September 16, 2025 • 38 mins
Tyra Banks screamed it, but was she ever really rooting for these girls? In the series opener, host Bridget Armstrong explores one of ANTM’s biggest criticisms—that the show didn’t create any top models. We go back to the beginning to figure out how this germ of an idea in Tyra Banks’ imagination ended up on our screens. We talk about Tyra’s accomplice, ANTM Executive Producer Ken Mok, and explore how America’s Next Top Model was built on a formula of entertainment, desperation, and humiliation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you've ever watched America's Next Top Model, or even
if you haven't, you probably recognize this scene.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Come in here with a defeatist attitude.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I don't have a bad attitude. Maybe I am angry inside.
I've been through stuff, so I'm.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Angry, which is not want, But anybody, that's what is wanted.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
On the surface, it's Tyra Banks finally losing her patients
on a seemingly apathetic contestant named Tiffany Richardson. Tiffany had
just been eliminated from the competition, and Tyra was disappointed
in her attitude. But there's something deeper going on here.
I've never in my life, Yoda the girl like this.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
When my mother yelled at this is because she loves me.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I was rooting for you. We were all rooting for you.
Out Damn you learn something from this. It's become one
of the most iconic moments in all of reality TV history,
maybe in all of pop culture history. I was rooting
for you. We were all rooting for you. Those words
(01:04):
have transcended their context. They've become a meme and a catchphrase.
That moment, aired on April thirteenth, two thousand and five,
just a few days short of my seventeenth birthday, and
I was one of the five point five million people
watching it live. For a long time, I thought I
understood that moment, But after doing some digging and talking
(01:27):
to the models and crew members who were there that day,
I found out I had no clue.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
If you were so rooting for her and saw her drowning,
what did you help her?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I'm just clutching my pearls. Okay, at this point, it
is ooh scary.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
It's the same feeling that you get when your mom
was cursing out your sibling.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
There was a huge chunk that got cut out of that.
Tyra got real personal with her, and she hit her
below the bell.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I cried every freaking episode. I cried so much. I
was just like, I'm not crying. The more I'm gone,
I'm gone, like I'm not gonna beg to be here.
People often wonder if that moment was staged, and while
a lot of the stuff that happened on America's Next
Top Model or A and TM was, according to everyone
I spoke to and Tiffany Richardson herself, the I was
(02:22):
rooting for you moment was not staged. That was real emotion,
and it's one of the few times we see Tyra's wiggslip,
a moment where we see the real her.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
You go to bed at night and you lay there
and you take responsibility for yourself because nobody's gonna take
responsibility for you.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
You rolling your eyes and you act.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Look it's because you've heard it all before. You've heard
it all before. You don't know where the hell I
come from. You have no idea what I've been through.
But I'm not a victim. I grow from it and
I learn take responsibility for yourself.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I've been looking into what happened on set that day,
and I've talked to people from every part of the
A and T and production, like Jose Torres. He was
a sound mixer on the show for twenty seasons and
he was there during the we were Rooting for You moment.
Speaker 5 (03:14):
Tira took some mean shots, and a lot of it
felt like she was personally invested in her, But she
said some things to her about what are you going
to do when you go back home and you're sleeping
on that mattress again, when it's just you and your baby.
You know, she got personal and she didn't need to,
but I could see she was really pissed off.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
For the past six months, I've interviewed dozens of contestants, producers,
and crew members about their experiences on the show. I've
been sent contracts and heard about dubious psyche valuations. I've
been told about dangerous photoshoots and production standards that sound
were like psychological experiments. I've heard about body shaming that
caused lifelong trauma and edits that ruin people's I wanted
(04:02):
to know everything, from how this show got made to
what really happened behind the scenes. I wanted to figure
out why A and TM had so many of us
in a chokehold and the effect it had on us
the audience. I wanted to know if the price the
contestants paid for their fifteen minutes of fame was really
worth it. And I wanted to figure out if the
show was cursed like so many people say, and if
(04:25):
it was, who are the real victims of the curse. Now,
let's go on this investigative journey so we can figure
this out together.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
We want to beyond.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Some want to beyond. I'm Bridget Armstrong, and this is
the curse of America's Next Top Model, a deep dive
into one of the most iconic and problematic shows in
(04:56):
American history. When A and TM premiered in two thousand
and three, it felt like it was the first reality
show for someone like me. I wouldn't say I ever
wanted to be a model, but I certainly thought that
with my high top Melissa Jelly sneakers, the girls who
Know Know, and my low rise Delia's jeans, I was
(05:17):
a fashion girly while my peers were rocking micro raids.
I printed out a picture of even the Divas makeover
haircut from cycle three, took it to my stylus and said,
give me that. I don't think it's an exaggeration to
say A and TM had an impact on the woman
I became, and I know I'm not the only one.
(05:39):
For millennial women. The influence of the show was inescapable.
Even if you didn't watch, it was in the air
around you, and in a way, it's still embedded in
our pop culture all these years later. And I would
know because I still love reality TV and pop culture
so much so that I've made a whole career out
(06:00):
of it. I've spent the last fifteen years as a
producer covering pop culture from NPR to box media to
the skim. The thing that's always fascinated me about pop
culture is that it's a reflection of our society, of
who we are. It's what we choose to create and consume,
and even if we don't want to admit it, it's
a reflection of our values and beliefs. That's what makes
(06:23):
America's Next Top Model such an interesting case study. In
a lot of ways, it's a time capsule of us.
And when the A and TM time capsule was opened
in twenty twenty, many of us were horrified at what
we saw. And welcome back to another episode of why
America's Next Top Model is the most toxic show up
this decade.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Robin was getting body shamed and age shamed the worst
out of all of them.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
And I just need to talk about some of the
makeovers that still make me mad to this day. A
and TM, especially in the early seasons, it's riddled with
body shaming and misguided and ignorant views on sexuality and race.
The things that didn't seem deep to us back then
now seem deeply problematic in every speaking engagement Tyra's done
(07:11):
since twenty twenty, she's had to address the backlash. Here
she is in twenty twenty five, accepting a luminary spotlight
of work from Essen, and she's still talking about the
A ANDTM controversy. Did we get in right?
Speaker 6 (07:24):
Hell?
Speaker 2 (07:24):
No, I said some dumb shit, But 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 (07:44):
Tyra's right, they did say some dumb shit. But here's
the thing, even with my twenty twenty five sensibilities and maturity,
when I rewatched America's Next Top Model, there's something about
it that's still so good. There's a reason why it
lasted for twenty first seasons, and why it's been adapted
(08:05):
in fifty countries, why there are so many Reddit pages
with thousands of posts dedicated to reliving A andtm's best moments,
and why at its peak it drew over seven million
viewers in episode. Even with all the problematic shit, there's
something magical about America's Next Top Model, at least for
the audience, But for the models it's more complicated. Today,
(08:30):
many of them are speaking out about the negative experiences
they had on the show take Yo Wanna House. She
won the competition on cycle two, but in that year
afterwards she didn't feel like she won much of anything.
She was flat broke and she wasn't getting any help
from A and TM here's Yoanna.
Speaker 7 (08:49):
It was really hard to not get in that headspace
of being bitter towards the show because you spit me
on as a winner. I won it rightfully, so and
now I'm having to look and be a million bucks,
but I'm not making any money right now. I'm living
on a couch from a makeup artist who extended their
(09:09):
couch for me. Yet I'm famous.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
And Cycle four finalist Kenya Hill, whose entire storyline on
the show was about how much she ate. Kenya was thin,
she just wasn't afraid to eat on camera, so producers
decided a good storyline for her would be about her
supposed overeating that caused her to gain weight uncontrollably, which
wasn't true.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Even still to this day, I am mindful of is
there anybody watching me eat right now? They believed what
was portrayed on the show, and so that has actually
been a struggle of just even eating in public.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I've heard a lot of disturbing stories and you will
too as this season goes on. But out of all
the criticisms and complaints, Destence say, the biggest one is
that the show was never really rooting for them, that
A ANDTM failed to deliver the one thing it repeatedly promised,
a career in the high fashion modeling industry. In fact,
(10:15):
only one contestant went on to achieve top model stardom
that's anything close to Tyre's career, and that was Winnie Harlowe.
