Tyra Banks on America’s Next Top Model: “I Knew We Went Too Far”

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Did Tyra Banks just admit that she was wrong? That the things she put those women through on America’s Next Top Model — the horrible hair cuts, the peroxide scalp burns, the dangerous runways, the blackface, the body shaming, the harassment, the unnecessary oral surgery — were not just run-of-the-mill reality TV shenanigans, but were, in fact, a form of torture for which she, as creator, host, and executive producer of the show was responsible?

Not exactly.

“You guys were demanding it. And so we kept pushing. More. And more. And more,” says Banks in the trailer for the new Netflix docuseries Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.

The three-part series drops on Netflix on February 16 and promises to “unpack the inner workings of the show, which became a viral juggernaut with a global audience of over 100 million people,” says the streamer.

America’s Next Top Model ran from 2003 to 2016, with each cycle following a new group of aspiring young models as they were run through a (sometimes literal) gauntlet of increasingly bizarre and at times dehumanizing challenges in their attempts to enter modeling’s elite.

It’s a feat not one of them — winners and losers alike — in 24 seasons was ever able to achieve. But then, that was never really the point. If it had been, Elyse Sewell likely would have won Cycle 1. She was the only contestant that season (maybe even in the entire series) who actually had what Banks called a “high-fashion look.” And she was the only contestant who fit the rigid beauty standards of the industry at that time. But Tyra and the other judges didn’t like how smart she was. They didn’t like that she was independent and unbothered. So they chose Adrianne Curry as that season’s winner instead. And while Curry booked a few minor jobs after the her season, she certainly never rose to the heights the show promised. America’s next top model she was not.

The only person the show really made a star of was Banks. And boy did it launch her into the stratosphere.

Of course, in recent years, Banks has come under fire as people have begun revisiting the show and calling out the cruelty it inflicted on its young contestants in the pursuit of ever higher ratings. No matter the cost.

“I haven’t really said much,” says Banks at the top of the trailer, “but now it’s time.”

And, honestly, the smile she gives the camera in that moment is truly terrifying. This show is gonna be good.