Jamie: Well, do you feel sorry for them? Or do you feel bad people are being mean to them? Or they're not understood? Or do you ever think about it?
Vanessa: Well, I certainly have been judgmental. Just like everybody jumps in and says their little two cents. So, there comes a time when you want to live your life in a certain way and if you make that choice not to, then that's your choice. I don't isolate myself and I didn't isolate myself from the world, which could be easy to do, you know, and I think Michael certainly does that. I would never want to be in that position where I could not walk down the street by myself.
Jamie: Can you walk down the street by yourself?
Vanessa: Absolutely! Oh, yeah!
Jamie: What did you do for the Miss America pageant? Did you sing?
Vanessa: I sang, yeah. I sang "Happy Days Are Here Again." The Streisand version. And in terms of losing my way, I certainly don't think that having a white boyfriend means that you're not black. And, you know, I think singing songs that are written by white people does not mean that you're not black.
Jamie: What does it mean when you sing white songs and have a white boyfriend?
Vanessa: It means that some person wrote a song that touched me and I thought I could do a good job with it. And if they can touch a lot of people, that's basically why I choose the material that I do. I also like variety. I've done three albums and some other soundtrack stuff and who knows what this next album is going to sound like and be like? My life changes as I grow and get older and have more power over the things that I do. I can make a lot of different choices.
Jamie: What were you doing up in Canada?
Vanessa: Recently? Bye-Bye Birdie, in Vancouver.
Jamie: How long were you up there?
Vanessa: From June, or July, through August. Yes, two months.
Jamie: How are you handling that mother versus career thing?
Vanessa: Well, usually I bring [my family] along, if I can. During the summer, they went up there with me and we rented a house. The kids went to day camp and it was great. We kind of set up house up there. And if I'm working during the school year, which I am now, I fly back on the weekends and on my days off and do the mommy thing. I talk to them every day and we send faxes and draw pictures and, yeah, you've just got to [do these things]. It's a priority in my life.
Jamie: Who takes care of the kids when you're not there?
Vanessa: We have a live-in nanny and my parents are five minutes away, so there's always somebody checking up on them.
Jamie: Did you get a lot of whippings when you were a baby?
Vanessa: No. Unh unh.
Jamie: None? You never got one?
Vanessa: My dad spanked me once. We were punished in terms of having privileges taken away and being sent to our rooms, but there was no physical abuse.
Jamie: Your mom is nice. I remember meeting her. What's she like? What are your parents like?
Vanessa: They're both school teachers. They're still teaching. My mom will probably retire in a couple of years. My mom is a very strong woman and my dad is like the nicest guy. Very loving and sensitive. My mom is a typical, courageous working woman, doing what black women have done all through the years. Women who have raised their family and had to go to work, so they're a two-income family. And music was certainly a requirement in our household because we had to learn an instrument-play an instrument until we graduated from high school. So I played piano and French horn until I graduated. My brother played oboe and baritone sax. That was a requirement in our household. Now, I can read music and sight-read and do all that stuff. I am a musician, as opposed to just a girl singer behind the mike trying to figure out what the melody is. And education was a big, big, big thing.
Jamie: What's the craziest thing that's happened to you? Like, didn't you fall on the stage when you were doing Kiss of the Spider Woman?
Vanessa: Oh. I had tons of stuff happen on that show. I used to dry all my roses in my dressing room. I had dried roses and I'd light candles. I'd have scented candles all over the place. And there was one number I did called "Give Me Love." I wore a turban with these plumes, you know, feathers that went way up. One time I was doing something, leaning over, and I smelled something. I looked up... My hat is on fire!" We had to extinguish it and the tops of the feathers were all singed, so they cut the plumes off. God, that show! We had tons of stuff. One time in the scene I'm supposed to run in, there's a gun shot. I was supposed to stop and freeze and get shot. This one night, I ran and the sound went, "Ring." The telephone rang! "What the hell am I supposed to do now?" The guy was doing a narrative behind me and it was supposed to be "bang!" He didn't know what to do and we just finished the scene and walked out...and fell out! It was just, like, "What do you do?"
Jamie: Telephone ringing instead of a gunshot?
Vanessa: The telephone rang! And in his narration, the narrator just said something like "And the phone rang. And then she got shot." Oh, man! We had tons of stuff happening on that show.
Jamie: You like doing Broadway?
Vanessa: I love it. I do. I'd do a Broadway show in a minute. Because you get a chance to perform for a live audience. Sing and dance and act. Everything that I love. And I know that I can do that. That's what I do the best. So it's nice to be on top of your game, and have people leap to their feet.
Jamie: That's pretty good.