She's probably one of the most recognizable women in fashion today.
She has a true one of a kind look. She
has been a ligo, a condition that causes patches of
skin to lose their color. It makes her incredibly striking.
(10:37):
When she was on A ANDTM cycle twenty one, she
went by her real name Chantelle, and she was eliminated
on the fourth episode, brought back and then eliminated again
on episode thirteen. When she was first eliminated, it was
for an optical illusion photo shoot. In her picture, she's
perched in this awkward sitting position and she looks like
she's wearing her shoulders as earrings. I don't know if
(10:59):
this was her best picture, but you can certainly see
why the judges sent her home.
Speaker 8 (11:04):
Chentelle, here you are looking so beautiful, but we feel
like all this beauty is being thrown away. The judges
and social media are not happy with your photo.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
After she was eliminated, Winnie went on to have a
hugely successful career. She's walked the Victoria's Secret Runway. She
was in Beyonce's visual album Lemonade. She's been on the
cover of Al Magazine, Harper's Bizarre, Vogue, Grease, Vogue India.
She's that girl. But according to Winnie ATM didn't help
her modeling career at all. Here she is on Watch
(11:43):
what Happens Live. You were on America's Next Top Model.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
You did great, but then you really broke through and
here we are.
Speaker 9 (11:51):
So I really started after the show because that really
didn't do anything for my career, which it doesn't do
anything for any model's career realistically. I went on because
I thought like that was going to be a career starter,
but it was really like a reality TV show.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
That's not what I signed up for. I mean, it
is what she signed up for. She just thought she
was going to get a lot more out of it.
Season After season, we saw dozens of models compete for
a career making opportunity, and we watched one model be
crowned the winner of A and TM. But when they
didn't appear on the cover of Vogue or walk the
(12:24):
Chanelle or do your runways, when they didn't actually become
top models, it didn't stop us from tuning in the
next season because it wasn't about that the show was entertaining. Sure,
some contestants did work his models after the show, and
some used their fame to launch careers in other areas
of entertainment. But if this was a show that was
(12:45):
really about creating top models, why are there so many
contestants who say being on it actually hurt their chances
in the fashion industry. Like Angelie Preston, who first competed
on Cycle fourteen and then later on All Star seventeen.
After the show ended, she wasn't booking modeling gigs, and
she didn't know why until a friend in the industry
(13:08):
told her the truth.
Speaker 10 (13:10):
My booker was like, he loves you, but he cannot
sign you and he can't work with you because of
how you were portrayed. Basically, they not messing with you,
and I was so gutted because I was just like.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Why did I go on the show? Angelie was portrayed
of the girl who'd left the hood but couldn't quite
get the hood to leave her. But when she came
back for the All Star season, she'd had a glow up.
It wasn't that her look had changed, it was the
way she carried herself and the judges noticed. She was
crowned the winner of A and TM All Stars, but
(13:47):
she didn't keep that title long. A and TM stripped
her of her win and after she couldn't book any
modeling jobs. But that's a story we'll get into later
this season. Angelie wasn't the only model who told me
she had a hard time finding representation after being on
A ANDTM. Gina Turner was on the final cycle of
(14:10):
A and TM. You may remember her clean bald haircut
that gave her an otherworldly look. After she left Top Model,
she had trouble finding an agent who would sign her.
Speaker 6 (14:21):
I did have an agent tell me she knew I
was on America's Except Model and not as much as
she loved my look and would have loved to sign
into the agency. The agency, unfortunately, does not typically affiliate
themselves with girls who have been on the show.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
It's just really distracting for a lot of.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
Clients and that, you know, she was happy to meet
me that unfortunately she couldn't sign me, and I was
really bummed.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Out of course for this show, I had to call
Lisa Dematto. She's probably one of the most infamous contestants
from ANTM because of her wild child antics, like the
time she peeded in a diaper on the set of
a photoshoot on cycle five. She's also known because to
this day she's steal trash is A and TM every
(15:01):
chance she gets. I couldn't get an agency.
Speaker 7 (15:04):
They're like, we can't book you for anything. The clients
that I would normally see for like.
Speaker 6 (15:08):
Nutrient gene are crust or you know, any type of catalog.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
No one wanted to see me. After the show. They
completely destroyed me. This is how a lot of contestants
talk about Tyra and A and TM today, But I
don't think it was Tyra's initial intention to ruin their careers.
Coming up, we're going to dive into the origins of
(15:33):
America's Next Top Model. When a young Tyra Banks came
up with an idea to launch her second act, an
idea that will propel want to be models into supermodel stardom.
But as we know, only one of those things became
a reality. When we talk about A and TM today,
(15:56):
it's usually about how problematic it was, or the fact
that it didn't really produced top models and that it
featured rampant body shaming and so called race slopping photo shoots.
Critics of the show usually fall into one of two camps.
You either believe Tyra was an evil mastermind responsible for
everything wrong with ANTM, or you believe she was just
(16:17):
a host, a pretty face brought in to anchor a
modeling competition, just doing what she was told by sinister
faceless execs. The first thing I learned in reporting this
podcast is that the second option is not true. America's
next top model was Tyra's idea. It was her baby,
her passion project. So let's go back to the beginning
(16:39):
to figure out how this germ of an idea in
Tyra's mind became a pop culture phenomenon. Don't you get
the idea for that show? That is such a good idea,
that's a weirdo. It was two thousand and two. Tyra
Banks was in her late twenty and looking for her
next move.
Speaker 8 (16:54):
Oprah, I looked out the window and have this beautiful
view and it came to me. I was like, I
want to do like an American idol book for models,
but they lived together like the real world.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
A modeling boot camp based on her early career, those
scrappy years when she was just trying to become a supermodel,
Tyra started modeling she was still a teenager. A girl
at school came up to her and told her she
had the right look.
Speaker 8 (17:17):
She was a beautiful girl, and she was like, you know,
you look like you should be a model.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Anybody tell you you'd model, You ain't model.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
And I was like, what, you know, people stare at me,
but not for that.
Speaker 8 (17:27):
And she kind of took me under her wing and
taught me everything, and she started modeling, I think later
in the ninth grade. She started kind of early, and
then I started in the eleventh grade when I was fifteen.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
And at first Tyra actually got rejected by a lot
of agencies. But all you need is one yes, and
she got that when she was seventeen, so she packed
her bags and went to Paris alone. She went to casting.
After casting walked runway after runway to make it to
the top. And this was a time when there were
very few black supermodels, and Tyra was no gid. She
(18:01):
didn't have the benefit of nepotism. She had to get
it out the mud. Here's a CNN segment about her
rise to fame.
Speaker 11 (18:08):
Nineteen year old Tyra Banks uses her chameleon likability to
change her attitude as often as she changes her clothes.
One minute she shined a mure, the next Sultan sex seat.
Tyra stands five feet eleven inches and espessioning her way
to international fame.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
In the span of a decade, which is quite a
long career for a model. Tyra became the first black
woman to do the cover of GQ and Sports Illustrated,
and she eventually went on to become one of the
most recognizable Victoria Secret Angels. But from the beginning, Tyra
knew her modeling career was temporary. She was always planning
her next big thing. Here she is at age nineteen.
Speaker 8 (18:48):
I'd like to reach my peaking around twenty three or
twenty four, like five years from now, I guess, and
move on to something else.
Speaker 11 (18:54):
What do you want to do besides modeling.
