you're really good. We will support you in this. So to have parents that didn't say, get a real job, that's ridiculous, but that valued the arts. So I could have the training that I did to be able to be successful.

5:03I mean, all those factors are so important to success. And there are so many people, and I'm sure you've interviewed many, but there's so many people in this business who did not have parents that believed in them, did not have mentors that guided them. And they might have tremendous success, but have chips on their shoulders and have issues with substance abuse, even though they've got the glory of the fame and the fortune because they never had somebody said, we believe in you, you can do it. You've got the talent, go for it. And I'm one of those lucky people. I mean, I think we can stop the podcast episode right here.

5:41That was just absolutely brilliant. That's everything that I think can champion. You're so right. I also really admire the fact that you took up the French horn, which is the hardest brass instrument. Well, my brother took up the oboe, so I think we were parallel in our difficulty. I started out with a violin, then switched to flute, and I just love the sound of the French horn. And I actually, my father worked in an elementary school, and I remember there was a Black girl that played French horn, and I loved the sound, and I saw her as an example. And that was kind of like, I'm going to pick that.

6:20I loved it, and I had wonderful opportunities to play in our orchestra and our concert band and our marching band. I played Mellophone in the marching band. And our orchestra in, I guess you'd call it secondary school, but high school for us, we got a chance to travel the world. So my freshman year, we went to Miami. Sophomore year, we went to Seekonk, Massachusetts. Junior year, we went to Caracas, Venezuela. And senior year, we were in the Bahamas. So, yeah, all that with playing the French horn. I used to play the trumpet at school. Sure, brass. And the most brass, women in brass. Uh-huh. The Devil Wears Prada, playing to sell out crowds.

7:00How is it being back on stage playing yet another Ice Cream magazine editor? Yet another one. I guess it's just easy casting. Jerry Mitchell called, boy, it's been a couple of years now, and said, listen, we are going to do Devil Wears Prada for London. You are our first choice. We're coming back to you with an offer, but just want you to know that we're coming, so get ready. And when the offer came through, I loved it because not only would I get a chance to be creating a role, which is fantastic on the West End, but also revisiting the West End because in 2020, I was supposed to make my West End debut in City of Angels.

7:44and Josie Work was the director. We were doing the same production that they had done at the Dunmore Warehouse and it was going to be phenomenal. And we had done, I think, maybe 15 performances before they shut us down because of COVID. So that, I was gutted because not only it's a fantastic show and the creative team was amazing and our cast was extraordinary, but I didn't get a chance to, and I lived here for three months preparing, but didn't get a chance to open. So I was so happy when I got the call to come and be part of the West End. And I knew Elton John did the music. Kate Weatherhead had done the book.

8:27And Jerry Mitchell, who I'd worked with once doing Broadway Bears, but this would be an opportunity to work with Jerry. So I knew that was something that I wanted to do. But also being able to create a role is amazing. I've done that a couple times. and when you're the first one, it's you're in the books and they always can say, she created it on the West End. And you also have the opportunity to make changes. So you're working with a script, you're working with raw material, you're working with a song saying, I want to do this, this works better, this makes more sense, and you get a chance to be part of the creative decisions.

9:05So that was another really big factor of jumping in on Devil Wears Prada. I really enjoyed an Instagram reel that you posted, which was your outfit change between scenes, which looked so frenetic and physically challenging. Up and down the stairs, changing the wardrobe. Is it exhausting or is there something about being on stage that keeps it stimulating and fresh? Or both? Both. It is both. There's nothing like, Jerry Mitchell gave me the best entrance I've ever had in any production in my life. And for those who've seen it, they know that I appear from below replicating a lift coming to the office.

9:45Or it's the devil coming from the deep, who knows? But I appear from the bottom of the stage, and when the bell dings and the doors imaginarily open, there's nothing like a full house screaming and applauding. And that is very seductive because it's a reflection of, oh, my God, they're already ready for what I'm about to do and start as the character. Also, I've arrived and people are so excited. I can see through my glasses. I'm wearing sunnies and I can see people are just ready to applaud because they know me from Ugly Betty. They know me from Desperate Housewives. it's amazing how many people know me from different areas of my career and they're so excited to see me in person.

