November 18, 2025 • 61 mins
No matter who won, Tyra Banks was always the real star of ANTM. But was she a fairy godmother, a villain, or both? On this final episode, we explore Tyra’s on-camera persona and off-camera legacy. We hear from models who went through the ANTM machine, and find out what they think they’re owed.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
For the last episode, I want to share maybe the
best story I heard from the A and TM models
Stuff magazine, that's my dream to be on the Congress.
The story came from Gazel Sampson, the model you've been
hearing from who competed on Cycle one. She thought being
on A and TM was gonna be her big break again.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
That cool Zelle.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
She is so beautifully present the whole time.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
On Cycle one, the contestants did a sexy swimwear photoshoot.
The photos were featured in a men's magazine called Stuff.
It's no longer in print. The pictures were accompanied by
a little Q and A from each of the models.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
I think one of the questions was, what was the
craziest thing you ever die?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Gazelle was only eighteen. She hadn't done much, but there
was one time she and a friend did something a
little crazy to try to meet their favorite musician.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
I convinced my best friend to drive us to Santa
As Santa Barbara area, where Michael Jackson lived, and we
were going to like just knock on the gates of
Neverland and just be greeted and walk in there and
meet Michael Jackson, or.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
At least that's what they hoped would happen. This was
back in two thousand and three, when Michael Jackson was
arguably the most famous person on the planet. So when
they arrived at the gates of the Neverland Ranch, his
sprawling twenty seven hundred acre theme park slash home, things
didn't quite pan out the way Jazelle and her friend planned.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
When we got there, obviously, they're like, you need to
turn around and go home.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
We spoke to the speaker box.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
And it was a three hour drive and then three
hours back, so it was a six hour round trip.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
So Gazelle unfortunately did not get to meet Michael Jackson
that day. Gazelle shared this story with the people at
Stuff magazine and they printed it beside her A and
TM photo. Gazelle was eliminated from the competition three episodes
after the shoot. She had to go back home to
her regular life. She was under an NDA and couldn't
even talk about being on A and TM yet. She
(02:06):
tried going back to college, but eventually had to drop
out because she missed too much of the semester. She
did at least still have her old job.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
I went back to Disney. Thank god, I had a
job there.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Still, Jazelle signed with a small modeling agency and waited
for the gigs to start rolling in. Then a few
months later, her agency got a vague phone call from
someone asking about Gazelle.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
I received a voicemail from them and they were like, hey,
give us a call back because.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
Something's weird with like Michael Jackson and you need a call.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
So I called my manager, her agent, and they're like, well,
some guy named Frank Tyson called here and they were
looking for you, and they asked for your phone number.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Frank was claiming to be Michael Jackson's assistant. Now, I
thought it was an agent's job to vet the calls
that came in about their clients, but Gazelle told me
she wasn't exactly signed to a premier agency. They did,
at least no not to give out Gazelle's number to
any rando claiming to be Michael Jackson's rep. Gazelle thought
it might be a prank, but she decided to call
(03:12):
this Frank Tyson back.
Speaker 5 (03:14):
I call the.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Number and Frank Tyson answers, but he was like, Hi, Hello,
this is Frank.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
If you're wondering why Gazelle is doing that voice it's because,
she says Frank Tyson weirdly sounded just like Michael Jackson.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
He was like, we're in a session right now, but
I'm going to give you a call back, and I
was like okay.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
So I was like ah, and I'm like freaking out.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
The phone's in my hand, my Nokia at the time,
and I'm sitting in biology class.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
This was before Gazelle dropped out. And I know Jazelle
said she left college because she was too far behind,
but I'm sure making phone calls in biology class didn't help.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
They called me back.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
I run outside and I take the call and he
was like, yeah, you know, so Michael read your article, girl,
I had butterflies in my stomach and I was like,
my god, what's happening now.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
I know this story might sound made up, but it
is true. Michael Jackson was trying to get in touch
with Gazelle, which is wild. Apparently Michael Jackson was a
fan of that Men's magazine stuff. He'd seen Jazelle's A
and TM photo and read her story about driving six
hours to try to meet him at his Neverland ranch.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
He was like, he feels bad that you didn't make
it to Neverland, So you'd like to invite you and
whoever you'd like to bring with you, You could bring
one person to come back up to Neverland.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
She couldn't believe it. Jazelle had wanted to meet Michael
Jackson since she was a kid. A few weeks later,
she got all dressed up and headed to the Neverland ranch.
She brought the friend she'd originally driven up there with.
They pulled into the driveway and talked to someone through
that little speaker box. But this time the gates opened.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
It was the real We went up there. We did
the ferris wheel, the rides, We fed Joe Rafts.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
We saw the tiger. He named his little baby tiger Thriller.
He had cousins there. We made friends with one of
the cousins.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
He was so nice.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
The cousin took us around in a golf cart and
he was like, I don't normally do this, but do
you want to see where he keeps all of his memorabilia?
And he has a cottage all the way back in
the hills, like you have to like drive up into
the hills. We saw the werewolf mask and Thriller jacket
on a statue. We saw all of his gloves, his belts,
his records, all of his awards.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
Oh my gosh, that was so freaking cool.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
But up to that point they hadn't seen the King
of pop himself.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
The cousin was like, so you haven't met my cousin
then yet, huh.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Then he drove them to meet Michael Jackson, who was
in a thief on his property working on an upcoming project.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
He was laying on the floor of his theater and
there was a bunch of people and all you could
see was like the back of his hair. He was
wearing his usual stuff, the white sox, the loafers, black pants.
When we were sitting in the theater seats and we could
hear him like he was like.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
Okay, we're gonna need to change this, and da da
da da da dad. Then he finished and he got.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Up and we met Michael Jackson actually came over to
meet Jazille and her friend.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
E really sinks Michael's short, but he was taller.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
He was like, he's like six feet and he was
very nice and gracious and he said, you.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Know, wonderful things about saving the world.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
For Jazille, just meeting Michael Jackson would have been enough
to make the trip worth it, But then he told
her he wanted her to be involved in his next project.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Michael was working on a sequel to thriller called Threatened,
off of his Invincible album.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
He needed someone to play the love interest in his
thriller video pequal and he thought Giselle was the perfect
fit after seeing her photos and stuff magazine. I mean,
can you imagine you're eighteen, fresh out of high school.
Then you get cast on a new reality show, and
because of your appearance on that show, Michael Jackson himself,
(07:19):
one of the biggest stars in the world, calls you
to invite you to his house and tells you he
wants you to start in his next video. All of
this happened in the span of a year. It was
the stub Jazell's dreams were made of. Now, if you
picked up your phone to google the Threatned music video,
you can put it back down. It doesn't exist. Before
(07:43):
they could shoot the video, new allegations came out against
Michael Jackson. In two thousand and three. He was charged
and later acquitted of child molestation. Soon after his acquittal,
he left the country and went to Bahrain. The video
shoot never happened. Giselle was bummed about the video, but
she thought surely if Michael Jackson, of all people had
(08:05):
noticed her, other big opportunities would start rolling in soon.
Those calls never came, Jazelle found out after A and
TU Michael Jackson was the only person checking for her.
By that point, Gazelle had given up a year of
her life and dropped out of school for A and Tom.
(08:26):
But the show wasn't going to be her big break
or the thing that launched her modeling career. It turned
out to be her curse.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
The show was no help to me whatsoever.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Besides the whole Michael Jackson stuff, there was no help.
I sent out postcards to agencies and casting directors to
watch America's next top model, like back in the day,
like mailers, nothing had got nothing.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Jazelle didn't know it because reality TV was still new,
but those agencies were never going to see her as
a model.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Back then, if you're a reality person, you were bottom
of the barrel, piece of crap.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
To a teenager, getting invited to Michael Jackson's house might
almost make being exploited for a TV show worth it.
But these days, when Gizelle looks back, she realizes the
only thing she got out of being on A and
TM was a cool story to tell the podcast host
and a lifetime of trauma. Meanwhile, Tyra Banks built a
(09:32):
multi million dollar industry, and she did it in part
by exploiting the dreams of young women like Gazelle. The
show aired in one hundred and seventy countries. Reruns are
still airing to this day. Franchises around the world are
still being produced, and Tyra's making money on all of it. Now.
(09:53):
Gizelle and a lot of other models I spoke to
said they want to reckoning.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
This is unjust. We should be given some sort of compensation.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
We want to be on some.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Welcome to the Curse of America's Next Top Model. I'm
Bridget Armstrong. And the years since A and TM aired,
the contestants have grown up, so have we, and we
all see the show in Tyra Banks in a different light.
(10:30):
The contestants may not have become top models, but their
lives went on. They chased new dreams and started families.
But even though they moved on, there's still a part
of them that can't just get over it. They accepted
that not everyone was going to make it big. But
what they can't accept is how they were treated by
(10:51):
A and TM. Some of them say the show took
advantage of their youth, naivete and trauma. Some say the
show caused new trauma and they still carry those scars
to this day. And A and TM's second wind on
streaming services opened up new wounds. I'm sure seeing Tyra
(11:13):
Banks become even more rich and famous didn't help either.
Contestants like Giselle look at the millions of dollars they
made for Tyra Kenmock and the network, and they want compensation.
Others want accountability, and others just want an apology from Tyra.
But does Tyra Banks owe them anything at all? The
(11:35):
answer to that question depends on how you see Tyra's
role in all of this. Was Tyra the fashion industry
fairy godmother she tried to portray on A and TM?
Was she the ultimate reality TV villain? Or was she
just another albeit bigger cog in the reality TV machine.
(11:55):
Then there's a matter of us, the audience, the people
who watch this show show season after season. Do we
have any faults? Are we complicit? On this last episode
of the Curse of America's Next Top Model. We're going
to explore A and TM's legacy from the model's perspective
and from ours. We've been talking all season about the
(12:19):
dubious things that happened behind the scenes on A and TM.
We've looked at the manipulation, exploitation, and humiliation that took
place to achieve the drama and storyline and the effect
it had on the contestants. But a lot of that
conversation has been framed as what A and TM as
an entity did or what producers did. And it's true
(12:40):
A and TM was a big production. Tyra wasn't the
only one in charge. She was of course there for
most of it and participated in a lot of it,
but she has some plausible deniability for a lot of
the stuff we've talked about. That's why I want to
look at a part of the show Tyra took full
credit for.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Okay, So every cycle of America's Next Top Model, a
line of girls up, line all the pictures up, and
I go one by one and try to decide what
would be the best makeover to make them edgy, take
them you know.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
Over the edge.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
I'm talking about the A and TM makeovers, or as
they eventually became known as the tieovers as in Tyra's Makeovers.
Those episodes are my favorite and inevitably the most dramatic.
Every season, Tyra would take some poor, unsuspecting pageant girl
with big, long hair and give her a pixie cut
that would induce a full on meltdown. It was truly
(13:37):
the best thing on television. Half of the time, those
girls were forced to do a big chop and eliminated
soon after. A handful were eliminated the same day. Sometimes
at the salon, there are some who say the lace
front beard she gave a male contestant on cycle twenty
one is enough to put her in the Villain Hall
of Fame. I didn't even know they made fake beards
(13:58):
until I saw that episode. But the makeovers weren't always
just about hair. On cycle six, Tyra famously encouraged that
season's winner, Danny Evans to get the gap and her
teeth closed.
Speaker 6 (14:12):
So, Danielle, you went to the dentist, but she refused
to have your gap closed.
Speaker 7 (14:17):
Do you really think he can have a covergo contract
with the gap in your mouth?
Speaker 8 (14:20):
Yes?
Speaker 9 (14:20):
Why not?
Speaker 5 (14:21):
This is all people say? Easury's beautiful cover girl. It's
not marketable.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Yeah, just a little bit of okay, but I don't
want to completely clothing.
Speaker 10 (14:29):
Well, I guess she just left the gap wide open
for another girl, baby.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Thank god she said no. In the years since, Danny
said she refused to get her gap closed because she
felt like Tyra and the producers were trying to pressure
her for a TV moment. In twenty twenty, after getting
some backlash about her comments, Tyra tweeted that she agreed
what she said about Danny's gap was insensitive and that
her choices were off. But on cycle fifteen, Tyra actually
(14:59):
got another girl, Chelsea Hursley, to have her gap widened.
