I can still remember watching the first season of America’s Next Top Model. Created by Tyra Banks, who had broken through the color barrier to become the first Black woman on the cover of Sports Illustrated, it was designed to reveal what it takes to become a queen of the catwalk, something I could never dream of with my 5’0 frame. With the platform featuring diverse models, I could live vicariously through them.
We now know that world was a little bit of hell on earth.
Reality Check, Inside America’s Next Top Model, now airing on Netflix, has revealed the grim reality behind the show, unveiling everything from eating disorders, painful confrontations, and, most sadly, not-so-subtle microaggressions that many of its Black contestants faced while there.
Take Ebony Haith, who participated in the first season of ANTM.
Her deep chocolate-hued skin and piercing eyes made her a welcome addition to the series, especially since Banks had conceived the show to give young women often overlooked by the modeling industry the chance to break into this elite world and showcase different types of beauty.
But with the demand for drama and “oh my God” moments — the blueprint for what’s considered good reality TV — the microaggressions Haith faced seemed excessive, including a botched haircut from white women who didn’t know how to cut our textured hair, and their cruel comments while doing it. In the documentary, Haith shared how she thought a phone call from Banks would be in sympathy and sisterhood. Instead, she revealed how Banks informed her that the judges felt her skin looked ashy, a word, as Haith put it, that has historically been used to make us feel less than. There was no filter in how the series leaned into stereotypes.
Move to season four, with Banks’ infamous rant toward Tiffany Richardson in front of her castmates, where she accused the young model of having a defeatist attitude when she wouldn’t read the teleprompter. While Banks may have been dropping Black girl speak to affirm it’s always been difficult for Black women to succeed — which means working twice as hard to be seen — it came across as once again painting a Black woman in a light of being angry or difficult, something that Richardson had worked hard to move away from.
Or season six, where the powers that be forced Danielle “Dani” Evans — who won that season — to get her tooth gap fixed, even when she had initially said she didn’t want it done. It harkened back to days when Black women didn’t have control over their own bodies.
In the documentary, the show’s creative team reflects on the decisions they made, justifying them as a sign of the times, either because that’s how the modeling industry cast women in the early 2000s or simply in response to the beast that is reality TV. But the modeling industry did not invent the stereotypes the show leaned into. And ANTM seemed to take pride in packaging them for primetime.
Even with all its faults, ANTM did launch careers for several former Black participants. Eva Marcielle, Yaya DaCosta, Saleisha Stowers, and more have gone on to successful acting and media careers. And yes, it gave girls who were dark-skinned, gap-toothed, girls who were from the hood, girls who didn’t fit the sample sizes, and more a shot at something bigger. If you could survive this world, you sure as heck could survive Hollywood.
ANTM is ready for its return. Banks makes that perfectly clear in the documentary. But if the price of entry is more trauma, body control, and racial tropes, maybe this runway should stay permanently dismantled.