Jayne Kennedy broke barriers as one of the first Black female sportscasters. Then, a sex scandal almost broke her

Jayne Kennedy can thank Oprah Winfrey in part for her new memoir, “Plain Jayne.”

Kennedy – who broke ground as the first Black woman crowned Miss Ohio in 1970 and blazed trails eight years later as a correspondent on CBS’s “The NFL Today” – told CNN in a recent interview that in 2010, Winfrey encouraged her to share her life story.

“She inspired me to go forward and I’m glad she did because it allowed me to actually delve into who am I,” Kennedy said. “Who am I at my authentic core? And it wasn’t just about writing about my career, it wasn’t just about writing about my family, it was writing about all of it.”

That “all” includes a scandal in the early 1980s when, following her divorce from actor Leon Isaac Kennedy, a tape of their intimate moments was leaked.

Well before Paris Hilt