Why Tyra thought it was marketable for Chelsea and not Danny,
I don't know.
Speaker 11 (15:09):
My makeover started a lot earlier than everybody else's.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
I had to get my gap on my teeth whitened,
so I went to the dentists.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
And he actually shaved off each tooth.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Of course, I.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
Will do anything that she thinks looks good.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
They shaved off parts of her teeth. Hair grows back,
but teeth don't. As the seasons went on, it became
clear Tyra chose some of these makeovers just to get
a reaction from the models, and she knew a lot
of them would do anything she said. But while trying
to make Tyra happy, some of the models got hurt.
(15:47):
Freelance journalist Kate Taylor talked to contestants who said they
were hospitalized because of the makeovers they received on Top Model.
Speaker 5 (15:56):
People got actually hurt.
Speaker 7 (15:58):
People will had to go to the hospital for burns,
people had permanent hair loss that took years and years
to recover from. In season sixteen, it's totally off camera,
but Mikayla, she has to go to the emergency room
because she develops the severe rash and she just soars
on her head that just are bleeding. It's a medical emergency.
(16:18):
And that is just totally not mentioned on the show
because it doesn't fit the narrative of you need to
trust Tyra's vision, if you trust Hira, then this is
going to work out.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
On season twelve, though, with a black contestant name Amina Allende,
who wore her hair natural, she was pressured into getting
it chemically straightened with a relaxer. Amina didn't want to
use a relaxer, and she had valid reasons she shared
with the producers and the silists, but she told Kate
they didn't care.
Speaker 7 (16:47):
In season twelve, she basically went in and was like,
I don't use relaxers. It does not work for me.
Like I'm worried if you use this, this is going
to create scabs. I'm going to get burrs. But the
person who was doing the makeover told her, this is
what Tyra wants. What Tyra wants, Tyra gets in this situation.
(17:08):
This is something where she knew she kept pushing back,
like she'd watch the show. She knew she was going
to get eliminated and told she had a bad attitude.
So she bit her tongue and she feels her scalp
burning when she eventually removes her extensions. After completing the season,
she has a two inch bald spot and it took
her three years to grow her hair bag.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
The contestants Kay talked to said they felt powerless in
these situations.
Speaker 7 (17:37):
You're eighteen years old, You've signed this contract. Everyone on
production is saying we can't push back against Tyra. You're
not in a position where you can really advocate for yourself.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Tyra wanted to see how far these contestants would go
to impress her. She was willing to literally cause them
injury to carry out her almighty vision. These tie over
seemed to be less about fashion and more about humiliation.
One of the most disturbing stories I heard about an
(18:08):
A and TM makeover came from Gina Turner, the runner
up on Cycle twenty four. Gina's kind of known for
her bald head, but how that haircut came about puts
a point in the villain column for Tyra. Gina has alopecia.
It's something she's battled since she was a kid. Before
coming on A and TM, Gina wore wigs all the time.
(18:30):
She told me if she had to go outside to
the mailbox, she will put a wig on. She thought
there was a possibility A and TM would want to
take her wig off, but she was relieved when Tyra
revealed what her makeover would be on Genas season, Tyra
had the model's watch a video before going to the salon,
where if she explained the new look each one of
them would be getting. Here's what Gina says.
Speaker 12 (18:52):
She was told, we're gonna give you your natural hair.
We're gonna give you your hair back from childhood as was
she told me, and I was like, if there's anyone
that can do it. I have seen so many different
makeovers and Tyra with all kinds of different hair and
wigs and everything else. I was like, if there's anyone
(19:13):
who can give me back my red gold blonde crazy
Lion Maine mixed girl hair and make it look real.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
It's this show.
Speaker 12 (19:22):
They have the money to do it, so I got
really excited about that.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
At the time, Gina was wearing a long, straight black wig.
She thought antm was going to make her a wig
that would look like her natural hair if she didn't
have alopecia. I will say in the edit that made
it to the show, Tyra doesn't say any of that.
All she says is Gina's wig is coming off.
Speaker 12 (19:47):
There's my perspective and the truth, and then there's what
happened on reality TV.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Gina went to the salon thinking her wig was coming
off and being replaced with another wig, but that is
not what happened. Rather than replacing her old wig with
a new one, she was told they were cutting her
hair completely bald. That was her makeover. She felt blindsided.
Speaker 5 (20:12):
Can we take your wig off now? Because I don't
even know what's under off?
Speaker 13 (20:17):
You I'm so gray and this world that's going to
look at you and say, if she can.
Speaker 14 (20:23):
Do it, I can do it.
Speaker 13 (20:24):
You just don't understand for me how courageous and how
powerful what you're doing is.
Speaker 15 (20:31):
It's scary.
Speaker 14 (20:32):
It's okay, you.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
Ready, We're going to start the process.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I wasn't had her doing as though. That's celebrity silast
law Roach talking to Gina in that clip. He was
a judge on Gina's season. Gina's wig was removed on
camera while she was in tears. Some of her closest
friends had never seen her take her wig off. Now
(20:58):
she was in a room full of cameras and her
patchy wisps of hair were exposed for everyone to see.
Speaker 12 (21:05):
I just kind of froze, but I remember everyone else
going because they all saw in the house that they
didn't say that they were shaving my head. I stopped
talking and then I started crying because I was angry.
Most people who know me would look at that and
be like, oh, she's fucking pissed. Like she's not crying
about the situation. She's not sad, she's not poor, pitiful
meeting herself. Like she's pissed, And I was mad. I
(21:28):
was mad that they sat there and did that. I
was mad that they couldn't tell me the truth, that
they couldn't, like, just tell me that you're gonna shave
my head, because I also had never had my head shaved.
That was still going to give you the same emotional response.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
Maybe even better.
Speaker 12 (21:40):
But here you guys are trying to like outthink me
and outsmart me in my own emotions.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Gina told me when she was a kid, she was
picked on a lot for having alopecia A and TM
taking her wig off on camera brought back all of
those memories. Plus she got really upset because they aimed
her haircut as an empowerment story, even though she had
no power in that situation. She says, the producers and
(22:09):
judges kept telling.
Speaker 12 (22:10):
Her, you don't have any clue how courageous what you're
doing is. But in reality, I'm not doing something courageous.
You guys are sitting here manipulating a girl who's actually
gone through this, and then sitting here and preaching this
now to a whole audience. Who's gonna think that girl
sat there and did it.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
I can too.
Speaker 12 (22:30):
No, No, that is not the narrative that I'm trying
to project society also conditions us as women to think
a certain way.
Speaker 5 (22:37):
About our hair.
Speaker 12 (22:38):
My job is not to sit here and suffer so
that you guys can manipulate an entire audience that, now, girl,
you can take your.
Speaker 5 (22:45):
Wig off and do it too, because I did it.
I didn't want to do it like that.
Speaker 12 (22:48):
You guys actually changed that narrative for me.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
Why not put it in my hands for it to be.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Truthful, because putting it in Gina's hands wouldn't get the
breakdown and the tears, and him wanted to add insult
to injury. Gina says the wig they promised her was
there in the salon right behind her, and she was
getting her hair shaved off. Gina eventually embraced the bald look.
(23:16):
These days, she goes back and forth between Wiggs and
her bald head, but she says she resents a ANDTM
for exploiting her trauma and forcing her to have a
moment she wasn't ready for. Tyra acknowledged her comments about
Danny Evans's gap, but she never apologized to Gina or
any of the other girls who say they were traumatized
(23:37):
by their makeovers. After the break we'll talk more about
Tyra's so called apologies. And while the ANTM contestants I
spoke with say it isn't enough, there's another moment from
(23:58):
A and TM I want to revisit. It's one of
those moments we can't let Tyra off the hook for.
And it happened to cycle for a contestant, Kenya Hill.
Speaker 13 (24:07):
I needed to feel carefree and I need you to
stop posing for the camera, kind of.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
Get into it.
Speaker 16 (24:14):
And I hear Berrcini moaning, Uh, I feel him like
breathing on me, touching me, and it's not comfortable at all.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
On Cycle four, during the international trip to South Africa,
the models did a shoot for Caress body wash. The
contestants had to dance with three male models, but one
of those models, his name was Bertini, took it too
far with Kenya. He was touching her, grabbing her, grunting
and moaning. Kinga told me she already went into the
(24:43):
shoot uncomfortable because Bertini tried to hit on her before
they started shooting. But when he crossed the line during
the shoot, Kingya decided to say something.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
Stop, what's the issue? I know it's not about feeling comfortable.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
What moaning.
Speaker 16 (25:00):
It's just threw me off. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I
don't feel bad about stopping the shoot at all. Bercini
has cross that professional online and I feel extremely uncomfortable.
Speaker 13 (25:10):
We're here in a professional situation and they're like fifty
of us.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
In right, right, we're going with the flood.
Speaker 5 (25:19):
There's a Bertini guy. He didn't catch the hint. He
kept doing it.
Speaker 13 (25:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, So this is for the guys.
Let's try and be interested without literally grabbing her button.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
In the clip, you hear Jay Manual acknowledge that Kenya
was being groped, but other than Kenya saying stop, they
didn't actually stop the shoot or remove Bertini from the set.
And Kinga told me it was way worse than what
we saw on the show.
Speaker 17 (25:48):
This dude is grabbing me and moaning, and he's got
on a loincloth over his member and he's getting an
erection like he is really overly enjoying this.
Speaker 5 (25:59):
Yeah, it was just an awful moment.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Kenya completed the shoot and was later forced to sit
through an awkward, tense dinner with the other contestants and
the male models. Bertini was there at the panel. The
judges said Kenya's photo was good, but not great. Kenya
told them what happened with the male model.
Speaker 16 (26:22):
The thing is that this mail model Bertini, he was
flirting with me, he was grinding on me.
Speaker 5 (26:28):
I felt like he really crossed the line. That has
to be a way that you can handle it. You know,
you have to be able to be in control, like.
Speaker 15 (26:33):
With your feminine whiles, like boy, you besta back up
before I knock you out side the head, but you
do it in a fun way where he.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
Knows to back the heck up.
Speaker 6 (26:41):
But it doesn't really put static in the air because
it makes you uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Tyra told Kenya, speaking of advocating for herself and bringing
the situation to the attention of others, you know, handling
it the right way was actually wrong. Tyra wanted her
to use her quote feminine wiles. Kenya was hurt and
surprised by Tyra's reaction because she said when she called
(27:07):
Brittany out, she thought she was channeling Tira.
Speaker 17 (27:11):
I'm thinking of what would Tyra do in this instance.
And there had been other moments earlier in the show
where Tira was trying to teach us about how to
make sure we're not signing back contracts, make sure we
are smart business women. She was like empowering us the
entire show, and so I thought Tyra would probably professionally
(27:36):
and politely stop the shoot and just express her feelings
that she's a little uncomfortable.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
That's what I genuinely thought.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
When Tyra told Kenya she handled the situation poorly, she
didn't know what to say, so she kind of just
took the advice. But watching it back today, as a
person who coaches young models, Kingya knows Tyra was wrong
and she wishes she would have pushed back.
Speaker 17 (28:00):
And it's actually kind of tough to watch back because
I feel so bad for myself at that time. I
should have really stood on business at panel and been like,
I can't believe that you guys are not agreeing with
me on speaking up and standing up for myself.
Speaker 11 (28:18):
I just feel it was handled very poorly.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
The contestants on A and TM trusted Tyra. They were
young and looked up to her. Some even idolized Tyra.
Tyra presented herself as a big sister figure, a mentor
who was guiding them through what it took to be
a model. It was part of the appeal of A
and TM. But when I watch moments like this, it
makes me realize how insidious that was. Tyra's advice to
(28:50):
a teenager who was being sexually harassed on set was
to be cute and flirty while somehow also being firm.
Think about how dangerous that it is in an industry
that's known to prey on young women. Think about how
dangerous that advice is for the show's mostly young woman audience.
