Chapter 1: What is the background of America's Next Top Model and its impact?
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Hello everyone, Vanessa here. I just wanted to come on for a second and say thank you so much for listening to our show. You are the reason that we get to make these episodes and put them out week after week. Yes, sometimes I know there's a rerun, but we take our time figuring out what you want to hear, what we are genuinely interested in, and, you know, putting the whole thing together for you.
So this week, it is not a rerun. It is actually a breaking news story. As you know, we do breaking news sometimes. We'll do an Epstein series or we'll talk about Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. But then we have another kind of episode, which is truly perennial. And it's things that we just think you will always be interested in.
In fact, we think that so many of our stories are interesting today to listen to that we want to encourage you to go back in your feed, read the titles. I mean, I know this is mostly for people who are new to the show, but there's a lot of stuff in there that you can listen to when you're bored or driving or doing your laundry or, I don't know, deep cleaning your closet.
So take a gander through those titles and check something out. But this week, we are doing something that I guess you could call a bit of a breaking news story. It is about America's Next Top Model, which has been the biggest goss in the cultural sphere this month. There's a Netflix documentary, and we'll be talking about that. And some of you have probably seen it.
There's also a podcast you may have listened to called The Curse of America's Top Model. which is from host Bridget Armstrong and Glass Entertainment. Glass has brought you Betrayal, if you're also listening to that podcast. And there's even a new documentary that's going to have Janice Dickinson and a bunch of models on it talking all about America's Top Model coming out in a couple of weeks.
So this week, we are talking to Bridget Armstrong to hear about her reporting on the show. I've listened to her podcast and I've watched some of the Netflix doc, and I have to say that I am totally horrified by the way that Tyra Banks was acting. I mean, these things are not just your normal pop culture doc or podcast where they just talk about, you know, how great it was back then.
We're really getting a sense of what she did on the show, and it is not flattering. It sort of sounds like the people who are making the documentary wanted her to participate, but maybe she said no. And then they sort of boxed her in like they told her, oh, we've got all these other people who worked on the show talking to us. You better talk to us, too. But, you know, she didn't have final say.
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Chapter 2: How did Tyra Banks influence the contestants on the show?
In it, the filmmakers sit down with lots of former Top Model contestants, judges, and executives. who reveal what it was really like to be in the running to become America's next top model. From the body shaming. If the body could just slim down 150 pounds, that would be good. Then she'd be 30 pounds. That would be better. To the ludicrous photo shoots.
We are actually going to switch your ethnicities. To the early 2000s reality TV shenanigans.
I have extracted the fact that I'm a bitch. I've been caught everything in the book.
There was a lot about Top Model that was really, really ugly. because at the same time that Tyra and the show claimed to be challenging beauty standards in the fashion industry, they were also upholding and reinforcing them. Last year, pop culture journalist Bridget Armstrong made a podcast all about the show's legacy and complexities.
It's called Curse of America's Next Top Model, and it uncovered a lot of what has now bubbled to the fore. Bridget, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. So when did you start watching America's Next Top Model?
Oh my gosh, I was in high school. So America's Next Top Model came out in 2003, and that was my freshman year in high school. And I watched from the very first season. What did you like about it? Back in those days, reality TV was new, right? So there were shows like Big Brother, there was Survivor. And I watched those shows, but it was like, they weren't about things I was interested in.
Top Model, however, combined all of my favorite things at the time. Makeup, modeling, and fashion. So it felt like something I could relate to, something I could aspire to. And at that time, a lot of the shows that were out were not necessarily for a young woman audience. So I think it was probably the first show, first reality show I watched that felt like it was for me.
For those who haven't seen it, can you describe what the show is like?
So the premise is Tyra Banks, who at that time was coming off being one of the most recognizable and known supermodels ever. in the world. She's one of the very few, like out of two black supermodels. And she is the host of this show where she's going to pick and make the next top model.
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Chapter 3: What disturbing moments from the show are highlighted?
It's 24 seasons. So I think most of us, a lot of fans that started in the early days, watched maybe the first 10 or 15 seasons in the early 2000s. I was one of those fans. But in 2020, people started rewatching the series from the beginning.
Right.
As people started pointing out some of the really shocking and sometimes disturbing stuff that happened on the show, I went back and watched some of those episodes. I don't know if you remember, but on TikTok, people were pointing out things that I remembered them as being a part of the show, but we were talking about them in a different context.