Speaker 8 (18:56):
I'm going to film and television first media as an
actress to men that side of the camera. But that's
not my name though. I mean, that's not what I
want to do. I want to be on the other
side of the camera, like writing for film and televisions.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
And she made the first part happen. Tyra did TV
appearances like this one where she played Wilsmith's homegirl Jackie
on The Fresh Prince. That's it. I didn't come all
the way here from Philly.
Speaker 12 (19:21):
You are not even gonna change you.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Oh my gosh. I remember that episode, and Tyra nailed it.
She had a pretty significant role in the nineteen ninety
five film Higher Learning. She was even in a Disney
movie with Lindsay Lohan called Life Size, where she played
a doll come to life. So by the early two thousand,
Tyra was a household name. But she was also in
(19:47):
her late twenties. And if there's anything an TM taught me,
it's that if you're over the age of twenty two,
you might as well be dead. In the modeling industry,
some models use their beauty to pivot into serious acting career.
It was like Charlie's There were on or Cameron Diaz.
Others were content to fade into the shadows to become
fashion icons of yesteryear. But Tyra was determined to roll
(20:10):
her fame into something even bigger.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Because I'm not satisfied with just my career now.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
I mean, I always want more. I always want to
do more.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
I never like just stop and get satisfied with something.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
So that's when Tyra got her billion dollar idea, a
show that would use her expertise in modeling and launch
her career in TV. And just like she had to
fight to make it on the Runway, Tyra had to
fight to get a and TM made. When Tyra initially
came up with the show, her agent told her it
(20:42):
was a bad idea.
Speaker 8 (20:43):
I had a lot of people tell me that this
wasn't going to work, that models are unsympathetic characters. Actually
is my agent. He told me models are unsympathetic characters.
Nobody wants to see this.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
I hope she fired that guy. But Tyra knew she
had something special, so she kept telling people about her
little reality show idea until she found someone who saw
the vision, an established television producer named Ken Mock. A
friend introduced Tyrane Ken. They had a two hour meeting
and he was sold. They decided to be partners on
(21:15):
this project. Ken had already produced a few reality shows,
so we had some connections and he helped their set
up meetings to pitch the show to networks, and they
got a lot of news.
Speaker 8 (21:26):
And we pitched it like I stood up because I
knew who I wanted my cast to be. I walk
and acted like Miss Jay Honey Cabbage. I think you don't.
I did the whole thing for all the networks.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
I sure did. I acted out everybody. They must have
loved it. They loved it.
Speaker 8 (21:41):
Not everybody bought it, but they loved it.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Tyron's over the top antics started before she even had
a deal. She was in those boardrooms putting on a
one woman show. She literally acted out her dreamcast and
people loved it, but not enough to fund the show.
That was until she met with an exec from Scene
named Gen Maynard, who also told her it was a
no for CBS, but he did think it could be
(22:06):
good for a smaller network. He oversaw upn UPN didn't
have as wide of a reach as CBS. It targeted
a smaller demographic, and I was in that smaller demographic.
By two thousand and three, the golden era of nineties
black sitcoms had ended, so UPN stepped in to fill
(22:26):
in the gap and I used to Love Me Some UPN,
Half in Half, One on one, Moesha, The Parkers. While
it didn't cast as wide of a net as other networks,
a lot of UPN's programming was younger and blacker. It
featured shows that starred black leads and majority black cast
at a time when other networks were basically pretended like
(22:46):
black people didn't exist for a while. That really worked
for UPN. They had the market cornered on scripted programming
with black leads. BT obviously was the other network that
featured black celebrities, but they had more unscripted shows and
music countdowns, and that was really it if you wanted
to see more than two black people on TV at
(23:08):
the same time. Here's Raquel Gates, an associate professor of
film at Columbia University. She studies, writes, and teaches about television,
particularly through the lens of race and culture.
Speaker 13 (23:18):
UPN and the WB really follow in the line of
Fox Network in the nineties, where you have these new
networks that realized that younger audiences. Black audiences are a
really safe bet in terms of getting eyeballs on the
screens and on the programming.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Initially, UPN heard the pitch as a courtesy, but after
meeting with Tyra, they realized she wasn't just a pretty face,
she was an entertainer, and they decided to take a
chance on the show. They greenlit it for one season.
Tira was a little disappointed at first. She envisioned her
project on a more mainstream network, but to me, the
(23:56):
placement on UPN made a lot of sense. Tyra was
one of a small handful of black supermodels, and from
the beginning, Tyra said she wanted A and TM to
feature diverse beauty to challenge the rigid standards of the
high fashion world. Here's Tyra reflecting back on her initial
vision for the show.
Speaker 8 (24:14):
The why for me with this top model show is
because I want to expand the definition of beauty.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I want to kick to the curb.
Speaker 8 (24:24):
This thing about this cookie cutter and you have to
be six feet one hundred and twenty pounds, have blonde.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Hair, and you know like all that.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
I was like, I want to.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Kick that to the curb. That's funny because at least
when it came to looks, the first two winners didn't
exactly break the mold. They were both six feet tall, skinny,
white women. They just weren't blonde. But that's a different conversation.
For Tyra. Getting the opportunity to bring this show to
life overshadowed her disappointment of not being on CBS. Plus,
(24:56):
she realized one of the perks of being a big
fish in a small pond was that she had more control.
Tyra owned twenty five percent of America's Next Top Model
A and TM was part of Tyra's larger plan for
her career. She wanted to be Oprah, and she said
as much in a two thousand and four interview with Newsweek.
Top Model was supposed to be her first step towards
(25:17):
becoming a media mogul. After the break the story of
how Tyra's big idea made it to our TV screens.
Tyra Banks had drive, she had vision, and she certainly
(25:38):
had that it factor. The only thing she didn't have
was reality TV production experience. That's where her new collaborator,
Kim Mock came in. Here's an interview with Kim Mock
from twenty sixteen, where the interviewer talks about Kim Mock's
reality TV.
Speaker 14 (25:55):
Legacy even called the godfather of reality TV. You produced
Making the Band, which I think was the forerunner to
all these singing audition.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Programs that we have today.
Speaker 14 (26:06):
I did Pussycat Dolls Present, and of course You're most
successful hit so far America's Next Top Model.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Let's talk about Kim Mack's formula for making a good
reality competition show. First, you find people who are desperate
to attain something they couldn't otherwise get. Then you offer
them that thing in a way that seems like a
shortcut or a cheat code. Next, you turn on the cameras,
and this is very important, you put them through embarrassing, stressful,
(26:35):
and demeaning experiences in order to prove their worthiness for
the grand prize. This was the formula Kim Mak used
before on another reality show you may have heard of
that hasn't aged well. It was called Making the Band.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
The Big figure over it was Sean Postati Calms.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
That's Amanda Kline, a reality TV history in an expert
Making the Band was like an TM but for music groups.
The show was famous for making these young musicians performed
demeaning task at shawan Combe's request, like the iconic cheesecake incident,
where Diddy asked the contestants to walk the six plus
miles from Manhattan to Brooklyn to deliver him a piece
(27:18):
of cheesecake from Juniors. The rumor is the cheesecake was
actually for Beyonce, who was working with him in the studio.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
Huffy just told us to go to the store in
Brooklyn and bring about the cheesecake and walk as well,
making the fitch not making.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Back and tell them when you're doing it.
Speaker 7 (27:39):
Right here.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
It was a task that had nothing to do with
how well these people rapped or sang. It was about
entertaining the audience. I don't know whose idea that was,
but America's Next Top Model is also notorious for putting
models in difficult and yes, sometimes demeaning and even dangerous
situations that seemed to be strictly for our entertainment and
(28:04):
had nothing to do with modeling. And that isn't the
only parallel. The last part of Kim Mack's formula is
an expert host with a larger than life personality, someone
who could get the contestants to do the demeaning tasks.
The host needed to be someone who could make or
break the contestants' careers. Now, whether they would actually make
(28:24):
their career, that's another story. But Ken Mock needed someone
who's very presence on set raised the stakes for the
contestants and for us, someone who these contestants would do
anything to impress on making the band. It was Sean Comes.
