By Debbie Emery – Radar Reporter
Having opened up earlier this month about the sexual abuse she suffered as a 10-year-old, Vanessa Williams is now revealing her heartbreaking secret high school pregnancy that ended in abortion.
“Being pregnant is the most frightening thing that happens in your life,” revealed the 49-year-old Desperate Housewives star during an interview with ABC’s Nightline. “I knew in high school that’s something that I was not prepared to do, or fight, or struggle with.”
The actress claims her early sexual awakening was a direct response to the molestation she suffered at the hands of a female family friend, as RadarOnline.com previously reported.
“I think I was highly sexualized because I was in fifth grade and I had this experience,” she explained. “Because it feels good, you’re like, OK, well this is supposed to be normal. That’s not normal for a 10-year-old to be seduced.”
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While appearing on Nightline with her mom, Helen Williams, Vanessa revealed how she had aborted her baby as a teen because she was too scared to tell her parents about her fall from grace.
Now a mother of four, the Ugly Betty star remained close-lipped about the abuse for many years, but she’s now sharing her sad secret in her upcoming memoir, You Have No Idea.
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In the autobiography, she also talks about another example of her wild younger years when she let a photographer take photos of her nude after he promised they would never be released.
“I started out on top of a cab and ended up in a studded collar upstairs an hour later,” Williams said. “That was my joke, saying, you know, ‘How could I go from this trusting, you know, photo shoot, to being in S&M clothing within the same shoot with a guy I didn’t know.’”
Ultimately, the snapper didn’t keep his word, and Vanessa was catapulted from the stage of Miss America to the pages of Penthouse, leading to a sex scandal that cost the beauty queen her crown.
“I’ve learned to embrace my past. I embrace the choices that I have been given in my life,” she concluded.
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The full interview airs on ABC’s Nightline on Tuesday night at 11:35 p.m. EST.
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