Nearly 50 years after making history as the first black woman to grace the cover of American Vogue, Beverly Johnson still boasts the same supermodel complexion.
The legendary trailblazer swears by luxury skincare products and a bit of Botox to maintain her youthful appearance — but refuses to let anyone come near her with a scalpel.
“Being black is wonderful because we have a head start with the way we look. Black people don’t crack, but other people don’t scar like we do,” Johnson, 71, told The Sun.
“Until they figure out how to eliminate scarring — and I’m talking plastic surgery and anything else — no knife is coming near me.”
Instead, the Buffalo native relies on luxury Retrouvé moisturizers, cleansers and serums — namely, the $240 Baume Ultime Body Oil — and the skill of needle-wielding celebrity dermatologist Dr. Wendy Roberts, known as the “youth booster.”
“No one knows I have it,” she said of her Botox injections, “because I look like myself, not like a replica of someone else’s style.”
On the cusp of the 50th anniversary of becoming a Vogue cover girl in August 1974, Johnson maintains the same glowing complexion and commanding runway presence that launched her to superstardom and landed her on the cover of more than 500 magazines.
With the supermodel’s days in the spotlight far from over — she walked for Sergio Hudson and Bibhu Mohapatra in 2022 at New York Fashion Week — it’s imperative that she sustains her toned physique and muscle strength to strut in 7-inch heels.
“It’s not just walking … it’s theater, it’s dance, it’s movement,” she told Page Six last year. “It’s not easy.”
The fitness maven — who only consumes premium Hallstein Water from the Austrian Alps — raves about the health benefits of pilates, telling The Sun that without it, she “wouldn’t have been able to walk the runway.”
“There are certain muscles that have to be engaged constantly,” the Rancho Mirage, California, beauty explained. “You’re not able to move like you were once you get to a certain age, but pilates will get you back to where you used to be.”
Of course, training with “America’s Next Top Model” legend Miss J. Alexander certainly helped.
“I got Miss J to coach me and work on my strength so that I could wear 7-inch heels,” the glam gram said of her catwalk preparation.
“We went to work on my feet for the catwalk. It’s all that flexibility in the feet and the big toe that help with your core and posture.”
Ironically, modeling was a career that Johnson once mocked in college, initially setting her sights on the courtroom, not the catwalk.
But when she lost her steady income that bankrolled her university tuition, the industry outsider turned to the glam gig that could make her $75 in a single day.
“I said, ‘For standing with their hands on their hips?'” remembered Johnson, who in 2014 joined the long list of Bill Cosby accusers.
Johnson has since shifted her focus to on-screen roles and philanthropic pursuits — she sits on the board of the Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center, serves as a Global Down Syndrome Foundation ambassador, and works with City of Hope and the Model Alliance — and she is preparing for the one-woman off-Broadway show “In Vogue.”
“As I was contemplating what I was going to do to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the American Vogue cover, I get this offer from an off-Broadway theater,” said Johnson, who wrote the play with screenwriter and playwright Joshua Ravetch. It will debut at the 59E59 Theater in January.
“It’s just a fun, inspiring piece with lots of laughs and some drama, so it’s just one of those things that I really enjoy doing.”
Her favorite role to date is being a mom and grandmother, which will be memorialized in a forthcoming WE TV series featuring her daughter, Anansa Sims, her fiancé, former NBA journeyman Matt Barnes, and their children.
“I just want to be the kind of grandmother that my grandmother was to me,” said Johnson, who has been engaged to financier Brian Maillian for three years.