US EditionAmerica's Next Top Model: Should it ever have been made?
The Netflix docuseries examines America's Next Top Model's history of body-shaming, race issues, and risky stunts, revisiting controversies sparked by a Covid-era audience revival.
- Now streaming, Netflix's three-part docuseries Reality Check revisits ANTM with interviews from Tyra Banks, producers, and archival footage to examine production choices and controversies.
- In the era of accountability documentaries, the project reexamines ANTM amid social media scrutiny, with directors citing the show's tragic themes as a key factor.
- Producers pressured contestants into cosmetic procedures, notably Dani Evans' removal of her signature tooth gap after an ultimatum from Banks, while the series revisits controversial shoots including race-swapping and South Africa safaris; contestants describe pervasive body-shaming and eating-disorder risks, with Whitney Thompson receiving ill-fitting clothes, which she called 'demeaning.'
- Tyra Banks admits she "went too far" in Reality Check and says she did her best, while the co-directors give critics space; no new seasons have been announced despite plans for Cycle 25.
- The doc suggests progress in representation and contestant treatment isn't linear, highlighting industry practices that prioritized spectacle over contestants’ welfare, sparking wider conversations.
21 Articles
21 Articles
14 Biggest ANTM Controversies Amid Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model Releasing
While everyone was tuned into each new cycle of America’s Next Top Model in the early 2000s, looking at it today is like watching a nightmare. To put it bluntly, there was so much wrong with the show, and it affected so many young girls’ minds both on-screen and off-screen. And now, all eyes are on it again amid the release of Netflix’s docuseries Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, which goes in-depth on all the behind-the-scenes dr…
‘America’s Next Top Model’ Turned Her ‘Cheating Scandal’ Into National News. Now She’s Speaking Out
When producers asked Shandi Sullivan why she wanted to try and become America’s Next Top Model, the then 19-year-old’s answer was off-the-cuff, loud, and straight to the point. “I yelled, ‘I don’t want to work at Walgreens anymore!’” Sullivan tells Rolling Stone. “I just screamed it at the top of my lungs.” That was the moment that Sullivan thought would change her life forever. Within a month of that fateful interview in an open call in a…
In 2003, the American show "Americas Next Top Model" took off while the reality TV was in full explosion to become a TV genre that was going to stay. Designed by the model Tyra Banks, the American Next Top Model – which was eventually nicknamed ANTM – was a competition where ten young women living under the same roof during the filming were learning the basics of the modeling. Every week, one of them was eliminated until the coronation of the fu…
'Reality Check: America's Next Top Model': The directors on Tyra Banks and more takeaways
The directors of Netflix's new docuseries spoke about how the reality TV show helmed by Tyra Banks started out with good intentions and why her interview added more texture to the project.
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