*A new Netflix docuseries is pulling back the curtain on one of reality television’s most iconic franchises, and what former contestants and judges have to say is difficult to ignore. “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model” is a three-part series directed by Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan that revisits the show’s complicated legacy through firsthand accounts from those who lived it.
The long-running competition series, which Tyra Banks created alongside developers Ken Mok and Kenya Barris, spanned 24 cycles from 2003 through 2016 and attracted a worldwide viewership exceeding 100 million at its height. While the show earned recognition for championing models who defied the industry’s traditionally rigid beauty standards, the docuseries reveals a pattern of harmful behavior behind the scenes.
Former contestants recount unsettling experiences throughout the series, NPR reports. Keenyah Hill from Cycle 4 says she was dismissed by producers, including Banks, after speaking up about inappropriate conduct from a male model during a photoshoot. Cycle 6 winner Dani Evans recalls being pressured by Banks to close her signature tooth gap, only for a white contestant to be encouraged to widen theirs in a later season.
Shandi Sullivan from Cycle 2 describes the trauma of producers continuing to film after she lost consciousness during a night of heavy drinking and later found herself in bed with a male model she had no real connection to.
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“I remember him on top of me. I was blacked out. No one did anything to stop it. And it all got filmed, all of it,” Sullivan said of the sexual assault. “I was hammered. I think I had two bottles of wine by myself. I just remember, like, little bits and pieces. He threw me in the shower and then just sitting in the shower. And then we’re in the bed. 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 passed out,” she added.
Former panelists J. Alexander, Jay Manuel, and Nigel Barker, all of whom were eventually fired from the show and had contentious splits with Banks, serve as consultants on the project and offer pointed criticism of how things operated off camera.
Banks appears in the docuseries but does not hold a producer credit on the project, giving the directors greater freedom to contrast her explanations with the perspectives of those who felt harmed.
The former model previously acknowledged some of the show’s missteps in 2020, tweeting, “Looking back, those were some really off choices.”
“Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model” is now streaming on Netflix.
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