ABSTRACT
"The Most Famous Woman Never Seen," ran the headline of the People magazine story that appeared December 17, 1991, two days after the William Kennedy Smith rape trial ended in acquittal. "Even after the verdict," read the subtitle, "Will Smith's accuser remains an enigma." Within a week, that enigma had "gone public," interviewed on ABC's Prime Time, leaving behind the anonymity that had become a central issue of the trial. "Do you want to introduce yourself?" asked Diane Sawyer on December 19, assenting to the single precondition of the interview that her interlocutor be the one to speak her own name. "I thank you for giving me that honor," answered the woman who chose to show her face for the first name: "Out of everyone who's used my name, for once it's an honor to say that I am Patricia Bowman. . . . I'm not a blue blob. I'm a person." 2
