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Vanity is the most popular stage name used by singer/actress/model Denise Katrina Matthews (born January 4, 1959 in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada).

She is sometimes credited as Denise Matthews-Smith or D.D. Winters.

She is a sister of Canadian model Patricia Matthews.

Early in her career, Matthews appeared in B-movies such as Tanya's Island and Terror Train. In 1982, she met Prince who re-named her Vanity, saying he saw his female reflection when he looked at her. Some versions of the story suggest that Prince coined the name Vagina initially, but she refused and renamed herself "Vanity" instead. Later that same year, she became the lead singer of singing group Vanity 6. Their trademark was explicit sexuality in their lyrics, performances, and attire. Prince produced the group's biggest hit "Nasty Girl."

After one album, Vanity decided to leave her role in Vanity 6 and the proposed film Purple Rain in 1983. Vanity signed a lucrative record deal with Motown Records in 1984. She recorded two albums, Wild Animal and Skin On Skin. She also starred in a handful of movies, including The Last Dragon and the 1988 action thriller Action Jackson, in which she starred opposite Carl Weathers, Craig T. Nelson, and Sharon Stone. She also played a villain torturing Nancy Allen's character in 1990's amnesia-plot TV movie Memories of Murder; the film has appeared on the Lifetime channel. She guest starred in an episode of Miami Vice in its third season; she posed for Playboy in 1988; and, in 1993, she appeared in an episode of Highlander opposite Adrian Paul.

After being turned on to cocaine, which resulted in near-fatal kidney failure, Vanity gave up her stage name and became a born-again Christian and evangelist on August 16, 1997. She travels America, and currently resides in Fremont, California.

In 2005, Vanity 6's "Nasty Girl" was redone in a tribal style by dance performer Inaya Day. Matthews is currently working on finishing her novel Blame it on Vanity.

As Vanity, she dated Prince, Adam Ant and Billy Idol during the 1980's. Additionally, Matthews was engaged to Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx in the 1987. She joked during interviews that her new stage name will then be Vanity 6 (Sixx) again. They never married. Matthews was a contributor to Sixx's book, released in 2007 called The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star. In the work, Sixx gives detailed accounts of his drug-filled year in 1987, which includes numerous and often bizarre incidents with Vanity.

Matthews was married to pro football player Anthony Smith, from 26 March 1995-1996. They are now divorced.

Matthews has a German mother and an African-American father.

• When I came to the Lord Jesus Christ, I threw out about 1,000 tapes of mine—every interview, every tape, every video. Everything.
  • Denise Matthews-Smith in 1995, quoted in Totally Awesome 80's by Matthew Rettenmund, p. 57

• Klondike Fever (1980)
• Terror Train (1980)
• Tanya's Island (1980)
• The Last Dragon (1985)
• Never Too Young to Die (1986)
• 52 Pick-Up (1986)
• Deadly Illusion (1987)
• Action Jackson (1988)
• South Beach (1992)
• Neon City (1992)
• Da Vinci's War (1993)
• Kiss of Death (1995)

• Official Site
• Scrapbook with Various Pictures of Her Life
• Vanity at the Internet Movie Database

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