10:40It's great. I thank my team for making it like choreography. We do it seamlessly every night and it's a lot of fun. So I don't have to go to the gym at all because I do all that running around in high heels eight shows a week. Well, London is so honored that you're here. So thank you. And I wanted to ask you one question about Miss America. I know you are so much more than what happened to you, but I'm very interested in the shifting cultural context, because I've been lucky enough recently to interview a couple of women who faced scandals during the early 90s. And it was Pam Randerson and Monica Lewinsky.

11:23And when I was reading your story and reminding myself what happened to you, it felt very similar. Something that happened without your consent. It was like you were made into the person to blame for that. And I wonder how you feel about it now, looking on from almost, I mean, it's 40 years now since that happened. How do you feel about it? Well, I'm doing a documentary about it. So, I mean, And it is a time capsule of what exactly in 1983, 84, what society was like, what the stakes were at the time, and creating history and having something that you could not control, for sure. And being 20, I was 20 years old when I won.

12:11I was 21 when I resigned. So now I have the lens of having four children, looking at how young and vulnerable and impressionable they are at 20 years old, 19, 21. And then I say, how did I get through it? How did I make it? And it is, of course, because I had a great community, great family, great support, and I also knew that I had a future. My life goal was not to be Miss America. That was part of the journey, which was, you can say, happenstance, but it didn't take away my talent. It didn't take away my drive. It was a huge, huge obstacle. But 10 years later, I made it onto Broadway. Being on radio and being a recording artist, again, took a lot of time, but eventually I got there.

13:06Being television and film, again, it took a while, but I got there. So it didn't negate my intellect and it didn't negate my talent. And society has changed in its speed. um not only can you fail but you fail worldwide and within minutes what uh i went through in 1984 nowadays um uh when it again when a child when a young adult has some kind of scandal it happens immediately and the world knows about it immediately uh and that's devastating and as a parent. It's unimaginable, but that's where our media is now. And you're canceled immediately. And to have the capability and the coping skills to deal with that is extraordinarily tough.

14:09So it's a completely different game. I can't wait to watch the documentary. Before we get onto your failures, one of my favorite revelations in your memoir that you co-wrote with your mother is that she had a grudge list. She had a list of names of people who had done her or you wrong. Do you have a grudge list? I don't. I remember everything. I have to let it go. I'm certainly not afraid to confront people. And I have done that on several occasions where I've been in rooms and somebody will say, oh, well, you know, so-and-so said that your single wasn't very great. I go, really? They said that?

14:51Oh, okay. Hold on a sec. And then I'll walk over to that person and the person will say, she's not going to say anything. And she'll say, oh yeah, she will say something. But I don't let it fester. I understand people are human. Who's losing days? It's you. Whoever said something, whoever did something, they're the ones that have let it go and you're festering and holding onto it. Um, and you're losing days. So that ability to call it out in the room, is that something you've learned over time or have you always had that ability? I've always had that ability and, um, and I probably for sure get it from my mother.

15:32Okay. My mother was, um, five feet, tiny little energetic, uh, pistol of a, of a lady. Yeah, she was ruthless, but, but not that she was rude or, uh, or it wasn't uncalled for, but, um, if she felt there was injustice, she would absolutely speak up. And I definitely saw her bravery and her courage, uh, do that. And, um, and, uh, I feel like I have the same kind of license to do the same thing and I get paid for it as these, as these characters, because I'm definitely, you know, a lot of people would assume that I've got the wit and the ability to eviscerate somebody through dialogue. And I'm not, you know, I'm a mom of four.

16:23I've got a lovely dog that I love. I mean, I am not Wilhelmina Slater. I am not Miranda Priestly. it's fun to jump into that kind of persona and have that, um, the power to really say what everyone is thinking at the moment. Um, but I personally, um, I only, I've only done that a few times. Your first failure. And what I love about these failures is that you didn't send me any explanation. So I, so I'm so curious. Yeah. Your first failure, not inviting your dad on a girl's trip to Egypt. Right. Tell me about this. So I love girls trips and I have a great group of women that we've been traveling for probably 20 years together all over the world.