But moments like these where Tyra says something alarming are
(29:13):
common on A and TM. It's why she has such
a vocal backlash today. Back in February, Tyra was honored
with the first ever Luminary Spotlight Award from Essence. The
award was given to Tyra because of her legacy and fashion,
film and television. Tyra gave a heartfelt acceptance speech. You
heard a few clips a bit on this podcast. She
(29:36):
started by thanking her mom. Then she talked about her
early years in Paris when she wanted to give up
on fashion. Then tyraturned to her A and TM legacy.
Speaker 6 (29:45):
Over twenty years ago, I created a television show called
America's Next Top Model, and I fought and you guys
have no idea how hard we fought to bring the
diversity to that television show at a time where it
didn't exist, but we made it happen.
Speaker 5 (30:07):
Did we get it right? Hell no, I said some
dumb shit, But.
Speaker 6 (30:12):
I refuse to have my legacy be about some stuff
linked together on the Internet when there were twenty four
cycles of changing the world.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
I found Tyras's comments about her ANTM legacy to be odd.
She acknowledged that she'd done something wrong, but she belittled
the criticism she received, as if the backlash agets her
is just a few Internet trolls. Clips of this speech
started going viral around the time I started interviewing A
ANDTM contestants for this podcast, so I asked a bunch
(30:53):
of them what they thought about Tyra's comments. Jessline Gonzalez,
the winner of Cycle eight, who was in an abusive
a life relationship and went to therapy at ANTM suggestion,
was the most kind.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
It was refreshing to hear her talk about the show.
You know, it's been so long since I've heard from mother.
You know, that's the mother to us of the show,
and she hit it right on the nail as to
what the show represented and what she was doing with
the show. She's gotten a lot of backlash, and I
(31:25):
think she's a human being. She's deeming with those issues
on her own. We don't know how. It is not
our job to know how, and it is not our
job to help her heal. That is on her. What
she feels is right and what she feels as wrong
is all on her.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
The other models I asked, weren't so forgiving Heresychle for
is Uvi Gomez, She's like, yeah.
Speaker 18 (31:48):
Did I see a lot of messed up things? Sure,
but she was kind of deflecting, like not wanting to
own up to, you know, the very no good things
that she did. Like it was almost like, but I
did all this really good stuff, so why are you
guys focusing on the bad stuff. It's like, nah, take accountability.
(32:11):
We basically sold our souls and they got rich.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
This is what Giselle Sampson had to say about Tyra's statements.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
While you're actually doubling down on the things you've done
and said to everyone, Wow, that's that's pretty fierce, I guess.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
But the answer that really captured what felt so off
about Tyra's comments came from Cycle nine Sarah Hartshorn, Sarah
the one who just released the book about her time
on A and t M.
Speaker 19 (32:46):
What Tyra said is fair and true. She has a big, huge,
complex legacy, and I understand that she would not want
that to get reduced to clips on the internet. I
think what is also true is that the people in
those clips who were experiencing those things at that time
(33:08):
are real people, and those were real experiences. What she
is reducing to clips on the internet are things that
people went through.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
What Tyra is reducing to a few clips on the
internet is a pattern of manipulation, exploitation, and humiliation, and
Tira was at the center of all of it. Don't
get me wrong. There are contestants who say they had
good experiences on ANTM Jaslene Gonzalez is one of them.
(33:40):
Cycle three winner Eva Marcel has defended Tyra publicly more
than once. There are even contestants who went on to
have big careers in entertainment after the show. But what
about the contestants who feel like they didn't get anything
out of it but trauma did their desire for fame
or a modeling career. Give A ANDTM and tire the
right to treat them the way they did. Dazl Sampson
(34:05):
doesn't think so, and these days she wants to do
something about it.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
I think that's pretty fair that this needs to be
looked back at and that we should be given some
sort of compensation. Can I petition and put together all
the girls and say this is unjust.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
And let's make this right and get this in the courts.
This isn't about making it or not.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
We are a part of something that became history off
of our backs and to our detriment, and we were hurt,
and we were bullied and we suffered some psychological issues
from it.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
That's what we're talking about.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
We're not talking about whether we're famous or we made
this much money from doing this and that because of
the show.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
That's not what we're saying.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Farah Heart's horn again.
Speaker 19 (34:50):
I think people deserve to be paid for their work
and their time. Are not bitter that I didn't win.
I'm bitter that there were a lot of girls who
couldn't afford the mental health help that they needed after
the show.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Brittany Brower from Cycle four looks at all the money
Tyra and the network are still making by licensing the
show to streaming services. Then she looks at the hate
messages and embarrassment some of the contestants are still receiving
as a result, and thanks they're old a lot more.
Remember Brittany, who was white, was put in black face
(35:24):
on her cycle for the Got Milk shoot.
Speaker 11 (35:27):
I mean, you're putting your life out in the world.
Perfect example is me two thousand and five, the episode
Got Milk. It's real life, it's not a script, it's
not a fake. And you don't know when things are
going to come back and cancel you or something. And
it's hurtful, it's stressful. It's your real life, it's your
real reputation. And then they rerun your episodes over and
(35:49):
over and over and over again on Hulu, on Netflix
and everything else for the rest of your life. And
you know how much money you see, zilch nothing.
Speaker 20 (35:58):
I still be comments in people emailing me and me
on Instagram and TikTok all the time like they're showing
you are like, oh, I just watch your season. It
just it's such an unfair industry. They're making it all
the money still just laughing all the way to the bank,
and we don't get anything, like nothing like it's just gosh,
throw me one thousand dollars per year, I'll take it.
Speaker 11 (36:20):
We give me something like it's so insulting, Like we
do this stuff and we get nothing nothing.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Sharon Brown was a high school student when she got
sent home and barrassed on Cycle eleven. Remember Sharon says
she was made to look like a bigoted bully by
the producers. Now what she wants is for Tyra to
finally show up as that big sister that mentor the
one Tyra seemed to be on the show.
Speaker 21 (36:47):
I chose to be a part of America's Next Time All,
and I used and noted it to the most that
I can would it had been great to get compensated
or when things were sold to different networks, and enough
to have a playing your residuals that yes, But I
would love to see a beautiful conversation had with Tyra
and all of the other contestants on Top Model, either
(37:08):
in a private stit or filmed a recorded so we
can just talk. I would love to see there being
like more sisterhood and connection, even just her taking the
time just to reach out to some of us or
to offer any type of tips, a guide it even like, okay,
how can you use your platform now?
Speaker 1 (37:30):
But that big sister role Tyra played on A and
TM was just that a role. Here's former creative producer
Andrew Patterson.
Speaker 14 (37:40):
Tyra Banks played a character called Tarra Banks on Top Model.
She would walk out on judging, she would sit in
a chair. She wouldn't talk to the other judges, but
she would sit down focus because you know, that's just
her getting into character.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Several contestants told me about bizarre interactions with Tyra. When
the cameras were rolling. She was the warm, bubbly person
we knew from the show. But Uv Gomez told me
that when the director would yell cut.
Speaker 18 (38:07):
It was like she was vacant, like she was churning
it on for filming, like she wasn't there. That's how
I would explain her, explain like how I viewed her
on the show. Now, when I went on the Tyra Show,
completely different person like hugged us, gave us kisses, Oh
(38:29):
my gosh, so good.
Speaker 16 (38:30):
To see you.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
You look great, And I was like so confused.
Speaker 18 (38:34):
I was like, now you're acting like a normal human.
But on the show, it was there was like such
a disconnect.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Even though Some contestants, like UV, understand that Tyra was
playing a character, they still want the real Tyra Banks
to acknowledge what A and TM did. Cycle two winner
Ya Wanna Havelse and a lot of other contestants just
want an apology from Tyra.
Speaker 9 (39:00):
I think one of the things people are wanting from
Tyra is accountability and an apology instead of standing behind
the franchise. Where I think people are getting frustrated with
her continual response is that I know a lot of
the girls had probably gone through a lot of things
after the show or during the show, you know. I
(39:21):
think having more of an empathy instead of a combative
like no, no no, I did my best, and maybe
giving girls their names that have come up against her.
I had no idea that so and so had struggled
so much. I had no idea that I had made
that person feel that way. Putting a name behind somebody
helps make that person human.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
If Tyra wanted to at least seem like she was
atoning for the harm A and TM cost, you want
to think Tyra should make personal apologies.
Speaker 9 (39:54):
A lot of the girls felt they were just discarded.
They were just a prop for finance gain, for popularity
for network ratings, and I think when you can put
a name and you can listen and admit you know
what was done wrong and apologize, that's real growth.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Tyra has made public apologies, but they're usually couched in
her intention, like this time when she addressed the second
blackface challenge.
Speaker 17 (40:27):
I mean, we felt like our skins beautiful, let's paint
the world our color, and then we saw it.
Speaker 21 (40:32):
And we're like, oh no, this excuses other people to
do this in a negative way.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Or the time she's addressed the body shaming on the
show where she blamed it on it being a different time.
Speaker 6 (40:46):
Back in the day, nobody complained about it, but as
we all evolve twenty years later, people like what the hell?
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Or Tyra brings up her altruismic reason for creating A
and TM, you know, changing the fashion industry and expanding
the definition of beauty. Her apologies also seem to be
directed at the public at her audience, not to the
models who say they were harmed by the show, and
they're rarely specific in the way Yoana is suggesting. When
(41:17):
A ANDTM started over twenty years ago, I think Tyra's
intentions were in the right place. She wanted to showcase
diversity and beauty. She wanted to usher in a new
generation of models who wouldn't have to go through some
of the things she went through alone. I really think
she wanted to be that fashion fairy godmother, But somewhere
(41:38):
along the way, her purpose got lost and took a
backseat to her blind ambition. That blind ambition is what
made her body shame these young women, even though she
knew personally how painful that is. Her ambition is what
made her go along with dangerous and humiliating photoshoots. Her
ambition is what made her planned is asterist and embarrassing makeovers.
(42:02):
Her ambition pushed her to put young women in uncomfortable
situations and then blame them for not going along with it.
Her ambition is what allowed her to look the other
way when women who looked like her were being labeled
angry or divas. Her ambition is what drove her to
do this season after season for fifteen years. I think
(42:25):
her blind ambition is what's keeping her from taking real
accountability the way you want to suggest it, And there
are contestants who agree with me. Psycho seven's Eugena Washington
posted a video on social media, where she said kind
of the same thing.
Speaker 4 (42:42):
I think the fact that she refuses to apologize is
what's going to keep her failing.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
If Tyra really wanted to take a cant ability, she
would put as much effort into righting her wrongs as
she did into making A and TM. But instead she's
cashing in on her fame with her bizarre passion projects.
Speaker 15 (43:11):
I feel like I'm going crazy. I don't sleep these
ideas she just keep coming in my head. I'm talking
about hot ice cream innovation that took me over a
year to get right.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
I have a sneaking suspicion that Hot Mama ice Cream
aint gonna be as big as A ANDTM. It seems
like she's still surrounded by people who are afraid to
tell her no, and at this point she's unstoppable. Remember
that clip you heard on the first episode of this podcast.
Speaker 15 (43:43):
Now, I mean I always want more.
Speaker 16 (43:44):
I always want to do more.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I never like just stop and get satisfied with something.
So this interview was in nineteen ninety six, before Tyra
started A and TM, but she kept that same ambition.
It's what pushed her to do A and TM For
twenty four seasons and then after it was obvious that
it wasn't living up to her so called mission. But
unchecked ambition can be your downfall. I think Tyra's ambition
(44:10):
is keeping her from truly acknowledging what happened on ANTM
and her role in it. She doesn't want to tarnish
her legacy, but avoiding accountability is also the thing that's
ruining it. After the break, we'll explore A andtm's legacy
with one of the few people who's talked to more
(44:32):
contestants than me. I'm talking about superfan and content creator
Oliver Twigs. Around twenty twenty, A and TM had a
bit of a revival. People were looking for something nostalgic
(44:52):
to watch, something that took them back to simpler times.
Oliver TwixT was one of those people.