And so I would go back and watch like, wow, I remember Robin from season one. Robin was the only plus size model on that season. I remembered her, but I didn't remember... how poorly she was treated until I went back and watched around 2020.
One problem that I do have with Robin, I think on the top she's not plus size and on the bottom she is.
It's clear that Robin doesn't have the personality to be a top model.
She should be working at Avis.
So when you started making your podcast, who did you talk to first?
So we were working on this project in conjunction with another docuseries. It's actually coming out March 11th. It's about Top Model. It's called Dirty Rotten Scandals. So there were a few interviews that they'd done with some of the models. And so I jumped in and started talking to them, get a gauge of like how they feel about things, what happened to them. And it sort of laid the framework.
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Chapter 4: How did the contestants feel about their experiences on the show?
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Hit subscribe on Apple podcasts or head to getthebinge.com. We're back with more from Bridget. She's going to talk about the America's Next Top Model contracts that she has seen and reported on in her own podcast, though we have not independently seen these, and has a lot more to share.
A lot of these other kind of talent search shows like American Idol and The Voice, you know, they've had a mixed record, but at least they've had one Kelly Clarkson or whatever else. But I think the issue with Top Model is that a lot of these girls put themselves...
through very extreme conditions and extreme changes to their face, their teeth, under the premise that it would help them get jobs after and then that didn't happen. Can we talk about the most extreme makeovers that the teeth and some of the other stuff that happened?
So Joni and Dani, Dani went on to win her cycle. They were on cycle six and they were given major dental surgery as their makeover. So Dani had a gap and she was pressured to have it closed. Do you really think you can have a cover girl contract with a gap in your mouth? Yes, why not? This is all people see. It's Easy Read's beautiful cover girl. It's not marketable. At first, she resisted.
She didn't want to have it closed at all. The signature gap is staying in my mouth. That's who I am. She ultimately decided to close it a bit, right? Joni, on the other hand, had like a full, like she had veneers, essentially. Like she had her teeth shaven down and had veneers put in. With that process... I'm going to go have all my front 12 teeth grinded down to pencil points.
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Chapter 5: What are the criticisms surrounding the show's production practices?
I was rooting for you. We were all rooting for you. How dare you learn something from this?
But the truth is, like, much darker, at least, it appears.
Yeah, it is. So one thing we uncovered, we spoke with a sound guy. He worked on A&M for, like, 22 of the 24 seasons. And he was working on Cycle 4 when the We Were Rooting For You thing played out. And he saw the entire confrontation. A lot of it got cut. So what we saw, the we were rooting for you, we were all rooting for you, how dare you, was just a bit of what was said.
He told us that Tyra got really, really personal in a way that Crossed a line. So Tiffany was, at that time, a single mother. She talked about coming from a working class background. She lived in, I think, a housing project with her grandmother. She talked about sleeping on a mattress on the floor. And so this was part of her storyline, right? This girl comes from nothing.
This ghetto girl is on the show, and let's see if she can make it. That's a part of her storyline. But apparently... Tyra brought that up in the confrontation and said, like, what are you going to do, go back home and sleep on the mattress on the floor with your baby? And that's a really low blow anyway.
But it's particularly low when you think about the fact that Tyra is making millions of dollars off of these girls. And these girls are not even being compensated for their time on the show. Most of them are not going to go on to have a career or opportunity in the modeling world. So that scene got just really ugly and really personal.
Tyra likes to say that, you know, she admits she lost her cool. She went too far. But she likes to talk about it as if it was coming from a place of tough love. that she really wanted Tiffany to win. And I do think there's some truth in that, going back to Tyra's love of respectability. What a feat to be able to show that you turned this ghetto black girl into a world-class supermodel, right?
And when Tiffany didn't perform in the way that Tyra wanted her to, I think she lost it. But not because she cared so much, but because this was the storyline that she was betting on. And I'll tell you, Same as you. It was like a meme, a funny thing, something I might say. It's like, you know, my friend is late and I'm like, girl, we were rooting for you.
But when I rewatched it with the context I have and even just thinking about it from Tiffany's standpoint of being like this young black girl who's being produced and pushed and pulled to have...
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Chapter 6: How did the contracts signed by contestants affect their careers?
The way that A&TM handled that situation and the way that Tyra and Ken Mock talk about it today was really disturbing for me. So we found out in the docuseries that Yes, one, Shandi confirmed that she could not give consent in that moment and that the entire encounter was filmed. But we also found out that they filmed her going to the doctor the next day to get tested.
