America’s Next Top Model was the It show of the early noughties. Hosted by supermodel Tyra Banks, young girls flocked to the reality competition for the chance to be discovered. It even spawned successful spin-off shows around the world, including in Australia.
But as viewers will remember, it wasn’t all glitz and glamour. Tyra was ruthless, her ‘constructive criticism’ often downright mean, degrading and offensive, the challenges often overstepped the mark of decency and the pressure to look a certain way – and weight – was enormous.
Over the course of 24 seasons, from 2003-2018, contestants were forced to participate in photo shoots that often crossed boundaries, endure painful makeovers and smile through it all. If they didn’t, they were given the chop.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. As new Netflix documentary Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model premieres, we take a look at the most shocking controversies to emerge from the show.
Claims of sexual assault
Shandi Sullivan, who appeared in season two, gets candid in the documentary about her harrowing experience being sexually assaulted – on camera – while filming in Milan.
After being driven around to go-sees on the back of a Vespa by a young man, the men were invited back to the girls’ hotel. That’s when things escalated, Shandi says.
Getting into a hot tub with one of the guys, they started kissing. “I was hammered. I think I had two bottles of wine by myself,” she says, adding that she’d not eaten at all that day. “I was blacked out for a lot of it. I didn’t even feel sex happening, I just knew it was happening. And then I just passed out.” The whole ordeal was filmed.
Waking up the next morning, she says she cried hysterically. But it was about to get worse.
Producers decided to ‘frame’ the assault as Shandi cheating on her longtime boyfriend, Eric – and got him on the phone to film his reaction to her telling him she ‘cheated’. Understandably, Eric was furious. “You had sex?!” he yelled at her. “You stupid b****!”
Shandi says the camera operator and sound guy who filmed her assault later apologised for filming and not stepping in to help her.
Racial discrimination
Season one contestant Ebony Haith reveals in the documentary how she was not only outed as a lesbian on national television but was degraded and left with three bald spots on her head after the dreaded makeover.
Ebony reflects on how Tyra outed her on camera, telling her, “We know you’re a lesbian. How do you feel about expressing that on national television?”
Fortunately, Ebony says she ended up being OK with them showing her relationship with her partner. But when the judges called her “old”, “harsh”, “aggressive and angry”, she was devastated.
“My heart was breaking, as I’m on this national show, thinking the world would be proud of me,” she says.
Tyra further piled on when she was eliminated, telling her she “had a chip on her shoulder” and that she was “difficult to work with”.
Degrading photo shoots
During the show’s run, countless photo shoot concepts were called out for being on the nose.
From the girl forced to pose in a coffin after learning just moments earlier that her friend had died, to a shoot with real homeless people and being covered in writing depicting the most heinous names they’ve been called, the shoots got wilder and wilder.
Season eight contestant Dionne Walters reflects on the trauma of having to pose as a dead body in a crime-scene-themed set-up. The concept hit particularly close to home for Dionne, whose own mother had been shot and was left paralysed.
“I thought it was a coincidence at the time. But I don’t think it was,” she says, acknowledging that this information had all been in her application.
In hindsight, executive producer Ken Mok admits the shoot was a mistake. “You were an idiot,” he tells himself.
And who could forget the shoots involving contestants ‘swapping races’ in seasons four and 13?
While she was all for it at the time, Tyra now admits it’s an “issue”. “Looking at the show now, through the 20/20 lens – it’s an issue and I understand 100 per cent why,” she says.
Tyra’s epic meltdown!
Whether you’ve ever watched the show or not, chances are you’ve seen Tyra’s epic “I was rooting for you!” meltdown meme.
Tiffany Richardson was the contestant who felt the wrath of the host after being eliminated in season four. After bombing out in a presenting challenge, Tiffany failed to live up to Tyra’s expectations. And the host didn’t hold back in saying how she really felt.
“When my mother yells like this, it’s because she loves me. I was rooting for you! We were all rooting for you!” Tyra screamed, to everyone’s shock.
“Tyra really scared all of us,” admits photographer and judge Nigel Barker. “We literally jumped out of our seats, ‘What is happening right now?!’”
Reflecting on her outburst in the documentary, Tyra admits she “went too far”. “You know, I just lost it,” she says. “It was probably bigger than her.
“I think all that was in that moment. That’s some Black girl stuff that goes real deep inside of me. But I knew I went too far.”
Eating disorders ran rife
Behind the scenes of the show – and indeed often on camera, too – contestants were fat shamed and encouraged to slim down.
Season four contestant Keenyah Hill was regularly the butt of the joke due to her weight. She was cast as Gluttony in a Seven Deadly Sins challenge, before being dressed as an elephant while on a shoot in South Africa.
Tyra warned her, “If you don’t fit the clothes, you don’t work,” as guest judge Janice Dickinson reprimanded her, “Keenyah needs to lose weight. Keenyah needs to lose weight. Keenyah needs to lose weight.”
Giselle Samson, who appeared in season one, says negative comments about her “wide ass” have “stayed with me forever”.
Judges thrown by the wayside
In 2012, amid a ratings slump, judges Nigel Barker, J “Mr J” Manuel and J “Miss J” Alexander were let go.
Before they had a chance to share their joint press release, their firing was leaked to Page Six – who said it was Tyra’s doing. The trio felt betrayed. “I was the spine of the show,” says Miss J.
Tyra insists it wasn’t her decision. “I cried myself to sleep that night,” she says. “Bosses have bosses. And the big boss was very clear – there were no sacred cows.”
Still, the trio’s relationship with Tyra all but disintegrated.
J reveals for the first time in the documentary that he suffered a stroke in December 2022. “I spent five weeks in a coma,” he says. “I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t talk.”
While Nigel and Mr J have remained close with Miss J – the trio reunited for the first time during the doco – even visiting him in hospital, Tyra is still yet to visit him.
“No, not yet,” he says. “Not yet.”
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