Evangelist Denise Matthews

She once had her own legion of adoring fans, but now she calls herself one of the "J.C. Fans". She used to have people worshipping her as a "sex goddess," but now she worships Jesus Christ and recognizes Him as her personal savior. Christened "Vanity" by The Artist Formerly Known as Prince in the early '80's, she now goes by her given name - Denise Matthews. Make that Evangelist Denise Matthews! A former actress and singer, Matthews is now a born-again Christian evangelist who ministers the Word of God around the world. Matthews' dramatic story will soon be chronicled in an autobiography titled, appropriately, Blame It On Vanity, which will be published this fall.

Matthews was born on the "wrong side of the tracks" in the small, bucolic town of Niagara Falls in Ontario, Canada, to a White mother and Black father. Her large family was poor; she and her siblings traded hand-me-downs. Her childhood was chaotic. "I thought every home to be slaughtered with abuse, but the screams only sounded from this side of the forest," Matthews writes in her autobiography, which reads like a best selling novel. As the saying goes, truth is stranger than fiction.

Matthews says she suffered severe physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her alcoholic parents. Her 44-year old father died when she was 15. "Death seemed to take forever in his own torture. For the first time, I felt free. I planned my escape immediately, "she writes. "Fifteen years of cruelty, and the prison doors were finally opened ... or so I thought."

After her father's death, Matthews says her mother plunged into alcoholism and attempted suicide several times. "I had been privy to see many a man beat and abuse her entire body," Matthews relates.

Declaring, "Enough already!" Matthews left home at age 17. The young woman had dreams of stardom and glamour, "what I later recognized as deceptive beauty." While working as a model, Matthews met Prince in Los Angeles. As the story goes, he renamed her "Vanity" because seeing her was like looking in a mirror and glimpsing a twin soul.