Beverly Johnson Reveals How She Overcame Bad Diets & Habits

Beverly Johnson's new memoir is titled "The Face That Changed It All," and it is only fitting that it is named such, as she is the first African-American model to grace the cover of American Vogue in 1974. The 64-year-old model and actress recounts her journey into the modeling world, which was peppered with battles against eating disorders and drug use.

Johnson told the Huffington Post last year: "I weighed from 103 to 117 pounds my entire career. And how do you get to be that weight? You don't eat." She added: "Food was the enemy. We didn't even drink water because we thought water was fattening. It was really terrible."

Johnson also recounted her drug use to People, saying that in order to maintain her 103-lb weight, her diet consisted only of coffee and champagne.

"I drank black coffee, a sip of broth if things got tough, and in the evening, a glass of champagne as a pick me up," she said.

Additionally, Johnson revealed that there was definitely a pressure to be ultrathin.

She recalled: "The skinner you were, the more fabulous you were. Drug use was encouraged. It was like 'Oh my god, you are chiseled to the bone.' All of the things you needed to be a high class model: high cheekbones, bright eyes, that was all provided by the drugs. It was like being offered a drink. It was one of the perks. People around us always had it."

"We thought it was glamorous and expensive, but it was all a delusion," she recalled her days as a young model. 

That was until Johnson suffered a near overdose in 1983. Following that incident and her battle with then husband music producer Danny Sims for custody of their daughter, Anansa, Johnson decided to turn her life around. She admitted: "I realized drugs could kill you and my daughter would not have a mother if I didn't get help."

In the midst of her custody battle, Johnson tried to get more acting jobs, and that's when she was offered by Bill Cosby, who has recently been accused of rape and sexual harassment by several women, came to her to offer a gig.

In an essay he wrote for Vanity Fair in 2014, Johnson recounted how Cosby had drugged her during an encounter in New York in the mid-80s and how conflicted she was to share her story. Finally, she decided: "I couldn’t sit back and watch the other women be vilified and shamed for something I knew was true."

"I had to use my voice as a sister, mother, and grandmother, and as a woman who knows that, according to the C.D.C., nearly one in five women has been sexually assaulted at some time in her life, and that women of color face an even higher attack rate," she added.

Johnson chronicled this very journey, among others stories in her new memoir, "The Face That Changed It All," which is now available via Amazon.

"You laugh and cry but it's my life," Johnson said of her memoir. "I hope it can inspire."