When Tyra Banks launched America’s Next Top Model in 2003, she described it as “drama-lity” – a mixture of drama and reality. It had all that and so much more, as is shown on the new Netflix doco Reality Check, which goes behind the scenes of the hit show that ran until 2018.
Behind the glamour and beauty, it’s now been revealed by both judges and contestants that questionable practices were commonplace. Accounts of abuse, disordered eating, body-shaming, a lack of care and safety, and other explosive claims have been made, with Tyra, 52, even reluctantly admitting the show “went too far”…
Meltdown moments
Tyra’s season four rant over Tiffany Richardson, whom she accused of not taking the competition seriously, is now infamous.
“I knew I went too far,” Tyra admits of her tirade, where she told the young hopeful she was “extremely disappointed” in her.
But Tiffany hasn’t accepted Tyra’s semi-apology, calling her a “bully” on social media.
“You know how you treated me on and off camera,” she says.
“Tyra was fake and pretended to care.”
Body-shaming
“She looks pudgy,” “She’s huge,” and, “They’re all fat!” – just a handful of comments made by judges, despite claims the show celebrated bodies of all sizes.
In season four, Keenyah Hill was critcised for gaining weight. To hammer it home, she was made to model as “gluttony” in a “seven deadly sins” photoshoot and an elephant in a safari-themed one.
Judge Janice Dickinson, 71, advised, “If you’re sporting a gut, hide it!”
Sharp-tongued judges
Tyra once dismissed a hopeful model who worked as an adult entertainer by saying, “She’d be happy stripping.” Another thin contestant was told her body sent a “negative image to women”. But the other judges were just as brutal.
Runway coach “Miss J” Alexander, 67, told one young beauty, “You walk like you’re on crack,” and he told another, “The walk says, ‘Help me!’”
But no one was as snarky as Janice, whose brutal take-downs included, “What you really need is a nose job,” “Zip it, bitch, you’re dead in my book!” and, “I’ve seen better faces on iodine bottles.”
Backstage feuds
The two Jays were brought onto the show, thanks to their relationships with Tyra in the fashion world, but their friendships with her have now sadly soured.
“I always believed she would have my back, but ultimately I was proved wrong,” says former makeup artist Jay Manuel, 53, who was fired along with Nigel Barker, 53, in 2012.
On the doco, catwalk coach Miss J, who had a stroke in 2022, revealed that Tyra hasn’t seen him since the incident, which left him in a coma for five weeks. He is still barely able to walk.
Deranged photoshoots
In season seven, CariDee English complained of cold while shooting in an icy swimming pool, but she wasn’t pulled out until she began convulsing.
Despite suffering hypothermia, she was later blamed for not speaking up earlier. Other shoots had contestants posing as though they had bulimia or anorexia, were addicted to drugs or were on a casting couch.
Then there were the two infamous race-swap photoshoots that saw the models switch ethnicities and have their skin tone darkened or lightened.