They filmed her when she was crying on the floor after she had to make the call to the boyfriend. They pressured her to make the call to the boyfriend because... after being assaulted, she wanted to go home and they wouldn't let her. And so that's when they said, okay, you can call the boyfriend, but we're going to film it, right?
Every part of this situation was filmed so they could use it for a storyline. And it's a situation that really shouldn't have happened, right? Like, production is there the entire time. They see Shandy drinking more and more and more, and they didn't step in to intervene. For me, when Ken Mock in the Netflix docuseries, when he says, we treated A&TM like it was a documentary.
That's so offensive. And I'm like, you're gaslighting all of us because we know you did not. Like, we know producers stirred the pot. They created situations. They picked the girls they wanted to win and gave them more favorable conditions or challenges or whatever, right? So to use the sort of excuse that like, oh, it was a documentary, it was really a slap in the face.
And Tyra, for me, I think her answer was like, well, production wasn't really my territory. So I can't really speak to that.
You remember the story with Shandy?
I do remember her story. It's a little difficult for me to talk about production because that's not my territory.
Furthermore, like you pointed out, Tyra comes to the house to sort of have this shamey conversation with Shandi about, quote, cheating. Where she's like, oh yeah, my man cheated on me once. Have any of you guys ever cheated? It's obvious that Tyra's been told by production what happened the night before. But even now, 2026, Tyra's like... I don't know what happened.
And that's just like, it's probably the worst excuse you can give.
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Chapter 7: What is the significance of the 'We Were Rooting For You' moment?
She says this is what they were told. Why that's important is because The models were not able to talk about what was happening in the behind the scenes. They couldn't say, yeah, I felt manipulated. Yeah, I felt exploited. They took away my win. This situation I was in caused me physical harm. They couldn't talk about those things.
And that is how I think A&TM was able to get away with this stuff over and over and over again, because they couldn't even shine a light on what's going on with them.
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Infamous is the gossip show that's smart. We talk about Tyra Banks and bringing down Top Model. We talk about Jenna Jameson and how she dominated the 90s. You know, she's horny and she's in charge. She just was very smart about marketing herself. We talk about celebrities who maybe shouldn't be celebrities, like the Beckham guy.
Brooklyn is their first kid. He's had a little bit of the nepo baby curse.
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of Tyra's legacy in the modeling industry?
And when she said season 25 coming soon, I said, oh, okay, that's why. Because I do think Tyra... has a really unique understanding of what entertains audiences and what keeps the conversation going. I was like, maybe Tyra does get that, like, what she's saying is bullshit and it's not a real apology and she's not accountable. And maybe she knows that's going to keep sparking conversation, right?
Like, she knows that makes people angry. She knows we're going to talk about it even more.
Right. I mean, it's very P.T. Barnum, like all publicity is good publicity. But it's really difficult because Tyra is somebody, if I look back at her career, there's no doubt she definitely had to overcome a lot.
The most generous reading of watching the show is that Tyra is trying to prepare the girls for the harsh experiences she's had in the fashion industry and toughen them up so that they can succeed. But I think more often than not, looking back at it now, one gets the feeling that she's kind of being harsher to the girls or hazing them even. The race swap episodes where she essentially...
put contestants in blackface and various other sorts of faces. I mean, Tyra's defense is that she was expanding the idea of beauty. You make the point in your podcast that actually the racial stereotypes continued throughout the entire series. We've referred to it already, like, oh, that person had the angry black girl edit.
And I think that's part of what is so difficult about America's Next Top Model and about Tyra, is that at the same time as she is breaking down racial barriers in fashion, she's also upholding some really
upsetting and harmful stereotypes absolutely I think it really gets at the crux of Tyra's complicated legacy early last year so when we were just starting on production on the podcast Tyra got an award from Essence from Essence magazine and it was like a luminary award and she gave this speech and She talked about how she had to fight for diversity on A&TM, right?
When people did not think that the girl from the hood could be a model, right? When people didn't think that plus size models could be supermodels, right? 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. to show different beauties at a time when the world was like, what? You casting that and what? And what is that?
And Tyra actually, she refers to that also in the Netflix doc, Ken Mock does too. They talk about having this argument with a CBS exec who didn't want a Latina model on the first season, right? Like, these fights were real. So I think all of that happening to her is what sort of sparked her to want to make sure that A&TM was diverse. But the problem is...
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