He'd already launched the careers of some of the most
successful artists in hip hop, and when Ken met Tyra Banks,
(28:45):
he saw the same potential. She was a veteran supermodel
who'd climbed to the top of the fashion industry.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
It makes sense that Ken Mock would kind of stick
with that idea of a kingmaker. Tyra Banks has this
I write where she can pick out the model.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Now here's where we need to talk about some disturbing coincidences.
The first three seasons of making the band before it
went to MTV and Diddy became the host, followed the
journey to bring together train and launch a boy band
called O Town. Their first music industry expert and guide
was a man named Lou Pearlman.
Speaker 13 (29:24):
Hey, all you singers out there, Lou Pearlman, the mastermind
behind such bands as LFO, in Sync and The Backstreet Boys,
is looking for five talented young men to form a
new band.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Lou Pearlman made his name by launching and managing some
of the most successful boy bands in the nineties and
two thousands. He died in prison in disgrace in twenty
sixteen after being convicted of running one of the largest
Ponzi schemes in US history. He was also accused by
multiple young male performers of sexual misconduct. The person who
(29:55):
took pearlman spot on Making the Band after he left
was Sean P. Diddy Combes, and we all know what
he's been accused of, including allegations of abuse, sexual misconduct, harassment,
and intimidation by former Making the Band cast members. At
least one of those contestants, Sarah Rivers, sued Ditty for
sexual harassment she said took place during the taping of
(30:18):
Making the Band. To be clear, there's no evidence Ken
mok knew about any of that while the shows were airing,
and while he remained credited as the show's creator during
Ditty's tenure, he reportedly took a more hands off role
in later seasons, but it is striking that on both
these shows, the kingmakers at the Center were later accused
(30:38):
of abusing their power. And here's the thing. Years before
these serious allegations against Shawn Holmes and Lou Pearlman came
to light, both of these men already had a reputation
for shady business dealings. In the late nineties and early
two thousands, Ditty was accused of unfair business practices by
several of his artists, including Mace one to one and
(31:00):
hip hop group The Locks. Here's a two thousand and
five radio interview with The Locks where Jadakis confronted Ditty.
Speaker 5 (31:07):
We stopped pumping on the radio.
Speaker 12 (31:09):
Now you want to stop because you just don't want
to know what you've done. We made one record with
you money to out of respect. It's ten years later,
and you showed that half about publishing.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
That wasn't all. Diddy was literally on trial for shooting
someone in the nightclub in nineteen ninety nine. He was acquitted,
but the rapper who was convicted, who was also signed
to bad Boy, has strongly implied that he took the
fall for Ditty and Lou Pearlman's affinity for three sixty
deals was well known in the pop music industry. Here's
(31:42):
in Sinc's lance Bass talking about him.
Speaker 15 (31:44):
Lou really thought he was just entitled to all of this.
You know, if it was idea, you know, to do this,
and he introduced you to this person to get you
that record deal, then yeah, he was entitled in ninety
percent of your business, because if it wasn't for him,
he'd be nothing.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
So you want ten percent. That was all out in
the open before either of them was hired on making
the band. So even if the show's producers didn't know
about the more serious allegations, they seem to have turned
a blind eye to the allegedly unethical business practices making
the band. Worked with the con artists because he made
(32:21):
good TV. Then they worked with the guy who was
accused of shooting someone and cheating his artists because he
made better TV. Now I'm not saying Tyra was on
the same level as Diddy or Lou Pearlman. She's never
been accused of sexual misconduct or any other crime. But
the point is in the early days of reality TV,
(32:42):
the ethical lines were quite blurred. The only thing that
mattered was if the show was a success, and the
show Ken Mob created positioned not one, but two ethically
dubious men as mentors to impressionable young people. And while
Tyra may not be a super villain like she chose
the partner with the man who gave him and Lou
(33:03):
Pearlman a bigger platform. And just like we saw on
making the band, she was willing to make humiliation a
big part of America's next top model. The model's safety,
their bodies, their appearance, their identity was put on the
line and picked apart for our entertainment.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Do you really think he can have a coverb contract
with the gap in your room?
Speaker 13 (33:23):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Why not? This is all he feels, say, Isray's beautiful
cover girl?
Speaker 1 (33:28):
She felt Whie.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
I was like, oh my.
Speaker 8 (33:31):
Gosh, you're trying to be so sexy and so girly
and you look like a man in a dress.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Girl. Now. I never thought I'd be mentioning Tyra Banks's
name next to these two criminals, but her legacy is
tied together with Kim Mox and the shady early days
of reality TV. And Ken wasn't just an EP on paper.
He was there calling the shots on set. Harri's former
(33:56):
A and TM soald mixer Jose.
Speaker 16 (33:58):
Torres of the major events that happened on that show,
they did not happen without ken Mock's approval, without his
say so, good or bad.
Speaker 5 (34:09):
If anything happened on that show, ken Mock signed off.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Tyra could not have made this show without her co
pilot Ken Mock. Sure, they were just the production team
making another reality show when reality TV was still in
its wild Wild West era. But what I've heard from
models over and over is that America's Next Top Model
took advantage of their dreams, and the models who were
on the earlier seasons had no idea what this show
(34:32):
really was. There's something kind of cruel about embarrassing young
people who trust you with their dreams. These aren't the
same people who signed up to starve on Survivor in
order to win a million dollars. These were mostly teenagers
and young adults who were told this opportunity could give
them access to the otherwise inaccessible career they desperately wanted.
(34:56):
There's this idea that antm was cursed because a few
of the contestants went on to have successful careers as models.
When I first started reporting, I thought this was an
unfortunate reality of the modeling world. Maybe the winners turned
out to be fashion industry flops because they didn't have
what it took to be on top. But now I'm
wondering if the show was a setup all along.
Speaker 17 (35:20):
America's Next Tip Model is about dreams, plain and simple,
and it's about accomplishing these dreams through hard work, talent,
and passion. I worked my boat off to get to
the top of the modeling industry, so I know exactly
what it.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Takes to make the star. Tyra wanted us to believe
she was wholeheartedly invested in making these contestants dreams come true.
I was rooting for you, We're all rooting for you
out damn you. But after talking to the models and
the people behind the scenes, I'm not too sure. On
this season, you're going to hear from A and TM
fans and critics, the show's producers, and of course the
(35:56):
models themselves. Being on America's Next Top Model.
Speaker 7 (35:59):
I'll actually say, my life, did they even know that
I was in debt?
Speaker 1 (36:02):
After the show?
Speaker 6 (36:03):
They just kept focusing on me being suicidal.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
To try to figure out if A and TM was
really cursed and what that means for the models, judges,
Tyra and us, the audience. On the next episode, We're
going back to where it all began, Cycle one, a
season that looked like it was shot on a camcorder
yet somehow launched a global franchise. We'll meet the very
(36:27):
first contestants, revisit the chaotic production, and uncover how A
and TM deceived us and the contestants. Right from the.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Start, Tyra Banks did not follow through on any of
the winnings.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Thanks for listening to the Curse of America's Next Top Model.
We really appreciate the support. We'd love for you to
really show your support by subscribing to our show on
Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to leave us a five
star rating and review. If you love the show, tell
your group, chat, your co workers, your friends, ya Mama
to check us out, and if you don't, maybe keep
(37:04):
that one to yourself. Thanks again to all of our listeners.
The Curse of America's Next Top Model is a production
of Glass Podcast, a division of Glass Entertainment 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
(37:26):
Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Associate producers are Alisha Key, Kristin Melcriy,
and Curry Richmond. Consulting producers are Oliver TwixT and Kate Taylor.
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Kroncheck. Audio
editing and mixing by Andrew Callaway and Matt del Vecchio.
