While the exposure she got was not the type she wanted, she became a star on her own terms, as a Grammy-nominated singer and an actress with prominent roles in Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives, among others. “She wanted the scholarship money ($25,000),” TIME explained, “and she wanted the exposure. A musical theater major at Syracuse University, she’d entered the pageant circuit for practical reasons. The title had never been a dream of hers, as TIME attested just after she won the competition. The statement that Williams ultimately made was that she was more than a racy photo spread - and more than Miss America.