Speaker 10 (44:58):
So I started watching as as a jit as a
little boy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. My earliest memory of
Top Model has to be seeing Eva and ya Ya
in a finale because my female relatives would watch it.
But actually becoming a fan of it was birth out
(45:19):
of the marathons that used to run on VH one
every weekend. I would sit there in my room and
watch the cycles and the episodes back to back to
back to back to back, and I just became so
enthralled with the creativity of it all.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Oliver is an A and TM super fan. He's watched
every season and can rattle off winners and specific photo
shoots and runways like his ABC's. Oliver is also a
content creator, artist, and entertainer. Back in twenty twenty, he
was on a reality show called The TS Madison Experience.
The ep of that show, David Saint John had been
a producer on A ANDTM.
Speaker 10 (46:00):
Him and I on set in between scenes talking about
Top Model and I'm just running, I'm running down the cycles,
you know.
Speaker 5 (46:06):
I'm da da da da da da.
Speaker 10 (46:07):
He's like, oh my god, you really love this show.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
And David was still good friends with A and TM
judge j Manuel, and so.
Speaker 10 (46:15):
From there David connected me with j Manuel, where Jay
sent me his book that he did loosely inspired on
his time.
Speaker 5 (46:25):
On Top Model.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Jay was doing these lives in which he would revisit
old seasons and sometimes be joined by former A and
TM judges, contestants and super fans. Jay invited Oliver to
do an Instagram live with him about his book.
Speaker 10 (46:40):
So I'm all live Instagram with ja Manuel and I'm
asking him all these questions and the comments are like,
oh my god, who is this Oliver God.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Oliver got so many responses from that Instagram live he
thought he could keep it going and interview some of
the A and TM contestants he loved. Luckily, for Oliver,
it was COVID lockdown and everybody was bored in the
house and in the house board.
Speaker 10 (47:06):
So originally I started just dming people. I like, looked
them up on social media and I would DM them
and I was like, hey, do you want to be
interviewed by me? I used to do them on Instagram only,
but then once I started putting them on YouTube, that's
when it went to a whole another level of people
watching and viewing and chiming in and supporting and taking notice.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Oliver didn't set out to be the person A and
TM models came to when they wanted to tell never
before heard stories or talk about their trauma from the show.
He just wanted to have fun and gossip about his
favorite A and TM moments. But Oliver started doing these
interviews around the same time many of us realized A
and TM wasn't as wholesome as we remembered. His interviews
(47:51):
gave us the backstories on a lot of the disturbing
things we were revisiting, and even though he didn't mean to,
Oliver's in it views helped spark the A and TM reckoning.
Speaker 10 (48:03):
I'm genuinely just interested in fanning out for this hour,
two hours or three hours that I have this person
with me, you know, about my favorite show that I
absolutely love, And so my intentions were always just rooted
in wanting to hear them and hear what they had
to say, without no filter, without no judgment, allowing these
(48:23):
people to tell their story their way, whether I like it,
agree with it, believe it, whatever it is. And so
as people are talking, I'm seeing tears, I'm seeing mood changes,
I'm seeing people say I've never shared this before. I'm
hearing people use words such as this was so healing.
I appreciate this.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Oliver was one of A andtm's biggest fans. He knew
every word, but hearing about the dark side of the
show directly from the models forced him to think more
critically about Tyra Banks.
Speaker 10 (48:56):
She's a human too. She had never had no show
as big as ever in her life to base her
actions off of. But unfortunately, for Tira and people like Tyra,
when you get into that position of power, it does
come with responsibilities.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Tira is not only a superstar with a huge platform,
She's a black woman with a lot of power, and
black women in positions of power often face unfair criticism.
When I started this podcast, I was thinking a lot
about if the public criticism of Tyra is fair or
if she's being held to a different standard. I ask
(49:38):
film professor rockhal Gates what she thinks about this.
Speaker 22 (49:41):
Tyra Banks is in a very weird bind because I
think there's this way that, you know, like everyone wants
to make her uniquely accountable for everything that happened on
that show. And again, some of that makes sense because
it's her show, right and because she is the figurehead,
right and it's built.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
On her back.
Speaker 22 (50:00):
But I think there's a way where sometimes I think
the call for accountability feels a little dishonest to me,
because it's asking her to be accountable for an entire network,
for a production company, for decisions made by sponsors, by
cover girl, by magazines, by advertisers, And I think that
what we're seeing is sort of her refusal to be
(50:22):
scapegoaded for all of those decisions, even though that seems
to be what our society is constantly demanding of black women.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
When I talked to freelance reporter Bethany Butler, she brought
up something similar.
Speaker 8 (50:34):
I think it's a little unfair for people to say, like, well,
Tyra should have, you know, taken care of these big
personalities within the franchise. You know, you can't really say
that anymore than we could say Simon Cowell should have
done that or Donald Trump. Even it sounds hilarious right now,
(50:57):
but just the idea that like Tira would be almost
held accountable in a way that other non black, certainly
non black women host creators of franchises are.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
There's truth in what Bethany and Raquel are saying. Black
women are held to a different standard, and I do
think that's happening to Tyra. She shouldn't be the only
one held responsible for A and TM's failures. But I've
also talked to the people Top Model Hurt, many of
whom are black and brown women who are so young.
When they went on the show, they trusted Tyra, and
(51:37):
they were left feeling used after having those conversations. I
think Tyra deserves the smoke. It's just that so do
a lot of other people. Here's Oliver Twigs again.
Speaker 10 (51:52):
I feel like when you're in the game of people
as your currency, you do have to answer to you
to those expectations, especially when you are a black woman,
and black women are in the conversation. Now. Ultimately, to
be fair, does Tara have to No, you know, y'all
(52:14):
sign this paper. Y'all just signed it all the way.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
He's talking about Tyra's legal responsibility to the contestants based
on the A and TM contract.
Speaker 10 (52:23):
But I do believe you should try to answer to
those conversations. And I think the problem with Tyra is
she's never done that. She's never really directly answered questions
or a specific things. She's never really had this type
of moment, you know, with someone who's saying, well what
about this? What about this?
Speaker 5 (52:44):
And being truthful in that moment.
Speaker 10 (52:46):
You know, She's always done these blanket statements and not
saying that's not good enough or whatever. Only she and
her God can determine that. But I think when it
comes to the people, people just want to hear her
answer things directly.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
We started this podcast asking Perez Hilton why A and
TM was such a hit when it premiered twenty years ago.
They also asked him what he thinks the show in
Tyra's legacy is today.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
They made memorable television that had cultural impact and that's
hard to do. The show is awesome, like you also
have to celebrate what it got right, and that's, you know,
making good TV.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
And Pareses is a lot of that had to do
with Tyra Banks herself.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
The people that are talked about often most of them
want to be talked about and play the game. It's
a game, and Tyra played the game.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
Tyra and A and TM sold a fantasy, a fairy tale.
Oliver Twigs believed in it, but now he can't even
bring himself to watch the show.
Speaker 10 (54:01):
I do not watch the show anymore. I think for me,
the curtain has just been pulled back all the way
and the fantasy is now gone for me.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
That happened to me too. It's not that A and
TM isn't still entertaining, but I can't enjoy the show
because after hosting this podcast, I'm constantly questioning the reality
A and TM presents. Now I know it's all manufactured
and watching a show where you're second guessing everything you
see isn't fun. I asked Oliver the question at the
(54:36):
center of this podcast. Knowing all we know today, what
is A andtm's legacy.
Speaker 10 (54:43):
I definitely do believe a part of their legacy is
being one of the reality TV shows that shaped the genre. Definitely,
people like to demonize the show, and they can do that,
But but from that crop of reality TV shows birth
(55:04):
during that time, Top Model has had the longest lasting effects.
People still watch that show like it just came on yesterday.
People still spend thousands of dollars to produce content talking
about that show because it's still so relevant until the
(55:25):
show definitely is I believe the face of staying power
within this genre and the entertainment business, and I think
for it to be held by a black woman is
also powerful. I also think the legacy of Top Model
keeps us having these types of important discussions about how
(55:46):
do we treat people within entertainment, How do we treat
people who are just starting out, who are green to
the industry, how do we treat them, how do we
inform them? I believe it's also an example for people
just starting out, what could happen? You know, what could
(56:06):
happen in your own career if you come in contact
with someone who you thought was going to answer all
of your dreams and it doesn't happen that way, what
do you do. It's definitely a shining example on what
to do and what not to do.
Speaker 1 (56:27):
You might be surprised. But when my team and I
started working on this podcast, I actually resisted the name
Curse of I wanted this podcast to be more about
Antm's iconic legacy than the cursed aspect. Nostalgia can do
that to you. It makes you romanticized and sometimes misremember
what actually happened. It can make you rigid in your thinking.
(56:50):
We don't want to confront the truth about the things
we used to love. But after being confronted with the
reality of ANTM, I had to think differently. I realized
the curse isn't just on the contestants or their careers.
The curse of America's next Top Model is on us too.
(57:13):
A and TM birthed an entire generation of reality TV
and taught the audience that as long as it's in
the name of entertainment, people are disposable. According to Perez Hilton,
expert in base human nature. That's part of A and
TM's legacy too.
Speaker 2 (57:30):
I don't want reality TV to be nice. We want messiness.
The reality TV viewers want drama. That's what reality TV is.
They want the housewives fighting. It's harsh, but it's like
they want these people to be exploited.
Speaker 1 (57:48):
And when those exploited people start speaking out, we look
for someone to blame. When I was talking to Cycle
twenty contestant Corey Wade about the backlash A and TM
has gotten over the past few years, I expect him
to join the hate train, but he surprised me.
Speaker 23 (58:03):
We all tend to want to point the finger at
Tyra and we all want to try to find a
villain in her. I think it's more important now more
than ever, that we kind of look at ourselves, that
we kind of take some responsibility, that we take responsibility
(58:24):
for ourselves, so to speak. We are the consumers, the
people who love that show, who watched it every single week.
Its success was due to us and how much we
supported it, how much we loved it. So take a
look at what you are entertained by today.
Speaker 1 (58:48):
Don't worry. This isn't a soapbox moment where I urge
you to stop watching reality TV. I'm certainly not going
to stop, but I do wonder if it's because I
grew up watching a show that prime me to believe
exploiting people is okay as long as there's a good
story or prize at the finish line. A and TM
and shows like it made us believe that the price
(59:10):
of pursuing instant fame is humiliation. There are a lot
of people who say we're judging the show too harshly.
Thors Hilton is one of those people.
Speaker 2 (59:21):
There's this new trend of revisiting the past with the
lens of today that I don't know if it's fair.
Speaker 1 (59:28):
Honestly, I wouldn't expect anything different from Perez, but this
is one thing I disagree with him on. Thinking critically
about the past pushes pop culture forward. Our entertainment has
to evolve with us ideally. Talking about how far we've
come is what keeps us from making the same mistakes.
Don't get me wrong. In twenty years when we open
(59:51):
The Love Island or Love is Blind, Capsule will probably
be horrified all over again, but hopefully by then we
will have learned enough not to repeat the Curse of
America's Next Top Model. Thanks for listening to the Curse
of America's Next Top Model. We're grateful for your support.
(01:00:14):
We'd love for you to really show your support by
subscribing to our show on Apple Podcast. Don't forget to
give us a five star review. If you love the show,
tell your group, chat, your friends, your mama to check
us out, and if you don't, maybe keep that one
to yourself. The Curse of America's Next Top Model is
a production of Glass Podcast, a division of Glass Entertainment
(01:00:36):
Group in partnership with iHeart Podcast. The show is executive
produced by Nancy Glass, hosted and senior produced by me
Bridget Armstrong. Our story editor is Monique Leboard, also produced
by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Associate producers are Alisha Key, Christin,
Melcurrie and Curry Richmond. Consulting producers on this podcast are
(01:00:57):
Oliver TwixT and Kate Taylor. Our iHeart team is Ali
Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Audio editing on this episode by
Matt del Vechio and Tanner Robbins. The Curse of America's
Next Top Model theme was composed by Oliver Bains Music
Library provided by MOB Music. Special thanks to everyone we interviewed,
especially the former contestants, and for more podcasts from iHeart,
(01:01:21):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Also check out the Etglass podcast Instagram for
Curse of America's Next Top Model behind the scenes content
For the last episode, I want to share maybe the
best story I heard from the A and TM models
Stuff magazine, that's my dream to be on the Congress.
