Vanessa Williams returns to Miss America pageant after 32 years, gets apology

Miss Georgia Betty Cantrell, left, reacts with Miss South Carolina Daja Dial, center, and Miss Oklahoma Georgia Frazier after being named Miss America 2016, Sunday, September 13, 2015, in Atlantic City, N.J.

On Sunday, Miss America CEO Sam Haskell opened the event, held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, by publicly apologizing to Williams. I want to apologize to you and to your mother, Ms. Helen Williams.

“I have been a close friend to this lovely and talented lady for 32 years”, Haskell said. US Magazine reports that the apology was unexpected and yet appreciated it fully.

“I did the best that I could during my reign during 1983 to 1984″.

The pageant welcomed her back after 32 years to serve as head judge. She then abruptly took to Twitter to express her gratitude for winning this year’s pageant. The photographs were published in Penthouse several months after she became the first African-American Miss America. Before the competition started, he invited her on stage to receive the apology.

During Saturday night’s Miss America 2016 pageant, Williams kicked off the telecast with a performance of Amy Grant’s “Oh How The Years Go By”, after which Haskell apologized and the pageant got underway.

“Times are different. I don’t think it would’ve been the same in the day and age of the Kardashians and everything you see on reality TV”.

Asked by The Associated Press to clarify her remarks afterward, Cantrell said, “It was kind of a funky question to ask me if Tom Brady cheated”. The 2nd runner up was Miss Colorado, Kelley Johnson, who performed an original monologue and won a $20,000. When the Miss America organization found out, they silently forced Williams to give up her title-causing no small degree of controversy and pain.

“But if there was question there then, yes, I think he cheated”, she said in a complete reversal of her original response.