The legacy of Tyra Banks’ America’s Next Top Model lives on – trust me

This week, Netflix dropped a three-part, much-anticipated (at least by us millennials) documentary on reality television show America’s Next Top Model (ANTM). The new series, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, shows Tyra Banks – the creator of the reality series, its executive producer, and its longest-running host, as well as a famed supermodel – alongside the other judges and over a dozen contestants, discussing the creation, success and backlash surrounding the show.

For those unacquainted, of which I assume there are very few, given that generations who may not have tuned in live will certainly be familiar with the viral sounds (especially “We were all rooting for you”), shocking moments, and TikTok dissections of it in recent years, ANTM was the reality TV show of the early ‘’00s. It ran for 15 years, had 24 cycles, and was a cultural phenomenon, at its height drawing in more than 100 million viewers worldwide. The premise was simple: a supermodel competition show in which aspiring models (between 10 and 16, depending on the season) lived together and competed for a career-launching modelling contract. To win, they took part in weekly photo shoots, runway challenges, and extreme makeovers.

This is not the first exploration of the show’s toxic past. There have been podcasts like Curse of: America’s Next Top Model (2025), an investigative 13-episode series from iHeartPodcasts and Glass Podcasts, many think pieces, essays, social media posts and more. But this is the most significant access any exploration has had: Banks, catwalk coach J. Alexander, creative director Jay Manuel, photographer Nigel Barker, executive producer Ken Mok, and contestants such as Giselle Samson, Shandi Sullivan and Danielle “Dani” Evans all take part.

Tyra Banks opens the series by saying, “I haven’t really said much, but now it’s time.” In fact, she doesn’t say much throughout the three episodes; at least nothing we didn’t already know. No one really takes accountability for the treatment of contestants. Whilst the show points to the surrounding culture that existed at the time, which created such bigotry, fatphobia, racism, rigid beauty standards and misogyny for the show to perpetrate it, no one explains or apologises directly to the women harmed. In fact, Banks even hints at a comeback, saying, “After the show, I had so many different ideas for my life. I’m obsessed with pivoting. I feel like my work is not done. You have no idea what we have planned for cycle 25.”

At one point, she tells the camera, “Hindsight is 20/20 for all of us. It just so happens that a lot of the things that are 20/20 for me happened in front of the world.”

I’m not sure that “hindsight” is enough of an excuse to accuse what the contestants experienced: On Reality Check, former Cycle Two contestant Shandi Sullivan revisits one of the most distressing chapters of her time on ANTM. While filming in Milan, she says that production arranged for a group of men to come to the models’ residence, where everyone drank and socialised. After consuming alcohol on an empty stomach, she says she “blacked out” and later recalls only fragmented sensations, including waking to find a man on top of her. “I don’t even feel sex happening, I just knew it was happening, and then I passed out,” she said.

Footage from the episode later shows Banks bringing up being cheated on with the cast, then turning to Shandi and telling her, “Everybody messes up, Shani. I’m not judging you, but I think that we have to fight against our carnal desires.”