The story came from Gazel Sampson, the model you've been
hearing from who competed on Cycle one. She thought being
on A and TM was gonna be her big break again.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
That cool Zelle.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
She is so beautifully present the whole time.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
On Cycle one, the contestants did a sexy swimwear photoshoot.
The photos were featured in a men's magazine called Stuff.
It's no longer in print. The pictures were accompanied by
a little Q and A from each of the models.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
I think one of the questions was, what was the
craziest thing you ever die?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Gazelle was only eighteen. She hadn't done much, but there
was one time she and a friend did something a
little crazy to try to meet their favorite musician.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
I convinced my best friend to drive us to Santa
As Santa Barbara area, where Michael Jackson lived, and we
were going to like just knock on the gates of
Neverland and just be greeted and walk in there and
meet Michael Jackson, or.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
At least that's what they hoped would happen. This was
back in two thousand and three, when Michael Jackson was
arguably the most famous person on the planet. So when
they arrived at the gates of the Neverland Ranch, his
sprawling twenty seven hundred acre theme park slash home, things
didn't quite pan out the way Jazelle and her friend planned.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
When we got there, obviously, they're like, you need to
turn around and go home.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
We spoke to the speaker box.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
And it was a three hour drive and then three
hours back, so it was a six hour round trip.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
So Gazelle unfortunately did not get to meet Michael Jackson
that day. Gazelle shared this story with the people at
Stuff magazine and they printed it beside her A and
TM photo. Gazelle was eliminated from the competition three episodes
after the shoot. She had to go back home to
her regular life. She was under an NDA and couldn't
even talk about being on A and TM yet. She
(02:06):
tried going back to college, but eventually had to drop
out because she missed too much of the semester. She
did at least still have her old job.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
I went back to Disney. Thank god, I had a
job there.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Still, Jazelle signed with a small modeling agency and waited
for the gigs to start rolling in. Then a few
months later, her agency got a vague phone call from
someone asking about Gazelle.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
I received a voicemail from them and they were like, hey,
give us a call back because.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
Something's weird with like Michael Jackson and you need a call.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
So I called my manager, her agent, and they're like, well,
some guy named Frank Tyson called here and they were
looking for you, and they asked for your phone number.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Frank was claiming to be Michael Jackson's assistant. Now, I
thought it was an agent's job to vet the calls
that came in about their clients, but Gazelle told me
she wasn't exactly signed to a premier agency. They did,
at least no not to give out Gazelle's number to
any rando claiming to be Michael Jackson's rep. Gazelle thought
it might be a prank, but she decided to call
(03:12):
this Frank Tyson back.
Speaker 5 (03:14):
I call the.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Number and Frank Tyson answers, but he was like, Hi, Hello,
this is Frank.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
If you're wondering why Gazelle is doing that voice it's because,
she says Frank Tyson weirdly sounded just like Michael Jackson.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
He was like, we're in a session right now, but
I'm going to give you a call back, and I
was like okay.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
So I was like ah, and I'm like freaking out.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
The phone's in my hand, my Nokia at the time,
and I'm sitting in biology class.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
This was before Gazelle dropped out. And I know Jazelle
said she left college because she was too far behind,
but I'm sure making phone calls in biology class didn't help.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
They called me back.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
I run outside and I take the call and he
was like, yeah, you know, so Michael read your article, girl,
I had butterflies in my stomach and I was like,
my god, what's happening now.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
I know this story might sound made up, but it
is true. Michael Jackson was trying to get in touch
with Gazelle, which is wild. Apparently Michael Jackson was a
fan of that Men's magazine stuff. He'd seen Jazelle's A
and TM photo and read her story about driving six
hours to try to meet him at his Neverland ranch.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
He was like, he feels bad that you didn't make
it to Neverland, So you'd like to invite you and
whoever you'd like to bring with you, You could bring
one person to come back up to Neverland.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
She couldn't believe it. Jazelle had wanted to meet Michael
Jackson since she was a kid. A few weeks later,
she got all dressed up and headed to the Neverland ranch.
She brought the friend she'd originally driven up there with.
They pulled into the driveway and talked to someone through
that little speaker box. But this time the gates opened.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
It was the real We went up there. We did
the ferris wheel, the rides, We fed Joe Rafts.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
We saw the tiger. He named his little baby tiger Thriller.
He had cousins there. We made friends with one of
the cousins.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
He was so nice.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
The cousin took us around in a golf cart and
he was like, I don't normally do this, but do
you want to see where he keeps all of his memorabilia?
And he has a cottage all the way back in
the hills, like you have to like drive up into
the hills. We saw the werewolf mask and Thriller jacket
on a statue. We saw all of his gloves, his belts,
his records, all of his awards.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
Oh my gosh, that was so freaking cool.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
But up to that point they hadn't seen the King
of pop himself.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
The cousin was like, so you haven't met my cousin
then yet, huh.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Then he drove them to meet Michael Jackson, who was
in a thief on his property working on an upcoming project.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
He was laying on the floor of his theater and
there was a bunch of people and all you could
see was like the back of his hair. He was
wearing his usual stuff, the white sox, the loafers, black pants.
When we were sitting in the theater seats and we could
hear him like he was like.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
Okay, we're gonna need to change this, and da da
da da da dad. Then he finished and he got.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Up and we met Michael Jackson actually came over to
meet Jazille and her friend.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
E really sinks Michael's short, but he was taller.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
He was like, he's like six feet and he was
very nice and gracious and he said, you.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Know, wonderful things about saving the world.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
For Jazille, just meeting Michael Jackson would have been enough
to make the trip worth it, But then he told
her he wanted her to be involved in his next project.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Michael was working on a sequel to thriller called Threatened,
off of his Invincible album.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
He needed someone to play the love interest in his
thriller video pequal and he thought Giselle was the perfect
fit after seeing her photos and stuff magazine. I mean,
can you imagine you're eighteen, fresh out of high school.
Then you get cast on a new reality show, and
because of your appearance on that show, Michael Jackson himself,
(07:19):
one of the biggest stars in the world, calls you
to invite you to his house and tells you he
wants you to start in his next video. All of
this happened in the span of a year. It was
the stub Jazell's dreams were made of. Now, if you
picked up your phone to google the Threatned music video,
you can put it back down. It doesn't exist. Before
(07:43):
they could shoot the video, new allegations came out against
Michael Jackson. In two thousand and three. He was charged
and later acquitted of child molestation. Soon after his acquittal,
he left the country and went to Bahrain. The video
shoot never happened. Giselle was bummed about the video, but
she thought surely if Michael Jackson, of all people had
(08:05):
noticed her, other big opportunities would start rolling in soon.
Those calls never came, Jazelle found out after A and
TU Michael Jackson was the only person checking for her.
By that point, Gazelle had given up a year of
her life and dropped out of school for A and Tom.
(08:26):
But the show wasn't going to be her big break
or the thing that launched her modeling career. It turned
out to be her curse.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
The show was no help to me whatsoever.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Besides the whole Michael Jackson stuff, there was no help.
I sent out postcards to agencies and casting directors to
watch America's next top model, like back in the day,
like mailers, nothing had got nothing.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Jazelle didn't know it because reality TV was still new,
but those agencies were never going to see her as
a model.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Back then, if you're a reality person, you were bottom
of the barrel, piece of crap.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
To a teenager, getting invited to Michael Jackson's house might
almost make being exploited for a TV show worth it.
But these days, when Gizelle looks back, she realizes the
only thing she got out of being on A and
TM was a cool story to tell the podcast host
and a lifetime of trauma. Meanwhile, Tyra Banks built a
(09:32):
multi million dollar industry, and she did it in part
by exploiting the dreams of young women like Gazelle. The
show aired in one hundred and seventy countries. Reruns are
still airing to this day. Franchises around the world are
still being produced, and Tyra's making money on all of it. Now.
(09:53):
Gizelle and a lot of other models I spoke to
said they want to reckoning.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
This is unjust. We should be given some sort of compensation.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
We want to be on some.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Welcome to the Curse of America's Next Top Model. I'm
Bridget Armstrong. And the years since A and TM aired,
the contestants have grown up, so have we, and we
all see the show in Tyra Banks in a different light.
(10:30):
The contestants may not have become top models, but their
lives went on. They chased new dreams and started families.
But even though they moved on, there's still a part
of them that can't just get over it. They accepted
that not everyone was going to make it big. But
what they can't accept is how they were treated by
(10:51):
A and TM. Some of them say the show took
advantage of their youth, naivete and trauma. Some say the
show caused new trauma and they still carry those scars
to this day. And A and TM's second wind on
streaming services opened up new wounds. I'm sure seeing Tyra
(11:13):
Banks become even more rich and famous didn't help either.
Contestants like Giselle look at the millions of dollars they
made for Tyra Kenmock and the network, and they want compensation.
Others want accountability, and others just want an apology from Tyra.
But does Tyra Banks owe them anything at all? The
(11:35):
answer to that question depends on how you see Tyra's
role in all of this. Was Tyra the fashion industry
fairy godmother she tried to portray on A and TM?
Was she the ultimate reality TV villain? Or was she
just another albeit bigger cog in the reality TV machine.
(11:55):
Then there's a matter of us, the audience, the people
who watch this show show season after season. Do we
have any faults? Are we complicit? On this last episode
of the Curse of America's Next Top Model. We're going
to explore A and TM's legacy from the model's perspective
and from ours. We've been talking all season about the
(12:19):
dubious things that happened behind the scenes on A and TM.
We've looked at the manipulation, exploitation, and humiliation that took
place to achieve the drama and storyline and the effect
it had on the contestants. But a lot of that
conversation has been framed as what A and TM as
an entity did or what producers did. And it's true
(12:40):
A and TM was a big production. Tyra wasn't the
only one in charge. She was of course there for
most of it and participated in a lot of it,
but she has some plausible deniability for a lot of
the stuff we've talked about. That's why I want to
look at a part of the show Tyra took full
credit for.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Okay, So every cycle of America's Next Top Model, a
line of girls up, line all the pictures up, and
I go one by one and try to decide what
would be the best makeover to make them edgy, take
them you know.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
Over the edge.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
I'm talking about the A and TM makeovers, or as
they eventually became known as the tieovers as in Tyra's Makeovers.
Those episodes are my favorite and inevitably the most dramatic.
Every season, Tyra would take some poor, unsuspecting pageant girl
with big, long hair and give her a pixie cut
that would induce a full on meltdown. It was truly
(13:37):
the best thing on television. Half of the time, those
girls were forced to do a big chop and eliminated
soon after. A handful were eliminated the same day. Sometimes
at the salon, there are some who say the lace
front beard she gave a male contestant on cycle twenty
one is enough to put her in the Villain Hall
of Fame. I didn't even know they made fake beards
(13:58):
until I saw that episode. But the makeovers weren't always
just about hair. On cycle six, Tyra famously encouraged that
season's winner, Danny Evans to get the gap and her
teeth closed.
Speaker 6 (14:12):
So, Danielle, you went to the dentist, but she refused
to have your gap closed.
Speaker 7 (14:17):
Do you really think he can have a covergo contract
with the gap in your mouth?
Speaker 8 (14:20):
Yes?
Speaker 9 (14:20):
Why not?
Speaker 5 (14:21):
This is all people say? Easury's beautiful cover girl. It's
not marketable.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Yeah, just a little bit of okay, but I don't
want to completely clothing.
Speaker 10 (14:29):
Well, I guess she just left the gap wide open
for another girl, baby.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Thank god she said no. In the years since, Danny
said she refused to get her gap closed because she
felt like Tyra and the producers were trying to pressure
her for a TV moment. In twenty twenty, after getting
some backlash about her comments, Tyra tweeted that she agreed
what she said about Danny's gap was insensitive and that
her choices were off. But on cycle fifteen, Tyra actually
(14:59):
got another girl, Chelsea Hursley, to have her gap widened.