The Curse of America's Next Top Model theme music was
(37:47):
composed by Oliver Bain. Music library provided by mid Music
Special Thanks to everyone we interviewed for this podcast, especially
the models for sharing their stories and for more podcasts,
iHeart This is the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. Also check out the Glass podcast
Instagram at Glass Podcasts for Curse of America's Next Top Model,
(38:11):
behind the scenes content and more.
If you've ever watched America's Next Top Model, or even
if you haven't, you probably recognize this scene.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Come in here with a defeatist attitude.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I don't have a bad attitude. Maybe I am angry inside.
I've been through stuff, so I'm.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Angry, which is not want, But anybody, that's what is wanted.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
On the surface, it's Tyra Banks finally losing her patients
on a seemingly apathetic contestant named Tiffany Richardson. Tiffany had
just been eliminated from the competition, and Tyra was disappointed
in her attitude. But there's something deeper going on here.
I've never in my life, Yoda the girl like this.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
When my mother yelled at this is because she loves me.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I was rooting for you. We were all rooting for you.
Out Damn you learn something from this. It's become one
of the most iconic moments in all of reality TV history,
maybe in all of pop culture history. I was rooting
for you. We were all rooting for you. Those words
(01:04):
have transcended their context. They've become a meme and a catchphrase.
That moment, aired on April thirteenth, two thousand and five,
just a few days short of my seventeenth birthday, and
I was one of the five point five million people
watching it live. For a long time, I thought I
understood that moment, But after doing some digging and talking
(01:27):
to the models and crew members who were there that day,
I found out I had no clue.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
If you were so rooting for her and saw her drowning,
what did you help her?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I'm just clutching my pearls. Okay, at this point, it
is ooh scary.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
It's the same feeling that you get when your mom
was cursing out your sibling.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
There was a huge chunk that got cut out of that.
Tyra got real personal with her, and she hit her
below the bell.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I cried every freaking episode. I cried so much. I
was just like, I'm not crying. The more I'm gone,
I'm gone, like I'm not gonna beg to be here.
People often wonder if that moment was staged, and while
a lot of the stuff that happened on America's Next
Top Model or A and TM was, according to everyone
I spoke to and Tiffany Richardson herself, the I was
(02:22):
rooting for you moment was not staged. That was real emotion,
and it's one of the few times we see Tyra's wiggslip,
a moment where we see the real her.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
You go to bed at night and you lay there
and you take responsibility for yourself because nobody's gonna take
responsibility for you.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
You rolling your eyes and you act.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Look it's because you've heard it all before. You've heard
it all before. You don't know where the hell I
come from. You have no idea what I've been through.
But I'm not a victim. I grow from it and
I learn take responsibility for yourself.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I've been looking into what happened on set that day,
and I've talked to people from every part of the
A and T and production, like Jose Torres. He was
a sound mixer on the show for twenty seasons and
he was there during the we were Rooting for You moment.
Speaker 5 (03:14):
Tira took some mean shots, and a lot of it
felt like she was personally invested in her, But she
said some things to her about what are you going
to do when you go back home and you're sleeping
on that mattress again, when it's just you and your baby.
You know, she got personal and she didn't need to,
but I could see she was really pissed off.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
For the past six months, I've interviewed dozens of contestants, producers,
and crew members about their experiences on the show. I've
been sent contracts and heard about dubious psyche valuations. I've
been told about dangerous photoshoots and production standards that sound
were like psychological experiments. I've heard about body shaming that
caused lifelong trauma and edits that ruin people's I wanted
(04:02):
to know everything, from how this show got made to
what really happened behind the scenes. I wanted to figure
out why A and TM had so many of us
in a chokehold and the effect it had on us
the audience. I wanted to know if the price the
contestants paid for their fifteen minutes of fame was really
worth it. And I wanted to figure out if the
show was cursed like so many people say, and if
(04:25):
it was, who are the real victims of the curse. Now,
let's go on this investigative journey so we can figure
this out together.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
We want to beyond.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Some want to beyond. I'm Bridget Armstrong, and this is
the curse of America's Next Top Model, a deep dive
into one of the most iconic and problematic shows in
(04:56):
American history. When A and TM premiered in two thousand
and three, it felt like it was the first reality
show for someone like me. I wouldn't say I ever
wanted to be a model, but I certainly thought that
with my high top Melissa Jelly sneakers, the girls who
Know Know, and my low rise Delia's jeans, I was
(05:17):
a fashion girly while my peers were rocking micro raids.
I printed out a picture of even the Divas makeover
haircut from cycle three, took it to my stylus and said,
give me that. I don't think it's an exaggeration to
say A and TM had an impact on the woman
I became, and I know I'm not the only one.
(05:39):
For millennial women. The influence of the show was inescapable.
Even if you didn't watch, it was in the air
around you, and in a way, it's still embedded in
our pop culture all these years later. And I would
know because I still love reality TV and pop culture
so much so that I've made a whole career out
(06:00):
of it. I've spent the last fifteen years as a
producer covering pop culture from NPR to box media to
the skim. The thing that's always fascinated me about pop
culture is that it's a reflection of our society, of
who we are. It's what we choose to create and consume,
and even if we don't want to admit it, it's
a reflection of our values and beliefs. That's what makes
(06:23):
America's Next Top Model such an interesting case study. In
a lot of ways, it's a time capsule of us.
And when the A and TM time capsule was opened
in twenty twenty, many of us were horrified at what
we saw. And welcome back to another episode of why
America's Next Top Model is the most toxic show up
this decade.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Robin was getting body shamed and age shamed the worst
out of all of them.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
And I just need to talk about some of the
makeovers that still make me mad to this day. A
and TM, especially in the early seasons, it's riddled with
body shaming and misguided and ignorant views on sexuality and race.
The things that didn't seem deep to us back then
now seem deeply problematic in every speaking engagement Tyra's done
(07:11):
since twenty twenty, she's had to address the backlash. Here
she is in twenty twenty five, accepting a luminary spotlight
of work from Essen, and she's still talking about the
A ANDTM controversy. Did we get in right?
Speaker 6 (07:24):
Hell?
Speaker 2 (07:24):
No, I said some dumb shit, But 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 (07:44):
Tyra's right, they did say some dumb shit. But here's
the thing, even with my twenty twenty five sensibilities and maturity,
when I rewatched America's Next Top Model, there's something about
it that's still so good. There's a reason why it
lasted for twenty first seasons, and why it's been adapted
(08:05):
in fifty countries, why there are so many Reddit pages
with thousands of posts dedicated to reliving A andtm's best moments,
and why at its peak it drew over seven million
viewers in episode. Even with all the problematic shit, there's
something magical about America's Next Top Model, at least for
the audience, But for the models it's more complicated. Today,
(08:30):
many of them are speaking out about the negative experiences
they had on the show take Yo Wanna House. She
won the competition on cycle two, but in that year
afterwards she didn't feel like she won much of anything.
She was flat broke and she wasn't getting any help
from A and TM here's Yoanna.
Speaker 7 (08:49):
It was really hard to not get in that headspace
of being bitter towards the show because you spit me
on as a winner. I won it rightfully, so and
now I'm having to look and be a million bucks,
but I'm not making any money right now. I'm living
on a couch from a makeup artist who extended their
(09:09):
couch for me. Yet I'm famous.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
And Cycle four finalist Kenya Hill, whose entire storyline on
the show was about how much she ate. Kenya was thin,
she just wasn't afraid to eat on camera, so producers
decided a good storyline for her would be about her
supposed overeating that caused her to gain weight uncontrollably, which
wasn't true.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Even still to this day, I am mindful of is
there anybody watching me eat right now? They believed what
was portrayed on the show, and so that has actually
been a struggle of just even eating in public.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I've heard a lot of disturbing stories and you will
too as this season goes on. But out of all
the criticisms and complaints, Destence say, the biggest one is
that the show was never really rooting for them, that
A ANDTM failed to deliver the one thing it repeatedly promised,
a career in the high fashion modeling industry. In fact,
(10:15):
only one contestant went on to achieve top model stardom
that's anything close to Tyre's career, and that was Winnie Harlowe.
