RACISM – Beverly Johnson recalled a racist incident she experienced at a hotel back in the ’80s.
The 71-year-old supermodel revealed that a hotel had drained their pool after she swam in it, and said she learned about it from her friends many years later in 2012.
The Racist Incident
‘I did not know until we all went to the [late modeling agent] Eileen Ford’s 90th birthday party,’ she explained in an interview published on Saturday.
‘All the models were there,’ she recalled. ‘And one girl said to me, “Remember when they drained the pool? When you got in the pool at the so-and-so hotel?”
She Made Headline Last Year
The actress — who was spotted with her family at her one-woman, off-Broadway play the day before — added: ‘I was like, “They did?” And she said, “You didn’t know that?”‘
The star — who secretly eloped with her financier fiance Brian Maillian in Las Vegas last year — declined to name the hotel nor reveal its location.
‘So you get a lot of that,’ she said about the hateful experiences she faced during her iconic, decades-spanning modeling career.
‘People draining pools. It was racist.’
‘As a model, there were different kinds of things that would happen to me because I was Black,’ she continued.
She is Always in One Support
Despite being one of the most iconic supermodels, she still faced ugly racism, but the entrepreneur recalled one model who always supported her.
‘Lauren Hutton would go to photoshoots and say out loud, “Why isn’t Beverly on the cover of magazines? She is just as pretty.”‘
Johnson said it was especially meaningful for Hutton to advocate for her as she was the ‘it girl’ at the time and could help her land more modeling opportunities.
