Winning Miss America hurt my brand, says Vanessa Williams

New York: Vanessa Williams has said that winning Miss America Pageant hurt her brand, as a lot of people assume that if a person has a Miss anything in front of their name, it negates any sort of talent or intellect that they possessed.

The 50-year-old actress told HuffPost Live studios co-host Alicia Menendez that she did Miss America because she was a junior in college, and she got scholarships every year. "I had no idea that I would win...in terms of means to an end, I don`t think it worked for me because my mean was I wanted to be where I am right now," the Huffington Post quoted her as saying. When co-host Marc Lamont Hill asked if the value of Miss America has changed in a world where women are accomplishing so much, she answered that it depended on what they are as an individual and what they wanted to accomplish. ANI