From nude sex scandals and pageant shame to cheating spouses, the nation’s first African-American Miss America has enjoyed a career with enough highs and lows to fill several tell-alls.

But Vanessa Williams, now one of television’s Desperate Housewives, says she turned down a $600,000 deal from an unnamed publisher to spill the secrets of her marriage to Rick Fox and early days as a model on the pages of a memoir.

“I don’t want to rehash the past …. I want to talk about what makes me, and why I’m a survivor. And the publishers DIDN’T want that. They wanted to know about my ex-husbands. But I’m NOT going to throw my kids’ dads under the bus,” the mother-of-four reveals on the pages of the Jan. issues of Ebony.

Vanessa Williams is the newest resident of television’s Wisteria Lane, but the Ugly Betty alum had to be coaxed into taking on a role on ABC’s award-winning dramedy Desperate Housewives because she was one of the drama’s worst critics.

Williams will join the series when she plays the wife of a baseball star on the seventh season of Desperate Housewives, premiering later this month. However, the actress admits she lost faith in the series after award-winning star Alfre Woodard became the first African-American to join the show. Although she respects Woodard as an actress, she her character’s storyline — which saw one of Woodard’s onscreen sons as a developmentally-disabled murder suspect and the other a sadistic killer.

“She had her son in chains in the basement. It was like, ‘Really? Do we have to go there with our first Black character?’ I honestly fell off the show after that,” Vanessa told Entertainment Weekly. “I think it was just so implausible and just an image that black folks don’t want to see – their child chained and shackled in the basement.”

Looks like Vanessa Williams’ bout with unemployment was a short one — The former Ugly Betty villain is leaving the Big Apple and headed to television’s Wisteria Lane!

Williams, 47, is joining the seventh season of the hit ABC dramedy Desperate Housewives playing a “wicked new housewife, who is sure to shake things up in the neighborhood and wreak havoc in the lives of the women of Wisteria Lane,” the network said Tuesday.

Vanessa says she’s ecstatic to be joining the cast of DH and can’t wait to work with series creator Marc Cherry.

“Marc will develop a new character for the show, but I’m so excited to be a part of a fantastic franchise and work with a team of such accomplished women,” Vanessa told Access Hollywood. “It won’t be Wilhelmina, but given Marc Cherry’s record, the character will make a lot of waves on Wisteria Lane!”

Actress Vanessa L. Williams will get her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Syracuse University this Saturday. The forty-five year old Ugly Betty star, who left Syracuse after becoming Miss America in 1983 earned the remaining credits for her degree through industry experience and performances on stage and screen. Vanessa will also deliver the convocation address to graduates of Syracuse’s College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Actress Vanessa Williams on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Vanessa L. Williams is one of five celebs baring it all (literally) for the May 2007 issue of Allure Magazine.

The last time “Ugly Betty” star Vanessa L. Williams was featured in a magazine in a nudie magazine, it cost her the Miss. America 1984 title.

But the former beauty queen is again baring it all for Allure’s May “Look Better Naked” issue. Unlike the Penthouse shots, which showed Williams engaged in sexual acts with some no-name White chick, it’s doubtful the Allure images will show much.

A mag insider at Conde Nast said she was completely unclothed for the shoot at Lux Studio.