Most Controversial Moments From The America's Next Top Model Docuseries
“Tyra wants to challenge the fashion industry’s ideals around what is beauty but is also still upholding ideologies and attitudes that oppressed her.” - Zakiya Gibbons, journalist
**Trigger Warning - Sexual Abuse and Gun Violence*
As a millennial woman, growing up I lived and breathed ‘America’s Next Top Model.’ Once my parents got AUSSTAR, I would spend every waking second perusing through Fox8. It had the best shows - ‘The Simpsons,’ ‘Pretty Little Liars,’ ‘Vampire Diaries,’ ‘Gossip Girl’ and of course, ‘America’s Next Top Model.’ While the show brought me immense joy as a kid all the way up into my teen years, it did however coincide with my disordered eating days. It’s no surprise a show that shamed fatness and celebrated extreme thinness influenced my body dysmorphia.
Considering my toxic love/hatred for the show, I leapt at the opportunity to watch Netflix’s ‘Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.’ Despite the online rumours, the three part docuseries wasn’t produced by Tyra Banks herself (thankfully). It was created by Everwonder Studio and Wise Child Studios - both have zero connections to Ms Banks. While this particular docuseries did cover many controversies, three episodes just wasn’t enough, that barely covered the surface.
Ken Mok Said Having Models “Throw Up” On TV Was Always The “Best News”
As someone that binged watched almost every season of ‘America’s Next Top Model,’ I wasn’t surprised to see the docuseries talk about contestants getting sick while filming. However after seeing a compilation of clips of girls getting sick, fainting, and even needing medics, as a teen it never occurred to me just how bad it was on set.
“The girls were awarded and applauded for putting their health on the back burner,” said journalist Zakiya Gibbons, “a girl inevitably gets very sick and the show just milks it for TV drama, the cameras were always rolling, the models are very unfed and they’re overworked.”
Executive producer Ken Mok reiterated this notion during an old interview with ‘The Inner View’ show, telling the interviewer he was glad to see the contestants “throw up” and “need IVs.” He said it was always the “best news.”
The Cheating Scandal From Cycle 2 Was Much Darker Than We Were Led To Believe
In Cycle 2, then-19 year old contestant Shandi Sullivan became a national news story after the show framed her sexual assault as a cheating scandal. They even dubbed the episode, ‘The Girl Who Cheated.’
“I just remember little bits and pieces,” said Sullivan, “I was blacked out for a lot of it, I didn’t even feel sex happening, I just knew it was happening…. even thinking about it now makes me want to cry, and I mean, it’s twenty years later.”
The devastating ordeal continued for Sullivan long after the assault. She was filmed sobbing to her boyfriend on the phone. She was filmed asking the man that raped her if he “used protection” and had any STDs. The following day Tyra Banks schooled her about the pain of being cheated on. Years later Banks even brought Sullivan onto her talk show for an ANTM reunion and showed her the assault footage.
“I literally told [her] behind the scenes I don’t want to see it, don’t show it,” said Sullivan, “[she] didn’t respect that at all.”
In the docuseries, executive producer Tyra Banks showed zero responsibility for what happened to Sullivan and claimed the production side of things was “not her territory.”
“I’m not the head of story that’s Ken Mok,” said Banks, “but I did become a master editor, it’s important for people to know that we didn’t put everything on TV.”
Executive producer Ken Mok claimed they “scaled back” the footage showing Sullivan’s sexual assault, but named it “one of the most memorable moments of Top Model.” He said they treated the show like a “documentary” and told the girls the cameras will be covering “the good, the bad, and everything in between.”
The Photoshoots Were Somehow More Problematic And Awful Than We Remember
Like all TV shows, there’s always pressure from the network to not only maintain viewership but continue to grow the show. This type of pressure is something all show creators face. ‘America’s Next Top Model’ executive producers Tyra Banks and Ken Mok saw this as an opportunity to push the limits of their contestants. As shown in the docuseries, contestants faced the strangest photoshoot challenges. They posed with animal carcasses, bejewelled cockroaches, wild pigeons, snakes and spiders. But more often than not, the producers took things too far.