Why Tyra thought it was marketable for Chelsea and not Danny,
I don't know.
Speaker 11 (15:09):
My makeover started a lot earlier than everybody else's.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
I had to get my gap on my teeth whitened,
so I went to the dentists.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
And he actually shaved off each tooth.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Of course, I.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
Will do anything that she thinks looks good.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
They shaved off parts of her teeth. Hair grows back,
but teeth don't. As the seasons went on, it became
clear Tyra chose some of these makeovers just to get
a reaction from the models, and she knew a lot
of them would do anything she said. But while trying
to make Tyra happy, some of the models got hurt.
(15:47):
Freelance journalist Kate Taylor talked to contestants who said they
were hospitalized because of the makeovers they received on Top Model.
Speaker 5 (15:56):
People got actually hurt.
Speaker 7 (15:58):
People will had to go to the hospital for burns,
people had permanent hair loss that took years and years
to recover from. In season sixteen, it's totally off camera,
but Mikayla, she has to go to the emergency room
because she develops the severe rash and she just soars
on her head that just are bleeding. It's a medical emergency.
(16:18):
And that is just totally not mentioned on the show
because it doesn't fit the narrative of you need to
trust Tyra's vision, if you trust Hira, then this is
going to work out.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
On season twelve, though, with a black contestant name Amina Allende,
who wore her hair natural, she was pressured into getting
it chemically straightened with a relaxer. Amina didn't want to
use a relaxer, and she had valid reasons she shared
with the producers and the silists, but she told Kate
they didn't care.
Speaker 7 (16:47):
In season twelve, she basically went in and was like,
I don't use relaxers. It does not work for me.
Like I'm worried if you use this, this is going
to create scabs. I'm going to get burrs. But the
person who was doing the makeover told her, this is
what Tyra wants. What Tyra wants, Tyra gets in this situation.
(17:08):
This is something where she knew she kept pushing back,
like she'd watch the show. She knew she was going
to get eliminated and told she had a bad attitude.
So she bit her tongue and she feels her scalp
burning when she eventually removes her extensions. After completing the season,
she has a two inch bald spot and it took
her three years to grow her hair bag.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
The contestants Kay talked to said they felt powerless in
these situations.
Speaker 7 (17:37):
You're eighteen years old, You've signed this contract. Everyone on
production is saying we can't push back against Tyra. You're
not in a position where you can really advocate for yourself.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Tyra wanted to see how far these contestants would go
to impress her. She was willing to literally cause them
injury to carry out her almighty vision. These tie over
seemed to be less about fashion and more about humiliation.
One of the most disturbing stories I heard about an
(18:08):
A and TM makeover came from Gina Turner, the runner
up on Cycle twenty four. Gina's kind of known for
her bald head, but how that haircut came about puts
a point in the villain column for Tyra. Gina has alopecia.
It's something she's battled since she was a kid. Before
coming on A and TM, Gina wore wigs all the time.
(18:30):
She told me if she had to go outside to
the mailbox, she will put a wig on. She thought
there was a possibility A and TM would want to
take her wig off, but she was relieved when Tyra
revealed what her makeover would be on Genas season, Tyra
had the model's watch a video before going to the salon,
where if she explained the new look each one of
them would be getting. Here's what Gina says.
Speaker 12 (18:52):
She was told, we're gonna give you your natural hair.
We're gonna give you your hair back from childhood as was
she told me, and I was like, if there's anyone
that can do it. I have seen so many different
makeovers and Tyra with all kinds of different hair and
wigs and everything else. I was like, if there's anyone
(19:13):
who can give me back my red gold blonde crazy
Lion Maine mixed girl hair and make it look real.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
It's this show.
Speaker 12 (19:22):
They have the money to do it, so I got
really excited about that.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
At the time, Gina was wearing a long, straight black wig.
She thought antm was going to make her a wig
that would look like her natural hair if she didn't
have alopecia. I will say in the edit that made
it to the show, Tyra doesn't say any of that.
All she says is Gina's wig is coming off.
Speaker 12 (19:47):
There's my perspective and the truth, and then there's what
happened on reality TV.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Gina went to the salon thinking her wig was coming
off and being replaced with another wig, but that is
not what happened. Rather than replacing her old wig with
a new one, she was told they were cutting her
hair completely bald. That was her makeover. She felt blindsided.
Speaker 5 (20:12):
Can we take your wig off now? Because I don't
even know what's under off?
Speaker 13 (20:17):
You I'm so gray and this world that's going to
look at you and say, if she can.
Speaker 14 (20:23):
Do it, I can do it.
Speaker 13 (20:24):
You just don't understand for me how courageous and how
powerful what you're doing is.
Speaker 15 (20:31):
It's scary.
Speaker 14 (20:32):
It's okay, you.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
Ready, We're going to start the process.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I wasn't had her doing as though. That's celebrity silast
law Roach talking to Gina in that clip. He was
a judge on Gina's season. Gina's wig was removed on
camera while she was in tears. Some of her closest
friends had never seen her take her wig off. Now
(20:58):
she was in a room full of cameras and her
patchy wisps of hair were exposed for everyone to see.
Speaker 12 (21:05):
I just kind of froze, but I remember everyone else
going because they all saw in the house that they
didn't say that they were shaving my head. I stopped
talking and then I started crying because I was angry.
Most people who know me would look at that and
be like, oh, she's fucking pissed. Like she's not crying
about the situation. She's not sad, she's not poor, pitiful
meeting herself. Like she's pissed, And I was mad. I
(21:28):
was mad that they sat there and did that. I
was mad that they couldn't tell me the truth, that
they couldn't, like, just tell me that you're gonna shave
my head, because I also had never had my head shaved.
That was still going to give you the same emotional response.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
Maybe even better.
Speaker 12 (21:40):
But here you guys are trying to like outthink me
and outsmart me in my own emotions.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Gina told me when she was a kid, she was
picked on a lot for having alopecia A and TM
taking her wig off on camera brought back all of
those memories. Plus she got really upset because they aimed
her haircut as an empowerment story, even though she had
no power in that situation. She says, the producers and
(22:09):
judges kept telling.
Speaker 12 (22:10):
Her, you don't have any clue how courageous what you're
doing is. But in reality, I'm not doing something courageous.
You guys are sitting here manipulating a girl who's actually
gone through this, and then sitting here and preaching this
now to a whole audience. Who's gonna think that girl
sat there and did it.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
I can too.
Speaker 12 (22:30):
No, No, that is not the narrative that I'm trying
to project society also conditions us as women to think
a certain way.
Speaker 5 (22:37):
About our hair.
Speaker 12 (22:38):
My job is not to sit here and suffer so
that you guys can manipulate an entire audience that, now, girl,
you can take your.
Speaker 5 (22:45):
Wig off and do it too, because I did it.
I didn't want to do it like that.
Speaker 12 (22:48):
You guys actually changed that narrative for me.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
Why not put it in my hands for it to be.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Truthful, because putting it in Gina's hands wouldn't get the
breakdown and the tears, and him wanted to add insult
to injury. Gina says the wig they promised her was
there in the salon right behind her, and she was
getting her hair shaved off. Gina eventually embraced the bald look.
(23:16):
These days, she goes back and forth between Wiggs and
her bald head, but she says she resents a ANDTM
for exploiting her trauma and forcing her to have a
moment she wasn't ready for. Tyra acknowledged her comments about
Danny Evans's gap, but she never apologized to Gina or
any of the other girls who say they were traumatized
(23:37):
by their makeovers. After the break we'll talk more about
Tyra's so called apologies. And while the ANTM contestants I
spoke with say it isn't enough, there's another moment from
(23:58):
A and TM I want to revisit. It's one of
those moments we can't let Tyra off the hook for.
And it happened to cycle for a contestant, Kenya Hill.
Speaker 13 (24:07):
I needed to feel carefree and I need you to
stop posing for the camera, kind of.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
Get into it.
Speaker 16 (24:14):
And I hear Berrcini moaning, Uh, I feel him like
breathing on me, touching me, and it's not comfortable at all.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
On Cycle four, during the international trip to South Africa,
the models did a shoot for Caress body wash. The
contestants had to dance with three male models, but one
of those models, his name was Bertini, took it too
far with Kenya. He was touching her, grabbing her, grunting
and moaning. Kinga told me she already went into the
(24:43):
shoot uncomfortable because Bertini tried to hit on her before
they started shooting. But when he crossed the line during
the shoot, Kingya decided to say something.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
Stop, what's the issue? I know it's not about feeling comfortable.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
What moaning.
Speaker 16 (25:00):
It's just threw me off. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I
don't feel bad about stopping the shoot at all. Bercini
has cross that professional online and I feel extremely uncomfortable.
Speaker 13 (25:10):
We're here in a professional situation and they're like fifty
of us.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
In right, right, we're going with the flood.
Speaker 5 (25:19):
There's a Bertini guy. He didn't catch the hint. He
kept doing it.
Speaker 13 (25:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, So this is for the guys.
Let's try and be interested without literally grabbing her button.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
In the clip, you hear Jay Manual acknowledge that Kenya
was being groped, but other than Kenya saying stop, they
didn't actually stop the shoot or remove Bertini from the set.
And Kinga told me it was way worse than what
we saw on the show.
Speaker 17 (25:48):
This dude is grabbing me and moaning, and he's got
on a loincloth over his member and he's getting an
erection like he is really overly enjoying this.
Speaker 5 (25:59):
Yeah, it was just an awful moment.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Kenya completed the shoot and was later forced to sit
through an awkward, tense dinner with the other contestants and
the male models. Bertini was there at the panel. The
judges said Kenya's photo was good, but not great. Kenya
told them what happened with the male model.
Speaker 16 (26:22):
The thing is that this mail model Bertini, he was
flirting with me, he was grinding on me.
Speaker 5 (26:28):
I felt like he really crossed the line. That has
to be a way that you can handle it. You know,
you have to be able to be in control, like.
Speaker 15 (26:33):
With your feminine whiles, like boy, you besta back up
before I knock you out side the head, but you
do it in a fun way where he.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
Knows to back the heck up.
Speaker 6 (26:41):
But it doesn't really put static in the air because
it makes you uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Tyra told Kenya, speaking of advocating for herself and bringing
the situation to the attention of others, you know, handling
it the right way was actually wrong. Tyra wanted her
to use her quote feminine wiles. Kenya was hurt and
surprised by Tyra's reaction because she said when she called
(27:07):
Brittany out, she thought she was channeling Tira.
Speaker 17 (27:11):
I'm thinking of what would Tyra do in this instance.
And there had been other moments earlier in the show
where Tira was trying to teach us about how to
make sure we're not signing back contracts, make sure we
are smart business women. She was like empowering us the
entire show, and so I thought Tyra would probably professionally
(27:36):
and politely stop the shoot and just express her feelings
that she's a little uncomfortable.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
That's what I genuinely thought.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
When Tyra told Kenya she handled the situation poorly, she
didn't know what to say, so she kind of just
took the advice. But watching it back today, as a
person who coaches young models, Kingya knows Tyra was wrong
and she wishes she would have pushed back.
Speaker 17 (28:00):
And it's actually kind of tough to watch back because
I feel so bad for myself at that time. I
should have really stood on business at panel and been like,
I can't believe that you guys are not agreeing with
me on speaking up and standing up for myself.
Speaker 11 (28:18):
I just feel it was handled very poorly.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
The contestants on A and TM trusted Tyra. They were
young and looked up to her. Some even idolized Tyra.
Tyra presented herself as a big sister figure, a mentor
who was guiding them through what it took to be
a model. It was part of the appeal of A
and TM. But when I watch moments like this, it
makes me realize how insidious that was. Tyra's advice to
(28:50):
a teenager who was being sexually harassed on set was
to be cute and flirty while somehow also being firm.
Think about how dangerous that it is in an industry
that's known to prey on young women. Think about how
dangerous that advice is for the show's mostly young woman audience.
