Stereotypes are what make the world go ‘round is what I thought when I was 19. Listening to a lot of Paul Mooney and Richard Pryor, you’d believe anything that they put on your table to be some sort of brain food, even if it’s kills your brain cells. So, you can scoff at the credentials of Ms. Vanessa Veasley – who’s been featured in videos with Nelly and Ludacris, graced magazines such as King and XXL and even has a deal with Wal-Mart.

But for all the glamor and glitz that the 25-year-old experiences on the daily, Ms. Veasley explains why her life isn’t as different as yours or mines and jokes, with Beauty & Brains, about her college freshman features, what classic magazine cover she’d do-over and explains, once and for all, why Superhead is not a "video vixen."

Beauty & Brains: I just got through watching BET’s new show, The Boot. Have you had a chance to check it out at all?
Vanessa Veasley: No. What’s that about?

B&B: Basically, it’s like EliminDATE, Blind Date and Street Smarts wrapped up into one ball. My question, first, is – what has been the best date you’ve ever had?
VV: I don’t know… I’ve had some really great dates, but not always with the best people. I had this one date where we went out on a helicopter ride. We had wine and all that; it was a real private kind of date, and it was beautiful.

I had one date where my boyfriend surprised me and flew me to the Bahamas for the weekend. I didn’t know that I was even going. Actually, on my last birthday, I went to “The Top of the World” – the tallest building in Las Vegas and we had a blast. It was a really nice time. I like quiet dates. I like dates where there isn’t too much distraction. When you’re first meeting someone and then building something with them, you need that time together, where you can concentrate on each other.

B&B: They say that love is a stab in the dark – you ever made a choice that came back to bite you?
VV: No, I have made choices that I… I don’t know… I don’t believe in regrets. I learn something from everyone who I dated. I’m a pretty good judge of character. I had a few doozies, but they weren’t my boyfriend at the time, and that was lucky…

B&B: How did you fall in love with modeling and acting?
VV: It was pretty organic. It started at first with activities in middle school. It kept me out of trouble and I had gone to an all-white, all-girl school in Philadelphia. My parents made sure that they kept me in touch with diversity. I did modeling, tried every instrument that ever been played, but I’m not musically inclined in any way [laughs]. I liked the guitar and the piano, though. With dancing, I instantly got what it was. I really learned that quickly. But with music, you have to be a genius to pick up a flute and be able to play that. I thought I should be able to play the flute after the second time. [Laughs] Modeling was that muse for me and in high school I got into a few things that were cool. When I went to college in Atlanta, I had tried to join up with a few agencies and they kept telling me to lose weight. After awhile, I just gave up because I thought that you couldn’t be a model with a size-40 butt. My measurements were ‘34-22-40’ by the end of my freshman year in college. But I was blessed to meet Randy from Phat Kats and I started working with them in Atlanta.

B&B: When you first got started what was your first rookie mistake that you made?
VV: Talking too much. [Laughs] That’s the one thing that is really cool about the modeling that I do now. As a “celebrity model,” your pictures are accompanied by your name. When you’re a fashion model, you are what you have on. When you’re told to jump, you don’t ask how high, in fact, you just jump and hope that that’s high enough. [Laughs] You don’t tell them anything and that was my problem… You know being young and curious about all the things around me. A model’s place is not to talk; it’s to model.

B&B: If you were allowed to reshoot a famous cover of any magazine – what would it be and why?
VV: Ah, this is good… There are a few that I really like. I really like the one where Demi Moore was on the cover and she was pregnant. I thought it was beautiful. The shape of a pregnant woman is the sign of fertility and it’s a wonderful sight to see. When a woman can do that and still love her body, that’s beautiful When I get a pregnant, I’m going to take a whole lot of pictures… [Laughs] But which one would I pick, hmm… This is not one which I’d recreate, but when Britney Spears was on Rolling Stone [magazine] and she was in the Catholic schoolgirl outfit… that was crazy! You know what?! I’d do the Janet Jackson cover where the guy had his hands over her boobs. Continued on page 2 »