SPOTTED: Vanessa Williams looking absolutely fabulous at almost 50, strolling The Grove before heading to an interview with Mario Lopez of Extra.

The Desperate Housewives actress wore a wraparound frock and was there with her mother, Helen Williams, to promote her new memoir, You Have No Idea, which details her rise to fame as well as the set-backs that she has experienced along the way.

Williams recalls that when she was young, her mother gave the actress a list of things that she should never do. Near the top of that list was the warning to ‘never ever pose nude for anyone.’

Sadly, Vanessa did not listen to her mother. At 19, she agreed to pose nude for a photographer who promised her that he would not distribute the photos. After she became the first African-American woman to win the title of Miss America in September 1983, she was forced to resign ten months into her reign when those previously-taken nude photos were bought and published in Penthouse magazine.