But moments like these where Tyra says something alarming are
(29:13):
common on A and TM. It's why she has such
a vocal backlash today. Back in February, Tyra was honored
with the first ever Luminary Spotlight Award from Essence. The
award was given to Tyra because of her legacy and fashion,
film and television. Tyra gave a heartfelt acceptance speech. You
heard a few clips a bit on this podcast. She
(29:36):
started by thanking her mom. Then she talked about her
early years in Paris when she wanted to give up
on fashion. Then tyraturned to her A and TM legacy.
Speaker 6 (29:45):
Over twenty years ago, I created a television show called
America's Next Top Model, and I fought and you guys
have no idea how hard we fought to bring the
diversity to that television show at a time where it
didn't exist, but we made it happen.
Speaker 5 (30:07):
Did we get it right? Hell no, I said some
dumb shit, But.
Speaker 6 (30:12):
I refuse to have my legacy be about some stuff
linked together on the Internet when there were twenty four
cycles of changing the world.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
I found Tyras's comments about her ANTM legacy to be odd.
She acknowledged that she'd done something wrong, but she belittled
the criticism she received, as if the backlash agets her
is just a few Internet trolls. Clips of this speech
started going viral around the time I started interviewing A
ANDTM contestants for this podcast, so I asked a bunch
(30:53):
of them what they thought about Tyra's comments. Jessline Gonzalez,
the winner of Cycle eight, who was in an abusive
a life relationship and went to therapy at ANTM suggestion,
was the most kind.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
It was refreshing to hear her talk about the show.
You know, it's been so long since I've heard from mother.
You know, that's the mother to us of the show,
and she hit it right on the nail as to
what the show represented and what she was doing with
the show. She's gotten a lot of backlash, and I
(31:25):
think she's a human being. She's deeming with those issues
on her own. We don't know how. It is not
our job to know how, and it is not our
job to help her heal. That is on her. What
she feels is right and what she feels as wrong
is all on her.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
The other models I asked, weren't so forgiving Heresychle for
is Uvi Gomez, She's like, yeah.
Speaker 18 (31:48):
Did I see a lot of messed up things? Sure,
but she was kind of deflecting, like not wanting to
own up to, you know, the very no good things
that she did. Like it was almost like, but I
did all this really good stuff, so why are you
guys focusing on the bad stuff. It's like, nah, take accountability.
(32:11):
We basically sold our souls and they got rich.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
This is what Giselle Sampson had to say about Tyra's statements.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
While you're actually doubling down on the things you've done
and said to everyone, Wow, that's that's pretty fierce, I guess.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
But the answer that really captured what felt so off
about Tyra's comments came from Cycle nine Sarah Hartshorn, Sarah
the one who just released the book about her time
on A and t M.
Speaker 19 (32:46):
What Tyra said is fair and true. She has a big, huge,
complex legacy, and I understand that she would not want
that to get reduced to clips on the internet. I
think what is also true is that the people in
those clips who were experiencing those things at that time
(33:08):
are real people, and those were real experiences. What she
is reducing to clips on the internet are things that
people went through.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
What Tyra is reducing to a few clips on the
internet is a pattern of manipulation, exploitation, and humiliation, and
Tira was at the center of all of it. Don't
get me wrong. There are contestants who say they had
good experiences on ANTM Jaslene Gonzalez is one of them.
(33:40):
Cycle three winner Eva Marcel has defended Tyra publicly more
than once. There are even contestants who went on to
have big careers in entertainment after the show. But what
about the contestants who feel like they didn't get anything
out of it but trauma did their desire for fame
or a modeling career. Give A ANDTM and tire the
right to treat them the way they did. Dazl Sampson
(34:05):
doesn't think so, and these days she wants to do
something about it.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
I think that's pretty fair that this needs to be
looked back at and that we should be given some
sort of compensation. Can I petition and put together all
the girls and say this is unjust.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
And let's make this right and get this in the courts.
This isn't about making it or not.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
We are a part of something that became history off
of our backs and to our detriment, and we were hurt,
and we were bullied and we suffered some psychological issues
from it.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
That's what we're talking about.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
We're not talking about whether we're famous or we made
this much money from doing this and that because of
the show.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
That's not what we're saying.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Farah Heart's horn again.
Speaker 19 (34:50):
I think people deserve to be paid for their work
and their time. Are not bitter that I didn't win.
I'm bitter that there were a lot of girls who
couldn't afford the mental health help that they needed after
the show.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Brittany Brower from Cycle four looks at all the money
Tyra and the network are still making by licensing the
show to streaming services. Then she looks at the hate
messages and embarrassment some of the contestants are still receiving
as a result, and thanks they're old a lot more.
Remember Brittany, who was white, was put in black face
(35:24):
on her cycle for the Got Milk shoot.
Speaker 11 (35:27):
I mean, you're putting your life out in the world.
Perfect example is me two thousand and five, the episode
Got Milk. It's real life, it's not a script, it's
not a fake. And you don't know when things are
going to come back and cancel you or something. And
it's hurtful, it's stressful. It's your real life, it's your
real reputation. And then they rerun your episodes over and
(35:49):
over and over and over again on Hulu, on Netflix
and everything else for the rest of your life. And
you know how much money you see, zilch nothing.
Speaker 20 (35:58):
I still be comments in people emailing me and me
on Instagram and TikTok all the time like they're showing
you are like, oh, I just watch your season. It
just it's such an unfair industry. They're making it all
the money still just laughing all the way to the bank,
and we don't get anything, like nothing like it's just gosh,
throw me one thousand dollars per year, I'll take it.
Speaker 11 (36:20):
We give me something like it's so insulting, Like we
do this stuff and we get nothing nothing.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Sharon Brown was a high school student when she got
sent home and barrassed on Cycle eleven. Remember Sharon says
she was made to look like a bigoted bully by
the producers. Now what she wants is for Tyra to
finally show up as that big sister that mentor the
one Tyra seemed to be on the show.
Speaker 21 (36:47):
I chose to be a part of America's Next Time All,
and I used and noted it to the most that
I can would it had been great to get compensated
or when things were sold to different networks, and enough
to have a playing your residuals that yes, But I
would love to see a beautiful conversation had with Tyra
and all of the other contestants on Top Model, either
(37:08):
in a private stit or filmed a recorded so we
can just talk. I would love to see there being
like more sisterhood and connection, even just her taking the
time just to reach out to some of us or
to offer any type of tips, a guide it even like, okay,
how can you use your platform now?
Speaker 1 (37:30):
But that big sister role Tyra played on A and
TM was just that a role. Here's former creative producer
Andrew Patterson.
Speaker 14 (37:40):
Tyra Banks played a character called Tarra Banks on Top Model.
She would walk out on judging, she would sit in
a chair. She wouldn't talk to the other judges, but
she would sit down focus because you know, that's just
her getting into character.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Several contestants told me about bizarre interactions with Tyra. When
the cameras were rolling. She was the warm, bubbly person
we knew from the show. But Uv Gomez told me
that when the director would yell cut.
Speaker 18 (38:07):
It was like she was vacant, like she was churning
it on for filming, like she wasn't there. That's how
I would explain her, explain like how I viewed her
on the show. Now, when I went on the Tyra Show,
completely different person like hugged us, gave us kisses, Oh
(38:29):
my gosh, so good.
Speaker 16 (38:30):
To see you.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
You look great, And I was like so confused.
Speaker 18 (38:34):
I was like, now you're acting like a normal human.
But on the show, it was there was like such
a disconnect.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Even though Some contestants, like UV, understand that Tyra was
playing a character, they still want the real Tyra Banks
to acknowledge what A and TM did. Cycle two winner
Ya Wanna Havelse and a lot of other contestants just
want an apology from Tyra.
Speaker 9 (39:00):
I think one of the things people are wanting from
Tyra is accountability and an apology instead of standing behind
the franchise. Where I think people are getting frustrated with
her continual response is that I know a lot of
the girls had probably gone through a lot of things
after the show or during the show, you know. I
(39:21):
think having more of an empathy instead of a combative
like no, no no, I did my best, and maybe
giving girls their names that have come up against her.
I had no idea that so and so had struggled
so much. I had no idea that I had made
that person feel that way. Putting a name behind somebody
helps make that person human.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
If Tyra wanted to at least seem like she was
atoning for the harm A and TM cost, you want
to think Tyra should make personal apologies.
Speaker 9 (39:54):
A lot of the girls felt they were just discarded.
They were just a prop for finance gain, for popularity
for network ratings, and I think when you can put
a name and you can listen and admit you know
what was done wrong and apologize, that's real growth.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Tyra has made public apologies, but they're usually couched in
her intention, like this time when she addressed the second
blackface challenge.
Speaker 17 (40:27):
I mean, we felt like our skins beautiful, let's paint
the world our color, and then we saw it.
Speaker 21 (40:32):
And we're like, oh no, this excuses other people to
do this in a negative way.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Or the time she's addressed the body shaming on the
show where she blamed it on it being a different time.
Speaker 6 (40:46):
Back in the day, nobody complained about it, but as
we all evolve twenty years later, people like what the hell?
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Or Tyra brings up her altruismic reason for creating A
and TM, you know, changing the fashion industry and expanding
the definition of beauty. Her apologies also seem to be
directed at the public at her audience, not to the
models who say they were harmed by the show, and
they're rarely specific in the way Yoana is suggesting. When
(41:17):
A ANDTM started over twenty years ago, I think Tyra's
intentions were in the right place. She wanted to showcase
diversity and beauty. She wanted to usher in a new
generation of models who wouldn't have to go through some
of the things she went through alone. I really think
she wanted to be that fashion fairy godmother, But somewhere
(41:38):
along the way, her purpose got lost and took a
backseat to her blind ambition. That blind ambition is what
made her body shame these young women, even though she
knew personally how painful that is. Her ambition is what
made her go along with dangerous and humiliating photoshoots. Her
ambition is what made her planned is asterist and embarrassing makeovers.
(42:02):
Her ambition pushed her to put young women in uncomfortable
situations and then blame them for not going along with it.
Her ambition is what allowed her to look the other
way when women who looked like her were being labeled
angry or divas. Her ambition is what drove her to
do this season after season for fifteen years. I think
(42:25):
her blind ambition is what's keeping her from taking real
accountability the way you want to suggest it, And there
are contestants who agree with me. Psycho seven's Eugena Washington
posted a video on social media, where she said kind
of the same thing.
Speaker 4 (42:42):
I think the fact that she refuses to apologize is
what's going to keep her failing.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
If Tyra really wanted to take a cant ability, she
would put as much effort into righting her wrongs as
she did into making A and TM. But instead she's
cashing in on her fame with her bizarre passion projects.
Speaker 15 (43:11):
I feel like I'm going crazy. I don't sleep these
ideas she just keep coming in my head. I'm talking
about hot ice cream innovation that took me over a
year to get right.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
I have a sneaking suspicion that Hot Mama ice Cream
aint gonna be as big as A ANDTM. It seems
like she's still surrounded by people who are afraid to
tell her no, and at this point she's unstoppable. Remember
that clip you heard on the first episode of this podcast.
Speaker 15 (43:43):
Now, I mean I always want more.
Speaker 16 (43:44):
I always want to do more.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I never like just stop and get satisfied with something.
So this interview was in nineteen ninety six, before Tyra
started A and TM, but she kept that same ambition.
It's what pushed her to do A and TM For
twenty four seasons and then after it was obvious that
it wasn't living up to her so called mission. But
unchecked ambition can be your downfall. I think Tyra's ambition
(44:10):
is keeping her from truly acknowledging what happened on ANTM
and her role in it. She doesn't want to tarnish
her legacy, but avoiding accountability is also the thing that's
ruining it. After the break, we'll explore A andtm's legacy
with one of the few people who's talked to more
(44:32):
contestants than me. I'm talking about superfan and content creator
Oliver Twigs. Around twenty twenty, A and TM had a
bit of a revival. People were looking for something nostalgic
(44:52):
to watch, something that took them back to simpler times.
Oliver TwixT was one of those people.
Speaker 10 (44:58):
So I started watching as as a jit as a
little boy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. My earliest memory of
Top Model has to be seeing Eva and ya Ya
in a finale because my female relatives would watch it.