As shown in ‘Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model,’ in Cycle 8 contestants had to be crime scene victims.
Contestant Dionne Walters said it was no coincidence she was chosen to be the model shot with gun considering the producers knew about her family’s history to gun violence.
“They knew about it from the application process,” said Walters, “but they still chose to have me do this particular photoshoot.”
Executive producer Ken Mok said he takes full responsibility for the crime scene victims photoshoot, saying “it was a mistake.”
“I look back now and I think it was a celebration of violence,” said Mok, “it was crazy, that one I look back on [and think] you were an idiot.”
And not once, but TWICE, contestants were put in Blackface for a photoshoot.
America’s Next Top Model mentor Jay Manuel said he found the race-swapping shoot “most difficult,” especially considering his parents grew up in South Africa during the apartheid. He even asked to be excused from the shoot but said that was when his role started to show its “limitations.”
Tyra Banks said at the time she didn’t find the photoshoot theme “controversial” and thought it was a great way to show the world Black and Brown people were beautiful.
“Looking at the show now through 20/20 lens, it’s an issue and I 100% understand why,” said Tyra Banks, “you guys were demanding it, the viewers wanted more and more and more, I do feel like I can feel and taste what people want to see.”
Two Contestants Were Forced To Undergo Dental Procedures On The Show
Cycle 6 winner Danielle ‘Dani’ Evans was basically forced to get her front teeth gap closed. She was told she would never get a CoverGirl contract with a gap in her mouth. They even said if she didn’t get the gap closed, she would be risking her spot on the show.
“I played the game and got my gap closed,” said Evans, “it was my life and it was toyed with.”
The docuseries noted the irony in this matter considering that only a few seasons later, another contestant was told to get her front gap teeth surgically widened.
Tyra Banks claimed she’s already apologised to Evan and that at the time she was “between a rock and hard place.”
Joanie Sprague from Cycle 6 had one of the most devastating makeovers. She had multiple teeth removed and several shaved down.
“I was young and kind of just along for the ride but I had to sign a seperate release [form] then and there,” said Sprague, “there were many orthodontic problems that were never fixed, I’ve still got a crazy bite issue, those issues will never be resolved, it was f*cked up.”
Tyra Banks Was The Biggest Hypocrite When It Came To Fat Shaming
As journalist Zakiya Gibbons perfectly put it, Tyra Banks claimed she wanted to challenge “the fashion industry’s ideals around what is beauty” yet on the show she continued to “uphold ideologies and attitudes that oppressed her.”
“Tyra has also been criticised for her body, for her weight, for her body type, being curvy,” said Gibbons in the Reality Check docuseries, “and yet she’s pepetruating this same message onto these women and fat-shaming them.”
Cycle 4 contestant Keenyah Hill was consistently picked apart by Tyra Banks and the judges for having a curvy body. Whenever she was having a meal, the camera would hone in on her eating. Whenever she was wearing little clothing, the camera would zoom in on her belly. It also was no coincidence she was both the ‘gluttony’ model during the Seven Deadly Sins photoshoot, and the ‘elephant’ during the exotic animal shoot.
Cycle 10 winner Whitney Thompson did make history as the first plus size contestant to win America’s Next Top Model, however, she too struggled with the show’s anti-fat bias. Every week during the photoshoots, the stylists and producers failed to have clothes that fit Thompson.
“I would go to set and they would have nothing that would fit me, and they would have to cut open the back and clamp it,” said Thompson, “it just makes you feel like shit to not be the right size. It was just demeaning… they could easily have gotten clothes that were my size.”
Tyra Banks yet again showed zero remorse for the show’s fatphobia, claiming “back then the beauty standards were so narrow, that’s the world that we lived in.”