17:10This was specifically in 2005. We were going to Egypt and my mom was coming and my whole gal group and there were probably 14 of us. And my dad had never gone to Egypt and he could have easily tagged along and unfortunately he ended up dying in 2006. So this was the last summer that he was alive and in retrospect, I wish I would have invited him along because he could have done all the amazing cruises down the Nile. The antiquities are incredible. We went inside the pyramid, the culture, he loved history. So listening to all the content that he would have been able to absorb was one of the things that I wish.

18:00I just would have had him tag along. All my girls would have loved him because they loved my dad anyway. And I should have just said, have him come. But I didn't. And we had a wonderful time. I love girls trips. And if you don't have a group of girls, I know you just came back from a lovely opportunity with one of your girlfriends. Yes. Which is great because, you know, I also, traveling alone is great and good for you. But seeing and exploring an adventure with your girlfriends is fantastic. It makes you feel young. It makes you feel connected. You're speaking my language. I completely agree.

18:36Didn't you meet one of your husbands there? Sorry. It's so chic being able to say that. Yes. Number three I met there. Yes. He was on one of the cruises that I took on the Nile. But yeah, the antiquities, the people are warm and lovely, and I could go back every year.

19:20Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

19:50Let's get moving. And I want to talk more about your dad, Milton. What was he like? My dad was incredible. Died at 70 years old, which was way too early, and had some complications with his pancreas because of gallstone issue and just basically was in the Bahamas with my mom at a birthday celebration and kind of felt ill and went to the hospital and was gone three days later. So really awful, unexpected, but teaching was his life. And not only was he a teacher to many, many people, but could do anything, could take a car apart, put a pack together, was a master carpenter and built an addition onto our home, built another home, a vacation, a holiday home that we had in the Poconos, put in a pool.

20:45If my mom wanted a greenhouse, he built a greenhouse. I mean, he would have the summers off because he was a school teacher. So he had a company called Dexterity and he would build decks in the summertime when he wasn't doing, you know, and did it for fun and was skilled at it. So could sing, could play numerous instruments. Um, so my example of what a man is really put the pressure on any man who came into my life. And I do feel sorry for anyone that I was married to anyway, because my dad could do it all. It's like, what do you mean you can't fix your car? What do you mean you can't fix the water heater?

21:24What do you mean? You know, cause he could literally do everything. So, um, uh, Annie was faithful to my mother and adored her. They made such a great team together. So my expectations of marriage were really high. My expectations of what a true man was, was really high. And so I think it would be hard to be married to me, you know, as a man, because I don't want to say I could be easily disappointed, but I could be easily disappointed. you had expectations and standards and you knew what a good man was and also I could go to him my dad was the soft spot so my mom was really tough and due to her upbringing and which we kind of lay out in and the the book that I wrote with her you have no idea but my dad was loving and open and it was it would be I would call home from if I was in college or whatever and say hi can I speak to dad?

22:28And my dad would be the one that I could discuss anything without judgment with, you know, loads of patients. So again, he, and he was almost like a, a psychologist, you know, they had a big bookshelf that of course that he built as part of their headboard. And he had all kinds of, he would read to me every night from a child to probably when I was 12 or 13. And we would discuss everything from you know fairy tales all the way up to at the at the end we were he was reading I'm okay you're okay and psycho cybernetics to me and we would discuss the brain and the makings of psychology together so that was the kind of dad that I had always available tremendously supportive if I was in any kind of performance he would be the loudest one clapping and the last one to stop and I knew my dad's out there yeah yeah yeah what a tribute yeah when you say headboard you mean like a bedhead place.

23:26Yes. Which was a bookcase. It was a bookcase. To the ceiling. That's my idea of heaven. Exactly. Just go like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm very aware that you mentioned your book, you have no idea that you co-wrote with your mother, but that was published after your father passed. And you are very honest in that book. Both of you are. And you write about things that must have been pretty traumatic to relive. The fact that you were sexually assaulted as a 10-year-old, that you had an abortion. Are you glad that that book came out after your father passed? How do you feel he would have responded reading that about you?

24:01My mother was very insistent that she, not insistent, but happy that it happened because my dad was so sensitive, I think. And again, as a father, you want to protect your child. So I think it would have been really rough for him to know that that had happened to me and know that I didn't come to them and nothing could have changed. So yeah, I'm happy that he was not there. But I also felt that it was important to talk about all the issues that I brought up in the book because even when it was published, I had friends who came up to me and said, Oh, my God, the same thing happened to me. There was a point I said, if I hear one more person talking about having to deal with sexual molestation by, you know, an uncle by, you know, in their lives, it was it drove me crazy.