But actually becoming a fan of it was birth out
(45:19):
of the marathons that used to run on VH one
every weekend. I would sit there in my room and
watch the cycles and the episodes back to back to
back to back to back, and I just became so
enthralled with the creativity of it all.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Oliver is an A and TM super fan. He's watched
every season and can rattle off winners and specific photo
shoots and runways like his ABC's. Oliver is also a
content creator, artist, and entertainer. Back in twenty twenty, he
was on a reality show called The TS Madison Experience.
The ep of that show, David Saint John had been
a producer on A ANDTM.
Speaker 10 (46:00):
Him and I on set in between scenes talking about
Top Model and I'm just running, I'm running down the cycles,
you know.
Speaker 5 (46:06):
I'm da da da da da da.
Speaker 10 (46:07):
He's like, oh my god, you really love this show.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
And David was still good friends with A and TM
judge j Manuel, and so.
Speaker 10 (46:15):
From there David connected me with j Manuel, where Jay
sent me his book that he did loosely inspired on
his time.
Speaker 5 (46:25):
On Top Model.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Jay was doing these lives in which he would revisit
old seasons and sometimes be joined by former A and
TM judges, contestants and super fans. Jay invited Oliver to
do an Instagram live with him about his book.
Speaker 10 (46:40):
So I'm all live Instagram with ja Manuel and I'm
asking him all these questions and the comments are like,
oh my god, who is this Oliver God.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Oliver got so many responses from that Instagram live he
thought he could keep it going and interview some of
the A and TM contestants he loved. Luckily, for Oliver,
it was COVID lockdown and everybody was bored in the
house and in the house board.
Speaker 10 (47:06):
So originally I started just dming people. I like, looked
them up on social media and I would DM them
and I was like, hey, do you want to be
interviewed by me? I used to do them on Instagram only,
but then once I started putting them on YouTube, that's
when it went to a whole another level of people
watching and viewing and chiming in and supporting and taking notice.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Oliver didn't set out to be the person A and
TM models came to when they wanted to tell never
before heard stories or talk about their trauma from the show.
He just wanted to have fun and gossip about his
favorite A and TM moments. But Oliver started doing these
interviews around the same time many of us realized A
and TM wasn't as wholesome as we remembered. His interviews
(47:51):
gave us the backstories on a lot of the disturbing
things we were revisiting, and even though he didn't mean to,
Oliver's in it views helped spark the A and TM reckoning.
Speaker 10 (48:03):
I'm genuinely just interested in fanning out for this hour,
two hours or three hours that I have this person
with me, you know, about my favorite show that I
absolutely love, And so my intentions were always just rooted
in wanting to hear them and hear what they had
to say, without no filter, without no judgment, allowing these
(48:23):
people to tell their story their way, whether I like it,
agree with it, believe it, whatever it is. And so
as people are talking, I'm seeing tears, I'm seeing mood changes,
I'm seeing people say I've never shared this before. I'm
hearing people use words such as this was so healing.
I appreciate this.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Oliver was one of A andtm's biggest fans. He knew
every word, but hearing about the dark side of the
show directly from the models forced him to think more
critically about Tyra Banks.
Speaker 10 (48:56):
She's a human too. She had never had no show
as big as ever in her life to base her
actions off of. But unfortunately, for Tira and people like Tyra,
when you get into that position of power, it does
come with responsibilities.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Tira is not only a superstar with a huge platform,
She's a black woman with a lot of power, and
black women in positions of power often face unfair criticism.
When I started this podcast, I was thinking a lot
about if the public criticism of Tyra is fair or
if she's being held to a different standard. I ask
(49:38):
film professor rockhal Gates what she thinks about this.
Speaker 22 (49:41):
Tyra Banks is in a very weird bind because I
think there's this way that, you know, like everyone wants
to make her uniquely accountable for everything that happened on
that show. And again, some of that makes sense because
it's her show, right and because she is the figurehead,
right and it's built.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
On her back.
Speaker 22 (50:00):
But I think there's a way where sometimes I think
the call for accountability feels a little dishonest to me,
because it's asking her to be accountable for an entire network,
for a production company, for decisions made by sponsors, by
cover girl, by magazines, by advertisers, And I think that
what we're seeing is sort of her refusal to be
(50:22):
scapegoaded for all of those decisions, even though that seems
to be what our society is constantly demanding of black women.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
When I talked to freelance reporter Bethany Butler, she brought
up something similar.
Speaker 8 (50:34):
I think it's a little unfair for people to say, like, well,
Tyra should have, you know, taken care of these big
personalities within the franchise. You know, you can't really say
that anymore than we could say Simon Cowell should have
done that or Donald Trump. Even it sounds hilarious right now,
(50:57):
but just the idea that like Tira would be almost
held accountable in a way that other non black, certainly
non black women host creators of franchises are.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
There's truth in what Bethany and Raquel are saying. Black
women are held to a different standard, and I do
think that's happening to Tyra. She shouldn't be the only
one held responsible for A and TM's failures. But I've
also talked to the people Top Model Hurt, many of
whom are black and brown women who are so young.
When they went on the show, they trusted Tyra, and
(51:37):
they were left feeling used after having those conversations. I
think Tyra deserves the smoke. It's just that so do
a lot of other people. Here's Oliver Twigs again.
Speaker 10 (51:52):
I feel like when you're in the game of people
as your currency, you do have to answer to you
to those expectations, especially when you are a black woman,
and black women are in the conversation. Now. Ultimately, to
be fair, does Tara have to No, you know, y'all
(52:14):
sign this paper. Y'all just signed it all the way.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
He's talking about Tyra's legal responsibility to the contestants based
on the A and TM contract.
Speaker 10 (52:23):
But I do believe you should try to answer to
those conversations. And I think the problem with Tyra is
she's never done that. She's never really directly answered questions
or a specific things. She's never really had this type
of moment, you know, with someone who's saying, well what
about this? What about this?
Speaker 5 (52:44):
And being truthful in that moment.
Speaker 10 (52:46):
You know, She's always done these blanket statements and not
saying that's not good enough or whatever. Only she and
her God can determine that. But I think when it
comes to the people, people just want to hear her
answer things directly.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
We started this podcast asking Perez Hilton why A and
TM was such a hit when it premiered twenty years ago.
They also asked him what he thinks the show in
Tyra's legacy is today.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
They made memorable television that had cultural impact and that's
hard to do. The show is awesome, like you also
have to celebrate what it got right, and that's, you know,
making good TV.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
And Pareses is a lot of that had to do
with Tyra Banks herself.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
The people that are talked about often most of them
want to be talked about and play the game. It's
a game, and Tyra played the game.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
Tyra and A and TM sold a fantasy, a fairy tale.
Oliver Twigs believed in it, but now he can't even
bring himself to watch the show.
Speaker 10 (54:01):
I do not watch the show anymore. I think for me,
the curtain has just been pulled back all the way
and the fantasy is now gone for me.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
That happened to me too. It's not that A and
TM isn't still entertaining, but I can't enjoy the show
because after hosting this podcast, I'm constantly questioning the reality
A and TM presents. Now I know it's all manufactured
and watching a show where you're second guessing everything you
see isn't fun. I asked Oliver the question at the
(54:36):
center of this podcast. Knowing all we know today, what
is A andtm's legacy.
Speaker 10 (54:43):
I definitely do believe a part of their legacy is
being one of the reality TV shows that shaped the genre. Definitely,
people like to demonize the show, and they can do that,
But but from that crop of reality TV shows birth
(55:04):
during that time, Top Model has had the longest lasting effects.
People still watch that show like it just came on yesterday.
People still spend thousands of dollars to produce content talking
about that show because it's still so relevant until the
(55:25):
show definitely is I believe the face of staying power
within this genre and the entertainment business, and I think
for it to be held by a black woman is
also powerful. I also think the legacy of Top Model
keeps us having these types of important discussions about how
(55:46):
do we treat people within entertainment, How do we treat
people who are just starting out, who are green to
the industry, how do we treat them, how do we
inform them? I believe it's also an example for people
just starting out, what could happen? You know, what could
(56:06):
happen in your own career if you come in contact
with someone who you thought was going to answer all
of your dreams and it doesn't happen that way, what
do you do. It's definitely a shining example on what
to do and what not to do.
Speaker 1 (56:27):
You might be surprised. But when my team and I
started working on this podcast, I actually resisted the name
Curse of I wanted this podcast to be more about
Antm's iconic legacy than the cursed aspect. Nostalgia can do
that to you. It makes you romanticized and sometimes misremember
what actually happened. It can make you rigid in your thinking.
(56:50):
We don't want to confront the truth about the things
we used to love. But after being confronted with the
reality of ANTM, I had to think differently. I realized
the curse isn't just on the contestants or their careers.
The curse of America's next Top Model is on us too.
(57:13):
A and TM birthed an entire generation of reality TV
and taught the audience that as long as it's in
the name of entertainment, people are disposable. According to Perez Hilton,
expert in base human nature. That's part of A and
TM's legacy too.
Speaker 2 (57:30):
I don't want reality TV to be nice. We want messiness.
The reality TV viewers want drama. That's what reality TV is.
They want the housewives fighting. It's harsh, but it's like
they want these people to be exploited.
Speaker 1 (57:48):
And when those exploited people start speaking out, we look
for someone to blame. When I was talking to Cycle
twenty contestant Corey Wade about the backlash A and TM
has gotten over the past few years, I expect him
to join the hate train, but he surprised me.
Speaker 23 (58:03):
We all tend to want to point the finger at
Tyra and we all want to try to find a
villain in her. I think it's more important now more
than ever, that we kind of look at ourselves, that
we kind of take some responsibility, that we take responsibility
(58:24):
for ourselves, so to speak. We are the consumers, the
people who love that show, who watched it every single week.
Its success was due to us and how much we
supported it, how much we loved it. So take a
look at what you are entertained by today.
Speaker 1 (58:48):
Don't worry. This isn't a soapbox moment where I urge
you to stop watching reality TV. I'm certainly not going
to stop, but I do wonder if it's because I
grew up watching a show that prime me to believe
exploiting people is okay as long as there's a good
story or prize at the finish line. A and TM
and shows like it made us believe that the price
(59:10):
of pursuing instant fame is humiliation. There are a lot
of people who say we're judging the show too harshly.
Thors Hilton is one of those people.
Speaker 2 (59:21):
There's this new trend of revisiting the past with the
lens of today that I don't know if it's fair.
Speaker 1 (59:28):
Honestly, I wouldn't expect anything different from Perez, but this
is one thing I disagree with him on. Thinking critically
about the past pushes pop culture forward. Our entertainment has
to evolve with us ideally. Talking about how far we've
come is what keeps us from making the same mistakes.
Don't get me wrong. In twenty years when we open
(59:51):
The Love Island or Love is Blind, Capsule will probably
be horrified all over again, but hopefully by then we
will have learned enough not to repeat the Curse of
America's Next Top Model. Thanks for listening to the Curse
of America's Next Top Model. We're grateful for your support.
(01:00:14):
We'd love for you to really show your support by
subscribing to our show on Apple Podcast. Don't forget to
give us a five star review. If you love the show,
tell your group, chat, your friends, your mama to check
us out, and if you don't, maybe keep that one
to yourself. The Curse of America's Next Top Model is
a production of Glass Podcast, a division of Glass Entertainment
(01:00:36):
Group in partnership with iHeart Podcast. The show is executive
produced by Nancy Glass, hosted and senior produced by me
Bridget Armstrong. Our story editor is Monique Leboard, also produced
by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Associate producers are Alisha Key, Christin,
Melcurrie and Curry Richmond. Consulting producers on this podcast are
(01:00:57):
Oliver TwixT and Kate Taylor. Our iHeart team is Ali
Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Audio editing on this episode by
Matt del Vechio and Tanner Robbins. The Curse of America's
Next Top Model theme was composed by Oliver Bains Music
Library provided by MOB Music. Special thanks to everyone we interviewed,
especially the former contestants, and for more podcasts from iHeart,
(01:01:21):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Also check out the Etglass podcast Instagram for
Curse of America's Next Top Model behind the scenes content
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