Beverly Johnson's Weekly Diet Used To Be Two Eggs, A Bowl Of Rice, And Cocaine

Supermodel Beverly Johnson is starring in In Vogue, a new one-woman off-Broadway play based on her 2015 memoir. The title is a reference to Beverly being the first ever Black woman on the cover of American Vogue in 1974.

In new interviews with Page Six and the New York Times, Beverly reflects on the insane standards she faced as a model in the seventies:

“As a model, you had to be a hanger. You could be 90 pounds and chiseled to the bone, and they worshiped you for it. You could not get too thin.”

Beverly, now 71, says she and the other models relied on cocaine to curb their appetites. And her diet was, um, lacking:

“We were led to believe that cocaine was not addictive. We didn’t know cocaine was addictive. Everyone used drugs back in the day but that particular drug for models was used because we did not eat,” Johnson told us, “I remember eating two eggs and a bowl of brown rice a week. I would be shaking in a cab, and I would say pull over because I have to get a bag of M&Ms.”

“I would just stop and get the shakes. We did not eat, and every time you came to work they would say, ‘Yes! Chisel to the bone girl. Yes,’ like congratulating you. Nobody really told you the truth.”

Beverly says she got a “major” wake-up call when her concerned mother made her get out of the bathtub and look at her shrinking body in a three-way mirror. “It was the first time I saw my bones looking back at me.” She managed to get sober in the late seventies, but she’s still plagued by body dysmorphia: “I’ve been in therapy for it my whole life. Right now I think I’m fat.”

Beverly also reflects on her 1977 marriage to Danny Sims, a music producer who signed Bob Marley and brought reggae to the U.S. Unfortunately, Danny cheated on Beverly and threatened her with violence. The stress sent her into a deep depression and she turned to drugs again. In 1979, Beverly filed for divorce, but Danny got custody of their daughter, Anansa, who returned to Beverly only in her teens.

The model was also in a five-year relationship with Sex and the City scumbag Chris Noth in the early nineties. After they split, Beverly filed a restraining order against him, accusing him of physical, verbal, and racial abuse. Excuse me?! And Hollywood was still chill with him after that? Sigh.

Speaking of trash men, in 2015, Beverly wrote a Vanity Fair article accusing Bill Cosby of drugging her in the early eighties. She went over to his Manhattan brownstone thinking that she was auditioning for The Cosby Show. After dinner, Cosby insisted she try a cappuccino from his very fancy espresso machine. And he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Beverly writes:

Now let me explain this: I was a top model during the ’70s, a period when drugs flowed at parties and photo shoots like bottled water at a health spa. I’d had my fun and experimented with my fair share of mood enhancers. I knew by the second sip of the drink Cosby had given me that I’d been drugged—and drugged good.

Beverly says she got woozy and her speech became slurred. Cosby put his arm around her, and, as she felt her body go limp, she “switched into automatic-survival mode.” She yelled, “You’re a motherf**ker, aren’t you?” By the fifth “motherf**ker!”, Beverly could tell she’d pissed Cosby off. He furiously dragged her down the stairs, out of his home, and threw her into a taxi. It took days for the drug to wear off.

Beverly says telling her Cosby story was “a defining moment” for her: “I was no longer just a ‘face.’ I had a voice.” The following year, she included the accusations in her memoir. Cosby subsequently started a defamation lawsuit against her. The suit requested Beverly remove the story from her memoir and never repeat it publicly. But, a year later, Cosby got a little distracted by all the other women accusing him of sexual assault. He dropped the suit against Beverly.

Beverly met financier Brian Maillian about 12 years ago. He helped her build her beauty business and encouraged her activism to combat racism in the modeling industry. The couple lives in Palm Springs and got married this past October. So, yeah. Beverly Johnson wins.

Here’s Beverly’s recent interview with CBS Mornings, courtesy of an Instagram post from her daughter, Anansa:

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