She's probably one of the most recognizable women in fashion today.
She has a true one of a kind look. She
has been a ligo, a condition that causes patches of
skin to lose their color. It makes her incredibly striking.
(10:37):
When she was on A ANDTM cycle twenty one, she
went by her real name Chantelle, and she was eliminated
on the fourth episode, brought back and then eliminated again
on episode thirteen. When she was first eliminated, it was
for an optical illusion photo shoot. In her picture, she's
perched in this awkward sitting position and she looks like
she's wearing her shoulders as earrings. I don't know if
(10:59):
this was her best picture, but you can certainly see
why the judges sent her home.
Speaker 8 (11:04):
Chentelle, here you are looking so beautiful, but we feel
like all this beauty is being thrown away. The judges
and social media are not happy with your photo.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
After she was eliminated, Winnie went on to have a
hugely successful career. She's walked the Victoria's Secret Runway. She
was in Beyonce's visual album Lemonade. She's been on the
cover of Al Magazine, Harper's Bizarre, Vogue, Grease, Vogue India.
She's that girl. But according to Winnie ATM didn't help
her modeling career at all. Here she is on Watch
(11:43):
what Happens Live. You were on America's Next Top Model.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
You did great, but then you really broke through and
here we are.
Speaker 9 (11:51):
So I really started after the show because that really
didn't do anything for my career, which it doesn't do
anything for any model's career realistically. I went on because
I thought like that was going to be a career starter,
but it was really like a reality TV show.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
That's not what I signed up for. I mean, it
is what she signed up for. She just thought she
was going to get a lot more out of it.
Season After season, we saw dozens of models compete for
a career making opportunity, and we watched one model be
crowned the winner of A and TM. But when they
didn't appear on the cover of Vogue or walk the
(12:24):
Chanelle or do your runways, when they didn't actually become
top models, it didn't stop us from tuning in the
next season because it wasn't about that the show was entertaining. Sure,
some contestants did work his models after the show, and
some used their fame to launch careers in other areas
of entertainment. But if this was a show that was
(12:45):
really about creating top models, why are there so many
contestants who say being on it actually hurt their chances
in the fashion industry. Like Angelie Preston, who first competed
on Cycle fourteen and then later on All Star seventeen.
After the show ended, she wasn't booking modeling gigs, and
she didn't know why until a friend in the industry
(13:08):
told her the truth.
Speaker 10 (13:10):
My booker was like, he loves you, but he cannot
sign you and he can't work with you because of
how you were portrayed. Basically, they not messing with you,
and I was so gutted because I was just like.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Why did I go on the show? Angelie was portrayed
of the girl who'd left the hood but couldn't quite
get the hood to leave her. But when she came
back for the All Star season, she'd had a glow up.
It wasn't that her look had changed, it was the
way she carried herself and the judges noticed. She was
crowned the winner of A and TM All Stars, but
(13:47):
she didn't keep that title long. A and TM stripped
her of her win and after she couldn't book any
modeling jobs. But that's a story we'll get into later
this season. Angelie wasn't the only model who told me
she had a hard time finding representation after being on
A ANDTM. Gina Turner was on the final cycle of
(14:10):
A and TM. You may remember her clean bald haircut
that gave her an otherworldly look. After she left Top Model,
she had trouble finding an agent who would sign her.
Speaker 6 (14:21):
I did have an agent tell me she knew I
was on America's Except Model and not as much as
she loved my look and would have loved to sign
into the agency. The agency, unfortunately, does not typically affiliate
themselves with girls who have been on the show.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
It's just really distracting for a lot of.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
Clients and that, you know, she was happy to meet
me that unfortunately she couldn't sign me, and I was
really bummed.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Out of course for this show, I had to call
Lisa Dematto. She's probably one of the most infamous contestants
from ANTM because of her wild child antics, like the
time she peeded in a diaper on the set of
a photoshoot on cycle five. She's also known because to
this day she's steal trash is A and TM every
(15:01):
chance she gets. I couldn't get an agency.
Speaker 7 (15:04):
They're like, we can't book you for anything. The clients
that I would normally see for like.
Speaker 6 (15:08):
Nutrient gene are crust or you know, any type of catalog.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
No one wanted to see me. After the show. They
completely destroyed me. This is how a lot of contestants
talk about Tyra and A and TM today, But I
don't think it was Tyra's initial intention to ruin their careers.
Coming up, we're going to dive into the origins of
(15:33):
America's Next Top Model. When a young Tyra Banks came
up with an idea to launch her second act, an
idea that will propel want to be models into supermodel stardom.
But as we know, only one of those things became
a reality. When we talk about A and TM today,
(15:56):
it's usually about how problematic it was, or the fact
that it didn't really produced top models and that it
featured rampant body shaming and so called race slopping photo shoots.
Critics of the show usually fall into one of two camps.
You either believe Tyra was an evil mastermind responsible for
everything wrong with ANTM, or you believe she was just
(16:17):
a host, a pretty face brought in to anchor a
modeling competition, just doing what she was told by sinister
faceless execs. The first thing I learned in reporting this
podcast is that the second option is not true. America's
next top model was Tyra's idea. It was her baby,
her passion project. So let's go back to the beginning
(16:39):
to figure out how this germ of an idea in
Tyra's mind became a pop culture phenomenon. Don't you get
the idea for that show? That is such a good idea,
that's a weirdo. It was two thousand and two. Tyra
Banks was in her late twenty and looking for her
next move.
Speaker 8 (16:54):
Oprah, I looked out the window and have this beautiful
view and it came to me. I was like, I
want to do like an American idol book for models,
but they lived together like the real world.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
A modeling boot camp based on her early career, those
scrappy years when she was just trying to become a supermodel,
Tyra started modeling she was still a teenager. A girl
at school came up to her and told her she
had the right look.
Speaker 8 (17:17):
She was a beautiful girl, and she was like, you know,
you look like you should be a model.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Anybody tell you you'd model, You ain't model.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
And I was like, what, you know, people stare at me,
but not for that.
Speaker 8 (17:27):
And she kind of took me under her wing and
taught me everything, and she started modeling, I think later
in the ninth grade. She started kind of early, and
then I started in the eleventh grade when I was fifteen.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
And at first Tyra actually got rejected by a lot
of agencies. But all you need is one yes, and
she got that when she was seventeen, so she packed
her bags and went to Paris alone. She went to casting.
After casting walked runway after runway to make it to
the top. And this was a time when there were
very few black supermodels, and Tyra was no gid. She
(18:01):
didn't have the benefit of nepotism. She had to get
it out the mud. Here's a CNN segment about her
rise to fame.
Speaker 11 (18:08):
Nineteen year old Tyra Banks uses her chameleon likability to
change her attitude as often as she changes her clothes.
One minute she shined a mure, the next Sultan sex seat.
Tyra stands five feet eleven inches and espessioning her way
to international fame.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
In the span of a decade, which is quite a
long career for a model. Tyra became the first black
woman to do the cover of GQ and Sports Illustrated,
and she eventually went on to become one of the
most recognizable Victoria Secret Angels. But from the beginning, Tyra
knew her modeling career was temporary. She was always planning
her next big thing. Here she is at age nineteen.
Speaker 8 (18:48):
I'd like to reach my peaking around twenty three or
twenty four, like five years from now, I guess, and
move on to something else.
Speaker 11 (18:54):
What do you want to do besides modeling.
Speaker 8 (18:56):
I'm going to film and television first media as an
actress to men that side of the camera. But that's
not my name though. I mean, that's not what I
want to do. I want to be on the other
side of the camera, like writing for film and televisions.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
And she made the first part happen. Tyra did TV
appearances like this one where she played Wilsmith's homegirl Jackie
on The Fresh Prince. That's it. I didn't come all
the way here from Philly.
