Beverly Johnson Says Hotel Drained Pool After She Used It

Beverly Johnson's opening up about racism she says she faced during her career ... but one moment's kinda new to her -- despite happening about 40 years ago.

The 71-year-old -- who became the first Black model on the cover of Vogue almost 50 years ago -- revealed she once went swimming at a hotel ... and they drained the pool after she hopped out.

Here's the deal ... BJ told Page Six she pulled up to Eileen Ford's 90th birthday party back in 2012 -- about two years before EF died -- and her friends were talking about the old days when someone asked if she remembered a certain hotel draining the pool back in the '80s.

Bev says she was shocked -- she had no idea that happened way back when ... and though she didn't know about it back then, she's sure it was racism. FYI, Johnson won't name the hotel ... saying she's not looking to get sued.

The mother-of-one added tons of stuff like that would happen to her in the modeling world just because of her skin color ... she didn't elaborate with Page Six, but her 2015 memoir 'The Face That Changed It All' and her 2020 op-ed about persistent racism in the industry both hit on other instances.

Another interesting part of the interview -- Beverly revealed model Lauren Hutton always went to bat for her when it came to modeling opportunities.

Johnson said LH would "go to photo shoots and say out loud, ‘Why isn’t Beverly on the cover of magazines? She is just as pretty,'" adding that Lauren was the "it girl" at the time, so her words meant something ... basically get you a friend like Lauren Hutton!

BTW ... Beverly's doing press to promote her new one-woman show coming to Off-Broadway titled "Beverly Johnson In Vogue." She seems pretty jazzed about it -- just look how excited she was when we caught up with her in NYC.