By Debbie Schlussel

On Sunday Night, Vanessa Williams was set to appear on the Miss America pageant as a Judge, and the appearance was billed and hyped to include an apology to Williams for being dethroned in 1984. I’ve written this before the Jewish holiday, so I don’t know for sure if the apology happened, but it probably did (she wouldn’t go on the show otherwise). And it marks the final nail in the coffin for shame in America. Williams was dethroned for nude photos showing her in various lesbian sex acts and in a bondage outfit. Miss America officials should never have apologized to Williams, but that’s the culture we’re in: apologize to Islamic terrorists, apologize to criminals and rapists, apologize to illegal aliens, apologize to sleazebag pageant winners who posed in disgusting sex act photos and then lied about. There is nothing that deserves to be shamed, nothing for which we should not apologize.

Williams was the original Kardashian. Kim Kardashian and her extended family of siblings and half-siblings have made hundreds of millions of dollars, all because of a sex tape Kardashian made with rapper Ray-J, which her mother marketed as a product and a stardom launching pad. Williams took nude photos in which she performed oral sex on another nude female model and in which she simulated sex with another nude female model (Williams was on the bottom, in case you are interested). She also posed nude in a bondage outfit (yeah, great role model for girls and women!) and in a red scarf with only her vaginal region exposed and twisted in a very bizarre manner. She also posed nude in a number of other poses. All of these photos (you can see them on Google images) were published in Penthouse magazine, and seven weeks before her reign as Miss America ended, Williams was forced to resign (but allowed to keep her bejeweled crown, scholarship money, and title and official listing by the pageant organization is Miss America 1984).

And the reason she was the original Kardashian is that, despite all the hand wringing and claimed embarrassment over the photos, Vanessa Williams would probably be a nobody today and a has-been, but for the nude photos and the controversy. That made her the most famous Miss America ever and sent her into a multi-decade successful career as a pop star and actress, none of which would have likely happened but for the scandal. In many ways, her photos were far more disgusting and scandalous than the Kim Kardashian sex tape, and, like Kim Kardashian, they made Williams into a very wealthy, very successful star, none of which would have happened for her otherwise.

I’m not quite sure why Miss America organizers had to apologize to Williams, given her photos and her blatant lies about them. She was not only a liar but a fraud and hardly a role model to anyone (except the Kardashians and their legions of fame-whore imitators today). Williams signed a very explicit agreement when she entered the Miss Syracuse pageant and others leading her to become Miss America. There was a very distinct morals clause in it, and she declared that she’d never participated in any lewd conduct such as the photos. It was all a lie. And, then, when she got caught, she insisted to the public and to pageant officials that she’d only participated in one nude photo session and that the photos were private and taken only for herself. More lies. There’s a reason Bob Guccione came out with a second Penthouse issue with more photos of Williams, with the headline, “Oh, God, I Did It Again.”

If you look at the photos on Google, it’s quite clear that Williams participated in at least three and probably four or five different nude photo sessions (she has different hair lengths in the various sessions and other characteristics showing that these were taken at different times). And the photos also make it clear that these were not for personal use or supposed to be “private.” Williams was clearly a nude model and an erotic model, posing in ways that were extremely obscene back in the early ’80s or late ’70s, when they were taken. And it’s clear the photos were for commercial distribution and public consumption to some very sick people (especially bondage shot, which became a Penthouse centerfold poster). This woman was basically a porn star, except that she posed for stills instead of video. Same difference.

So, what is Miss America apologizing for? Is it now welcome for porn stars to be Miss Americas? Apparently. And let’s face it, the real Miss America isn’t one of those countless forgettable women with a forgettable talent who are forgotten the second they get that silly, meaningless crown. It’s Kim Kardashian. She is, sadly, for all intents and purposes, the face of America and American women. And, like Vanessa Williams, she is a porn star and a lowlife. That’s how she got her start and she’s still posing nude in vain self-anointed attempts to break the internet.

We have no shame in America anymore. Porn stars (like Kardashian and Vanessa Williams) and prostitutes (see my article on Suzy Favor Hamilton and, by the way, Williams can qualify for this title–she got paid to perform oral sex in her nude photos) are exalted, promoted, and gushed over. They are paid millions and jetted around the country to be feted by news and talk shows, given book deals, dressed in expensive clothes, and given the high life. People who work hard and do good things are nobodies, bask in no glory, and treated like worthless cattle. And if you scoff at the porn stars and prostitutes and the glory these skanks get bestowed upon them, you are backwards, “stuck in the ’50s,” and otherwise uncool and unhip. You “don’t get it.” You’re not down with the struggle and other assorted such BS. Outrage and shame are not just long ago dead and buried. They are the true crimes. If you don’t cheat and slut around to get ahead, you are a loser–an idiot. Out of touch. If you express even the mildest disapproval, you are “slut-shaming” (and don’t forget “fat-shaming,” “anchor-baby-shaming”–I made that one up, but it’s here–and other assorted negatively-connotated “shamings”; hmmm . . . when is “undocumented American”-shaming coming? Oh, wait, it’s here). Don’t judge. Don’t criticize. Don’t, don’t, don’t. Um, here’s the deal: the “don’t” should be what’s expressed–and exercised–before someone does a sex tape, sleeps around, and poses for explicit nude lesbian photos and naked bondage shots. But I’m a backward “Debbie downer” for saying so.

One other thing that has to be mentioned: the race factor. Vanessa Williams is Black and was the first Black Miss America. The Miss America pageant had an insurance policy for that, when it engineered and orchestrated that the runner up–Suzette Charles–would also be Black, so it must have had an inkling that everything wasn’t exactly kosher with Vanessa Williams. But this whole apology happened because of White guilt and because Williams is Black (although she is clearly very light-skinned, and that’s why she got the title in the first place–don’t get me started on light-skinned Black racism against dark-skinned Blacks). Many Black Americans somehow felt “hurt” that Williams was deposed and that her nude photos were released. Somehow–as with everything else in America–dethroning Williams was a form of “raaaaaycism!” After all, the evil cracka White people made her pose nude, including in lesbian oral sex and bondage shots, right? After all, a Black woman has more of a struggle in life and must resort to nude lesbian oral sex and bondage pics to survive, right? And the pageant officials and we in America were simply racist in “persecuting” Vanessa Williams.

That was the attitude in Black America then, and it’s the attitude in White guilt, “I voted for Obama” crowd now, including current Miss America pageant officials. And that’s why the Miss America pageant invited beautiful sleazebag Vanessa Williams back to judge last night’s pageant. It’s the same reason why they unnecessarily, reportedly apologized to her. (They also needed ratings because fewer and fewer people watch the irrelevant show now, and that’s why it was relegated for a few years to a low-rated cable network.)

But Vanessa Williams should be happy she posed for many disgusting, sleazy pics and that she was outed by Guccione and Penthouse and lost her Miss America title (which she didn’t actually lose). It was her best career move ever, and it made her millions. And many in America even think of Williams as “classy” and “elegant” (if you check her nude photos out, you’ll see she’s anything but).

They say crime pays, but porn pays better. And if you don’t do either, you’re just a chump in America. Vanessa Williams knows that better than anyone.

Lowlife Vanessa Williams was the first reality porn star to turn her sleaze into millions of dollars. And, for decades, she’s laughed all the way to the bank. Now, she’s even got an apology under her (bondage) belt.