Lights and shadows of Beverly Johnson, the first black model on the cover of 'Vogue USA': “My diet was cocaine, a plate of rice and two eggs a week”

Although many may not know the legacy that Beverly Johnson (Buffalo, 71 years old) has left in the fashion industry, the supermodel, who was the first black woman to appear on the cover of

Vogue USA

, is a myth in the United States. .

Considered by

The New York Times

as one of the most influential people in the fashion world of this century and the past, Johnson is not satisfied with the treatment she has received in her long career in modeling and in the sector. audiovisual.

She has said this on numerous occasions, such as in her memoir, and she has recalled it again now in an interview for

Page Six

, in which she also recalled her demons within the industry, and how she came to feel pressured to consume drugs and undergoing strict and unhealthy diets between the seventies and nineties.

“They made us believe that cocaine was not addictive.

Everyone used drugs then, and we were not aware of their consequences.

But that drug was especially used by models because we didn't eat,” she admitted to the American media.

The actress also premieres Beverly Johnson in Vogue

in New York in February ,

a new show in which she talks, as in her book

Beverly Johnson: The Face That Changed It All (2015),

about her professional career, her family, her lovers and her childhood in Buffalo, as well as paying tribute to the legendary women who came before and after her.

It all started in 1970, when the supermodel signed a contract with Eileen Ford's popular agency.

At 19, she had high hopes for herself and she dared to ask her agent if she could appear on the cover of the prestigious

Vogue USA.

“Who do you think you are, Cleopatra?”

was the response she received immediately, according to what she says in the script for her next show.

To which she replied: “That's exactly what I think I am.”

Four years later she got it,

and this 2024 she celebrates the 50th anniversary of becoming the first black woman to appear on the cover of the most prestigious fashion magazine in the United States.

Johnson tells

Page Six

that she felt pressured to snort cocaine to “kill her appetite” after the owners of the fashion industry encouraged her to look “chiseled to the bone” for the famous photo: “I would just stop and They gave me tremors.

I didn't eat and every time I went to work they told me: 'Yes!

Chisel to the bone, girl' as a congratulation.

Nobody really told the truth.”

“I remember she ate two eggs and a bowl of brown rice a week.

I remember being shaking in a taxi and insisting that I stop to get a bag of MDMA,” she confesses.

Thanks to her mother, and after years immersed in addictions, Beverly Johnson won the battle: “she made me get out of the bathtub and put me naked in front of a three-sided mirror.

It was the first time I saw my bones staring back at me.

My bones like those of a child in Biafra.

“It was a big wake-up call for me.”

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Beverly Johnson's professional career has been very varied;

From her beginnings as a model she debuted with major American film and television producers.

She even released an album in 1979, which was not particularly successful.

During the 1970s and 1980s she appeared on more than 500 magazine covers.

A role that marked a before and after in a country especially plagued by racism.

In 2020, in an opinion piece for

The Washington Post

, the supermodel stated: “I was the first black woman on the cover of

Vogue

, but the fashion industry still has not fixed the racist issue.

The silence of race was then, and remains, the cost of admission to the highest levels in the fashion industry.”

Johnson demanded black hairstylists, makeup artists, and photographers, but her requests were mostly unsuccessful.

The world of fashion, like everyone else, was changing slowly.

“My race limited my pay significantly, less than that of my white colleagues.

“The industry was slow to include more black people in other aspects of fashion and beauty.”

Beverly Johnson on the cover of 'Vogue USA' in 1974.Vogue

Precisely, her career as

a top model

cannot be understood without her fundamental role in civil rights activism, and her excessive attempt to open the doors to other black models.

Although she would later appear three more times on the cover of

Vogue

(an outlet that said of her in 2016 that she “broke the glass ceiling in fashion”), Johnson's historic first time earned her a place in history and gave modeling one of its biggest stars.

Take a look at the many times Johnson appeared in the pages of

Vogue

and how iconic images of her have stood the test of time.

But despite being part of the cast of supermodels, along with Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell or other popular names that were a milestone in fashion in the last century, for Johnson inclusion remains a pending task.

Her finger has been pointed on more than one occasion at Anna Wintour, director of the magazine and international advisor to all the publications of the Condé Nast group (

Vogue, Glamour, Vanity Fair

...).

She believes that the grande dame of fashion has enough power to make changes and create new inclusive trends.

So much so that she has asked to establish the so-called “Beverly Johnson rule” whereby, whenever there are vacancies for a position, especially a position of responsibility, black people are interviewed to fill it.

Two marriages, a pregnancy, an assault and death threats

The model's sentimental life has been characterized by its heads and its tails.

She married a real estate agent, Bill Potter, at a very young age.

In 1977 she remarried Danny Slims, a businessman with whom she had her only daughter.

Two years later, they divorced.

In the nineties, she had a romantic relationship with Chris Noth -

Mr. Big

in

Sex and the City

-.

They stayed for five years until they broke up in 1995, when the supermodel requested a restraining order against her after hitting her and threatening to kill her.

“Chris Noth hit me in the chest and ribs, hurting my ribs, making it difficult to breathe, hitting and bruising my face and body and I had to have medical attention,” as

Page Six

reported at the time .

The resolution of the complaint was made public in October of the same year, in which the judge approved a distance of 500 meters, which lasted until 2017. “He made repeated threats against my life, making up to 25 calls per day, threatening to kill me

To me and my dog,” she came to clarify at that time.

Beverly Johnson and Chris Noth during a party in 1994, in New York (USA). Ron Galella, Ltd. (Ron Galella Collection via Getty)

All the setbacks in her relationship with the protagonist of

Sex and the City

made her remember what was probably the most unfortunate episode in her life.

In the eighties, Johnson wanted to audition to work on the fashionable series of the moment,

The Bill Cosby Show

, who at that time was one of the most popular performers on American television.

All this with the intention of enhancing his image and recycling himself in his career as an artist.

When the interpreter met her at her apartment, Cosby put a drug in her coffee with the intention of sexually abusing her.

But Johnson managed to escape from her because she started shouting and insulting him, which caused the comedian to put her in a taxi to her house.

“I knew from the second sip of the drink that Cosby had drugged me... and very drugged,” the supermodel recounted in 2014 in

Vanity Fair

, in which she was the letter of complaint.

In recent years, more than 60 women have accused him of rape, drug-induced sexual assault, sexual assault, child sexual abuse and sexual misconduct... allegations for which he went to prison in 2018 in the first criminal trial of a celebrity in the #MeToo era (released from prison in 2021).

The supermodel secretly married one of her childhood sweethearts, Bill Maillian, in Las Vegas last year during her 71st birthday celebration.

“I sat in bed on October 11 [her birthday is October 13] and said, 'I know what I want for my birthday.

I want to marry".

Mailian, who helped Johnson build a beauty business, has encouraged her activism: “We come from the same mold and the same kind of family history.”