Speaker 12 (19:21):
You are not even gonna change you.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Oh my gosh. I remember that episode, and Tyra nailed it.
She had a pretty significant role in the nineteen ninety
five film Higher Learning. She was even in a Disney
movie with Lindsay Lohan called Life Size, where she played
a doll come to life. So by the early two thousand,
Tyra was a household name. But she was also in
(19:47):
her late twenties. And if there's anything an TM taught me,
it's that if you're over the age of twenty two,
you might as well be dead. In the modeling industry,
some models use their beauty to pivot into serious acting career.
It was like Charlie's There were on or Cameron Diaz.
Others were content to fade into the shadows to become
fashion icons of yesteryear. But Tyra was determined to roll
(20:10):
her fame into something even bigger.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Because I'm not satisfied with just my career now.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
I mean, I always want more. I always want to
do more.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
I never like just stop and get satisfied with something.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
So that's when Tyra got her billion dollar idea, a
show that would use her expertise in modeling and launch
her career in TV. And just like she had to
fight to make it on the Runway, Tyra had to
fight to get a and TM made. When Tyra initially
came up with the show, her agent told her it
(20:42):
was a bad idea.
Speaker 8 (20:43):
I had a lot of people tell me that this
wasn't going to work, that models are unsympathetic characters. Actually
is my agent. He told me models are unsympathetic characters.
Nobody wants to see this.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
I hope she fired that guy. But Tyra knew she
had something special, so she kept telling people about her
little reality show idea until she found someone who saw
the vision, an established television producer named Ken Mock. A
friend introduced Tyrane Ken. They had a two hour meeting
and he was sold. They decided to be partners on
(21:15):
this project. Ken had already produced a few reality shows,
so we had some connections and he helped their set
up meetings to pitch the show to networks, and they
got a lot of news.
Speaker 8 (21:26):
And we pitched it like I stood up because I
knew who I wanted my cast to be. I walk
and acted like Miss Jay Honey Cabbage. I think you don't.
I did the whole thing for all the networks.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
I sure did. I acted out everybody. They must have
loved it. They loved it.
Speaker 8 (21:41):
Not everybody bought it, but they loved it.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Tyron's over the top antics started before she even had
a deal. She was in those boardrooms putting on a
one woman show. She literally acted out her dreamcast and
people loved it, but not enough to fund the show.
That was until she met with an exec from Scene
named Gen Maynard, who also told her it was a
no for CBS, but he did think it could be
(22:06):
good for a smaller network. He oversaw upn UPN didn't
have as wide of a reach as CBS. It targeted
a smaller demographic, and I was in that smaller demographic.
By two thousand and three, the golden era of nineties
black sitcoms had ended, so UPN stepped in to fill
(22:26):
in the gap and I used to Love Me Some UPN,
Half in Half, One on one, Moesha, The Parkers. While
it didn't cast as wide of a net as other networks,
a lot of UPN's programming was younger and blacker. It
featured shows that starred black leads and majority black cast
at a time when other networks were basically pretended like
(22:46):
black people didn't exist for a while. That really worked
for UPN. They had the market cornered on scripted programming
with black leads. BT obviously was the other network that
featured black celebrities, but they had more unscripted shows and
music countdowns, and that was really it if you wanted
to see more than two black people on TV at
(23:08):
the same time. Here's Raquel Gates, an associate professor of
film at Columbia University. She studies, writes, and teaches about television,
particularly through the lens of race and culture.
Speaker 13 (23:18):
UPN and the WB really follow in the line of
Fox Network in the nineties, where you have these new
networks that realized that younger audiences. Black audiences are a
really safe bet in terms of getting eyeballs on the
screens and on the programming.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Initially, UPN heard the pitch as a courtesy, but after
meeting with Tyra, they realized she wasn't just a pretty face,
she was an entertainer, and they decided to take a
chance on the show. They greenlit it for one season.
Tira was a little disappointed at first. She envisioned her
project on a more mainstream network, but to me, the
(23:56):
placement on UPN made a lot of sense. Tyra was
one of a small handful of black supermodels, and from
the beginning, Tyra said she wanted A and TM to
feature diverse beauty to challenge the rigid standards of the
high fashion world. Here's Tyra reflecting back on her initial
vision for the show.
Speaker 8 (24:14):
The why for me with this top model show is
because I want to expand the definition of beauty.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I want to kick to the curb.
Speaker 8 (24:24):
This thing about this cookie cutter and you have to
be six feet one hundred and twenty pounds, have blonde.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Hair, and you know like all that.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
I was like, I want to.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Kick that to the curb. That's funny because at least
when it came to looks, the first two winners didn't
exactly break the mold. They were both six feet tall, skinny,
white women. They just weren't blonde. But that's a different conversation.
For Tyra. Getting the opportunity to bring this show to
life overshadowed her disappointment of not being on CBS. Plus,
(24:56):
she realized one of the perks of being a big
fish in a small pond was that she had more control.
Tyra owned twenty five percent of America's Next Top Model
A and TM was part of Tyra's larger plan for
her career. She wanted to be Oprah, and she said
as much in a two thousand and four interview with Newsweek.
Top Model was supposed to be her first step towards
(25:17):
becoming a media mogul. After the break the story of
how Tyra's big idea made it to our TV screens.
Tyra Banks had drive, she had vision, and she certainly
(25:38):
had that it factor. The only thing she didn't have
was reality TV production experience. That's where her new collaborator,
Kim Mock came in. Here's an interview with Kim Mock
from twenty sixteen, where the interviewer talks about Kim Mock's
reality TV.
Speaker 14 (25:55):
Legacy even called the godfather of reality TV. You produced
Making the Band, which I think was the forerunner to
all these singing audition.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Programs that we have today.
Speaker 14 (26:06):
I did Pussycat Dolls Present, and of course You're most
successful hit so far America's Next Top Model.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Let's talk about Kim Mack's formula for making a good
reality competition show. First, you find people who are desperate
to attain something they couldn't otherwise get. Then you offer
them that thing in a way that seems like a
shortcut or a cheat code. Next, you turn on the cameras,
and this is very important, you put them through embarrassing, stressful,
(26:35):
and demeaning experiences in order to prove their worthiness for
the grand prize. This was the formula Kim Mak used
before on another reality show you may have heard of
that hasn't aged well. It was called Making the Band.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
The Big figure over it was Sean Postati Calms.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
That's Amanda Kline, a reality TV history in an expert
Making the Band was like an TM but for music groups.
The show was famous for making these young musicians performed
demeaning task at shawan Combe's request, like the iconic cheesecake incident,
where Diddy asked the contestants to walk the six plus
miles from Manhattan to Brooklyn to deliver him a piece
(27:18):
of cheesecake from Juniors. The rumor is the cheesecake was
actually for Beyonce, who was working with him in the studio.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
Huffy just told us to go to the store in
Brooklyn and bring about the cheesecake and walk as well,
making the fitch not making.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Back and tell them when you're doing it.
Speaker 7 (27:39):
Right here.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
It was a task that had nothing to do with
how well these people rapped or sang. It was about
entertaining the audience. I don't know whose idea that was,
but America's Next Top Model is also notorious for putting
models in difficult and yes, sometimes demeaning and even dangerous
situations that seemed to be strictly for our entertainment and
(28:04):
had nothing to do with modeling. And that isn't the
only parallel. The last part of Kim Mack's formula is
an expert host with a larger than life personality, someone
who could get the contestants to do the demeaning tasks.
The host needed to be someone who could make or
break the contestants' careers. Now, whether they would actually make
(28:24):
their career, that's another story. But Ken Mock needed someone
who's very presence on set raised the stakes for the
contestants and for us, someone who these contestants would do
anything to impress on making the band. It was Sean Comes.
