📺 Tyra Banks Sues Netflix Over 'America's Next Top Model' Documentary

Em Gillespie joins Jonesy & Amanda with the latest in entertainment. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gold It's Jonesi Demata driving you home. This is from
the Daily Eyes. She's a big deal. She's Emma Gillespie. Hi, Hi,
bit of a curveball to talk about today. Do you
remember we chatted a few months ago about this new

(00:21):
documentary about America's Next Top Model. It exposed all these
allegations of misconduct, a kind of failure of a duty
of care towards a lot of the contestants, and many
of those allegations centered around Tyra Banks, the supermodel and
creator of America's Next Top Model. She participated in the

(00:43):
docco itself, but she is now suing Netflix for defamation
over the docuseriies. She's also suing the directors, the production company,
and basically, her lawsuit argues that Netflix came to her
about participating in the doco, she agreed to do it
in good faith. She sat down for what was a

(01:04):
three and a half hour interview, but apparently we only
got a grand total of sixteen minutes of that interview,
which of course is always the case with these kinds
of productions. But Tyra Banks is suing because she says
that her words have been taken and twisted out of context.
That they've been cherry picked and resembled to tell a

(01:26):
story that, in her words, is a complete fabrication. Is
there a giant irony in this is because they're obviously
the complaints that contestants on those reality shows make exactly
And a big part of the story arc of this
documentary series was all about how these contestants feel ten
twenty years down the track, about how they were portrayed

(01:48):
and how their edits were manipulated. But there are two
really serious allegations at the center of this lawsuit. One
of them revolves around this implication, or the alleged implication,
that Tyra Banks knowingly allowed a contestant to be sexually
assaulted and then exploited her trauma for ratings. This relates
to Shandy Sullivan. She was on season two a really

(02:11):
horrible incident that was framed as a cheating incident, but
basically there was lots of alcohol involved. She was really young.
Things got weird, and now Shandy in hindsight says that
she looks back and considers that she was assaulted. But
in the docuseries, Tyra Banks is asked about this, there's
this kind of pause after she's asked the question, and

(02:32):
it seems like she doesn't remember that the assault happens.
She also says, you know, she can't speak about it
because it's a production issue. She said, that's not my territory.
But this lawsuit is saying Tyra Banks immediately told the
crew I do remember that story, and she speaks more
about the sexual assaults. So apparently that was misrepresented in

(02:53):
the edit that we saw with this docuseriies. And there's
a second major thread in the lawsuit involving Miss Jay
alli Xander, who was the beloved runway coach, one of
the judges, a fixture of Top Model for years and
years now. Miss Jay had a stroke in twenty twenty two,
and in this series, Miss Jay suggests on camera that
Tyra never visited him in hospital, has barely reached out,

(03:16):
has kind of ditched him. But this lawsuit says that
Tyra has been living in Australia for many years since
before this stroke, that she tried repeatedly to contact Miss
Jay Alexander, and that they were still exchanging messages as
recently as Christmas. So her lawy's arguing, you know, she
was never given the chance to share any of this
because the producers didn't tell her what Miss Jay had

(03:38):
alleged a bit of he said, she said, but this
bigger picture is, you know, this idea that Tyra Banks's
reputation has been really damaged by this show, and I'd
say it probably has been. You know, a lot of
the contestants came out and said some pretty intense stuff
and described her as a bit of a bully. There's
a lot of former colleagues of hers who have been divided,
so you know, whether or not they're legs to this case,

(04:01):
it kind of remains to be seen. But as you said, Amanda,
she's sort of putting forward this argument that many of
the young women who have come before her on this
show have said too that you know, they don't like
being edited. They can't control the narrative. That's exactly, And
if anything, definitely your cases. They always end so well,
don't they. They end well for everyone, and it's very
cheap and fun and no one loses any money and

(04:23):
everyone has a great time, everyone exactly ever after. Thank you, Thanks, Okay,
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