UMVA has learned that Tyra Banks, the former executive producer and host of America's Next Top Model, is taking a strong stance against the Netflix docuseries Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, alleging that it used her interview in a misleading and defamatory way.
The documentary series, which explores the legacy of America's Next Top Model, featured Banks as a key interviewee, but she claims that only 16 minutes of her three-and-a-half-hour interview was used, and that her comments were taken out of context to support a false narrative.
Banks is alleging that her commentary was ‘stripped of context and reassembled to support a false and defamatory narrative unrelated to what she actually expressed’, and is seeking a jury trial to determine the amount of damages she deserves.
According to information obtained by UMVA, the lawsuit filed by Banks states that she participated in the documentary series because she wanted to have a candid conversation about the show's legacy, including its successes and shortcomings, and that she did not limit the topics that the interviewer could ask about.
The documents filed by Banks' team also highlight that the Netflix series was marketed as a documentary, which led viewers to expect facts rather than manufactured drama or constructed narratives, and that the producers' selective editing and manipulation of footage created a false narrative about her.
This narrative, Banks claims, included false allegations that she knowingly allowed a contestant to be sexually assaulted on her show, exploited that contestant's trauma for ratings, and then couldn't even remember it when asked – a claim that she says is a complete fabrication.
The contestant at the center of this controversy is Shandi Sullivan, a model from cycle two of America's Next Top Model, who was filmed being intimate with a man in Milan in what was framed as a cheating scandal, but who implied to Netflix that she had been too drunk to give consent and that the production had manipulated the situation for the sake of the show.
UMVA can exclusively reveal that Banks' team is pushing back against the documentary's portrayal of her, and that this lawsuit has significant implications for the way documentary series are produced and edited in the future.