He'd already launched the careers of some of the most
successful artists in hip hop, and when Ken met Tyra Banks,
(28:45):
he saw the same potential. She was a veteran supermodel
who'd climbed to the top of the fashion industry.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
It makes sense that Ken Mock would kind of stick
with that idea of a kingmaker. Tyra Banks has this
I write where she can pick out the model.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Now here's where we need to talk about some disturbing coincidences.
The first three seasons of making the band before it
went to MTV and Diddy became the host, followed the
journey to bring together train and launch a boy band
called O Town. Their first music industry expert and guide
was a man named Lou Pearlman.
Speaker 13 (29:24):
Hey, all you singers out there, Lou Pearlman, the mastermind
behind such bands as LFO, in Sync and The Backstreet Boys,
is looking for five talented young men to form a
new band.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Lou Pearlman made his name by launching and managing some
of the most successful boy bands in the nineties and
two thousands. He died in prison in disgrace in twenty
sixteen after being convicted of running one of the largest
Ponzi schemes in US history. He was also accused by
multiple young male performers of sexual misconduct. The person who
(29:55):
took pearlman spot on Making the Band after he left
was Sean P. Diddy Combes, and we all know what
he's been accused of, including allegations of abuse, sexual misconduct, harassment,
and intimidation by former Making the Band cast members. At
least one of those contestants, Sarah Rivers, sued Ditty for
sexual harassment she said took place during the taping of
(30:18):
Making the Band. To be clear, there's no evidence Ken
mok knew about any of that while the shows were airing,
and while he remained credited as the show's creator during
Ditty's tenure, he reportedly took a more hands off role
in later seasons, but it is striking that on both
these shows, the kingmakers at the Center were later accused
(30:38):
of abusing their power. And here's the thing. Years before
these serious allegations against Shawn Holmes and Lou Pearlman came
to light, both of these men already had a reputation
for shady business dealings. In the late nineties and early
two thousands, Ditty was accused of unfair business practices by
several of his artists, including Mace one to one and
(31:00):
hip hop group The Locks. Here's a two thousand and
five radio interview with The Locks where Jadakis confronted Ditty.
Speaker 5 (31:07):
We stopped pumping on the radio.
Speaker 12 (31:09):
Now you want to stop because you just don't want
to know what you've done. We made one record with
you money to out of respect. It's ten years later,
and you showed that half about publishing.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
That wasn't all. Diddy was literally on trial for shooting
someone in the nightclub in nineteen ninety nine. He was acquitted,
but the rapper who was convicted, who was also signed
to bad Boy, has strongly implied that he took the
fall for Ditty and Lou Pearlman's affinity for three sixty
deals was well known in the pop music industry. Here's
(31:42):
in Sinc's lance Bass talking about him.
Speaker 15 (31:44):
Lou really thought he was just entitled to all of this.
You know, if it was idea, you know, to do this,
and he introduced you to this person to get you
that record deal, then yeah, he was entitled in ninety
percent of your business, because if it wasn't for him,
he'd be nothing.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
So you want ten percent. That was all out in
the open before either of them was hired on making
the band. So even if the show's producers didn't know
about the more serious allegations, they seem to have turned
a blind eye to the allegedly unethical business practices making
the band. Worked with the con artists because he made
(32:21):
good TV. Then they worked with the guy who was
accused of shooting someone and cheating his artists because he
made better TV. Now I'm not saying Tyra was on
the same level as Diddy or Lou Pearlman. She's never
been accused of sexual misconduct or any other crime. But
the point is in the early days of reality TV,
(32:42):
the ethical lines were quite blurred. The only thing that
mattered was if the show was a success, and the
show Ken Mob created positioned not one, but two ethically
dubious men as mentors to impressionable young people. And while
Tyra may not be a super villain like she chose
the partner with the man who gave him and Lou
(33:03):
Pearlman a bigger platform. And just like we saw on
making the band, she was willing to make humiliation a
big part of America's next top model. The model's safety,
their bodies, their appearance, their identity was put on the
line and picked apart for our entertainment.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Do you really think he can have a coverb contract
with the gap in your room?
Speaker 13 (33:23):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Why not? This is all he feels, say, Isray's beautiful
cover girl?
Speaker 1 (33:28):
She felt Whie.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
I was like, oh my.
Speaker 8 (33:31):
Gosh, you're trying to be so sexy and so girly
and you look like a man in a dress.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Girl. Now. I never thought I'd be mentioning Tyra Banks's
name next to these two criminals, but her legacy is
tied together with Kim Mox and the shady early days
of reality TV. And Ken wasn't just an EP on paper.
He was there calling the shots on set. Harri's former
(33:56):
A and TM soald mixer Jose.
Speaker 16 (33:58):
Torres of the major events that happened on that show,
they did not happen without ken Mock's approval, without his
say so, good or bad.
Speaker 5 (34:09):
If anything happened on that show, ken Mock signed off.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Tyra could not have made this show without her co
pilot Ken Mock. Sure, they were just the production team
making another reality show when reality TV was still in
its wild Wild West era. But what I've heard from
models over and over is that America's Next Top Model
took advantage of their dreams, and the models who were
on the earlier seasons had no idea what this show
(34:32):
really was. There's something kind of cruel about embarrassing young
people who trust you with their dreams. These aren't the
same people who signed up to starve on Survivor in
order to win a million dollars. These were mostly teenagers
and young adults who were told this opportunity could give
them access to the otherwise inaccessible career they desperately wanted.
(34:56):
There's this idea that antm was cursed because a few
of the contestants went on to have successful careers as models.
When I first started reporting, I thought this was an
unfortunate reality of the modeling world. Maybe the winners turned
out to be fashion industry flops because they didn't have
what it took to be on top. But now I'm
wondering if the show was a setup all along.
Speaker 17 (35:20):
America's Next Tip Model is about dreams, plain and simple,
and it's about accomplishing these dreams through hard work, talent,
and passion. I worked my boat off to get to
the top of the modeling industry, so I know exactly
what it.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Takes to make the star. Tyra wanted us to believe
she was wholeheartedly invested in making these contestants dreams come true.
I was rooting for you, We're all rooting for you
out damn you. But after talking to the models and
the people behind the scenes, I'm not too sure. On
this season, you're going to hear from A and TM
fans and critics, the show's producers, and of course the
(35:56):
models themselves. Being on America's Next Top Model.
Speaker 7 (35:59):
I'll actually say, my life, did they even know that
I was in debt?
Speaker 1 (36:02):
After the show?
Speaker 6 (36:03):
They just kept focusing on me being suicidal.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
To try to figure out if A and TM was
really cursed and what that means for the models, judges,
Tyra and us, the audience. On the next episode, We're
going back to where it all began, Cycle one, a
season that looked like it was shot on a camcorder
yet somehow launched a global franchise. We'll meet the very
(36:27):
first contestants, revisit the chaotic production, and uncover how A
and TM deceived us and the contestants. Right from the.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Start, Tyra Banks did not follow through on any of
the winnings.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Thanks for listening to the Curse of America's Next Top Model.
We really appreciate the support. We'd love for you to
really show your support by subscribing to our show on
Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to leave us a five
star rating and review. If you love the show, tell
your group, chat, your co workers, your friends, ya Mama
to check us out, and if you don't, maybe keep
(37:04):
that one to yourself. Thanks again to all of our listeners.
The Curse of America's Next Top Model is a production
of Glass Podcast, a division of Glass Entertainment 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
(37:26):
Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Associate producers are Alisha Key, Kristin Melcriy,
and Curry Richmond. Consulting producers are Oliver TwixT and Kate Taylor.
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Kroncheck. Audio
editing and mixing by Andrew Callaway and Matt del Vecchio.
The Curse of America's Next Top Model theme music was
(37:47):
composed by Oliver Bain. Music library provided by mid Music
Special Thanks to everyone we interviewed for this podcast, especially
the models for sharing their stories and for more podcasts,
iHeart This is the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. Also check out the Glass podcast
Instagram at Glass Podcasts for Curse of America's Next Top Model,
(38:11):
behind the scenes content and more.
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