25:02Yeah. So I'm so glad that I was transparent about my life. Yeah. But also just furious that so many of my friends had to go through the same thing. Yes. It's shocking when you realize how widespread it can be. Talking about your book and your expectations of men brings us onto your second failure, which in your words is not listening to my mom about trusting men. And I'm very aware that we're talking about this in the aftermath of your mother's passing. And I'm so sorry. And I just wanted to offer my sincerest condolences because that was in December. Yeah, that was here. So fresh. here just after her 85th birthday yeah well she came to see me an opening night December 1st uh and you know we had a huge party at the British Museum and uh uh star studded and and then the next morning you know and I knew she had flown in the day before and I knew that she had slowed down because I hadn't seen her uh since I've been over here and we were in Plymouth you know out of town the summer before that so I hadn't seen her and I knew that she had you know gotten slow, but I thought, oh, well, it must be, you know, jet lag.

26:14And she didn't have an appetite. Oh, well, she just, you know, and all these, and there's only two days that she was in. But when she came in the next morning after the Sunday night that we had our premiere, our opening night and Monday, she said, you know, how do I get these lashes off? And I looked into her eyes and her eyes were completely yellow. And I said, mom, mom, you're jaundiced. You, We got to get you to the doctor because she's like, what? I go, mom, look at your eyes. And she hadn't, I don't know. I don't know how sick she actually, she was probably not feeling well. I had no idea how ill she was.

26:51And then got her to the doctor that day. And then they said, your mom needs to be in the hospital the next morning after the blood work that she had done. And lost her 25 days after that. Yeah. So at the London Clinic, love them all. Thank you for Professor Patrick Kennedy, head of liver medicine. I love him. My mother loved him. And he did all he could in 25 days to try to, at 85 years old, try to remedy the situation. At that point, there was nothing we could do. In the book, we talk about her background. And she grew up in Buffalo, which was a big city in upstate New York, industrial city. and had a lot of tough time, not raised by her mother because her mother had three girls and was seeing my grandfather who wasn't married to her.

27:48And a lot of issues, the grandparents ended up taking the three girls to raise them. And my mother didn't even think that they were actually her real grandparents because they didn't look like her father. I mean, who knows? Back then, people really didn't talk. Talking about nothing was transparent. Back in the 30s, 40s, you didn't ask questions as a child, and you had no idea, but you had a gut feeling. So who knows who raised her? But she had a rough life and made it out of there, met my dad in college, both of them at music college, and as she says, you know, got out of there on the first thing smoking.

28:27Like, as soon as she graduated, she's like, I am out of here. They got married August and she moved to New York. She was 20 and my dad was 24. So she didn't trust many people at all. My dad was completely open and trusting. My mother didn't trust anyone. You had to prove to her that you were trustworthy. Didn't trust men because she didn't really have a great example of what a true man would be. And thank God my parents met because my dad was the soft space for her. And she needed that because she needed that encouragement, but she needed that place to be completely welcomed. And the more I grew and the more she saw me attract, you know, my body was changing.

29:17And as a mother, you're like, how do I reign this in? How do I protect this being that I've made and I can see attention? And I was, again, naive and trusting. And she's like, you can't trust anyone. Don't ever take naked pictures. Don't trust, you know, if someone asks you to do something, don't do it. And I wish I would have listened to her. Of course, my gut was saying, don't trust that person. But then your mind says, well, what's the worst thing that could happen? Oh, well, they say that nothing will happen. And that's kind of how I've gotten burned on many occasions, whether it's through relationships, whether it's through business.

30:06I did not tap into my gut and my mom saying, don't do it. Don't do it. It's not safe. And you were speaking earlier about the enormous power of female friendship. And this failure specifically pertains to men. Do you think it's mostly men that you haven't been able to trust who have taken advantage of you? Hmm. And I've certainly had my feelings hurt, particularly in high school, with women and cliques. And most of that has to do with boys and getting attention. And, you know, like, I didn't know you liked them just because, I mean, I can't help it if they asked me out and didn't ask you out. Those kind of petty high school stuff that he likes you, he doesn't like me, and we don't like you, we're not going to talk to you.