‘America’s Next Top Model’ Netflix doc’s biggest bombshells: Why Tyra Banks fired judges — and her Cycle 25 return

The controversial legacy of “America’s Next Top Model” is the subject of a new Netflix docuseries,  “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.” 

Now streaming, the three episode series explores the behind the scenes chaos, and the complicated legacy of the iconic reality series, which aired from 2003 to 2018.

It features onscreen interviews with series creator and host Tyra Banks, 52, former “Top Model” exec producer Ken Mok, former judges, J. Alexander, 67, Jay Manuel, 53,  Nigel Barker, 53, and former contestants such as Shandi Sullivan, 43, Dani Evans, 40, Whitney Thompson, 38, and Ebony Haith, 47, and Giselle Samson, 41. 

Here are the biggest bombshells.

Banks allegedly nearly “got physical” with Les Moonves 

Mok recalled that when they were casting the show with contestants, they got “a lot of pushback” from the network (which was then UPN, now The CW). 

“If you had one person of another color, that was their definition of diverse,” Mok said. 

He claimed that they wanted a hispanic contestant on the show, and disgraced ex-media exec Les Moonves, who was the president of parent company Viacom at the time, “did not want that.” 

“I lost it,” Banks recalled onscreen. 

Mok alleged, “Tyra was arguing with Les to the point where it almost got physical…let’s not torpedo the show before we go on the air.”

David Bowie’s verdict 

Manuel, who was the creative director on “America’s Next Top Model,” recalled that when they were filming Cycle 1, “I had no clue what was going to air.” 

“My phone rang, it was Iman that called…..she said ‘we watched’ and she hands the phone to David [Bowie],” he recalled. “He said to me, ‘You found the place where you need to be.’”

Body image issues 

Giselle Samson, a contestant who was on Cycle 1, said the show left her with lingering body image issues. 

“I’m 18 years old, growing into my body, and [Banks] is like ‘Giselle, she’s got a wide ass.’ They chose to put that in there [onscreen].”

Samson said that how she felt about herself in that moment, “has stayed with me, forever. Why does my ass have to be so wide? Like that’s how I talk to myself, to this day.” 

Samson added that the modeling career she’d hoped for never materialized, because of the way she was depicted onscreen, she believes. “Agents and managers wanted nothing to do with me because I had no confidence. Who’s going to hire that girl?” 

Shandi’s onscreen alleged assault 

Sullivan, a former contestant on Cycle 2, alleged that while the models were on a trip to Milan, she was too inebriated to consent to having sex with a man. The incident was filmed and treated as an onscreen storyline about cheating on her boyfriend.

“I remember him on top of me. I was blacked out. No one did anything to stop it. And it all got filmed, all of it,” she said. 

Banks said, “I do remember her story. It’s a little difficult for me to talk about production, because that’s not my territory.” 

Mok weighed in that they treated the show like a “documentary” and informed the women from the start that they’d be followed by cameras constantly. 

Manuel recalled that Shandi was in the shower with the man, and the rule was that a camera couldn’t follow anyone who went into a bathroom alone. 

“But in the shower, she was technically not alone. So the cameras went in, and they captured it. I don’t know whose decision it was.” 

But because it was a “story point,” the producers felt the need to “see it all the way through,” he said. 

When Shandi called her then-boyfriend to inform him what happened, he called her a “f–king bitch” and the show captured it on camera. 

“It was just the sound guy, and the guy filming,” she recalled. 

After hanging up with her boyfriend, she was lying “on the floor in the fetal position, just crying. And [the sound guy and camera man] both come up to me and they said, ‘We’re really really sorry that we had to film that.’ They just knew that this isn’t right.” 

Mok said that when the episode was being edited, “We scaled back that scene in a significant way.” 

Reflecting on the incident, Banks said that she wasn’t involved in the show’s “story” and editing. 

“That’s Ken Mok, but…It’s important for people to know that we didn’t put everything on TV.” 

Controversial photoshoots, like the “race swap” 

The documentary covers how “Top Model” started having outlandish photoshoots, such as having models pose with cockroaches, pretend to be murder victims, and pretend to be a different race. 

Banks cited “Fear Factor” and “Survivor” for the segments. “It was a time in the world where there were these shows…pushing the limits. And so, we kept pushing it. You guys were demanding it. The viewers wanted more.” 

Manuel said, “The shoot I had the most difficult time with was this race swapping shoot,” citing a Cycle 4 and Cycle 14 photoshoot where they had the aspiring models dress up as other races, such as a white woman dressing like a black woman.

“My parents are from South Africa, they grew up during Apartheid, I’m very aware of that history,” he said. “I just had to do my job.”

Banks didn’t think it was controversial at the time.

“I was in my own little bubble, my own head, and this was my way of showing the world that brown and black is beautiful. But then we put it out there and the world was like ‘are you crazy? Have you lost your mind?’” 

Banks said that as she reflects back, “it’s an issue, and I understand 100% why.” 

Pressure to get cosmetic procedures

Danielle Evans, aka Dani Evans, was on Cycle 6 in 2006. She had a gap between her teeth that she was proud of, but she recalled the production sending her to the dentist and encouraging her to fix it. 

“I was like, ‘no I don’t wanna close my gap, it’s not your right to tell me what to do with my body,’” she said. 

But she eventually was pressured to close it. 

The documentary pointed out how in a future season, Banks encouraged another contestant to widen a gap between her teeth. 

Barker weighed in and said that he didn’t think it was a good idea for Evans. “I thought she looked great with a gap between her teeth and that perfection is boring,” he said.

Onscreen, Banks chimed in, “I’ve actually apologized for the issue with Dani and what happened.” 

Banks claimed that she felt like she was “between a rock and a hard place,” because agents told her that a tooth gap would prohibit Evans from getting work. 

“That’s what they told me. And again, I could have just been quiet and let them handle it. But hindsight is 20/20 for all of us,” said Banks. “It just so happens that a lot of things that are 20/20 for me happened in front of the world.”

Evans scoffed at Banks’ apology onscreen, saying, “Bull f–king s–t. Me getting my gap closed is not opening any doors for me. You knew what you were doing. It’s a TV show to you guys, but this is my life.” 

The models didn’t feel set up for future careers

After Evans won in 2006, “they just threw me to the wolves,” she said. 

She thought she would have a modeling career, but she said that because she had been on “America’s Next Top Model” designers didn’t want her to walk in their shows and distract from their collections.  

“What angers me the most is the conversation that Tyra had with me, years later. She was like, ‘I knew that there were certain doors that you couldn’t even get into,’” because of the show, Evans alleged. 

Evans said that she replied, “Respectfully Tyra, you have no f–king idea how painful it has been for me….but for you to admit to me 15 years later, ‘I knew the hell you’ve been going through, I knew you haven’t been able to walk through the threshold of certain doors. And to have her, a black woman, say to me, over the phone, ‘I knew you were struggling and I did nothing about it.’” 

Evans said that the show built an “empire” and a “multimillion-dollar brand off the backs “of every girl’s dream and it never got realized.” 

Firing Alexander, Manuel, and Barker

In 2012, it was reported that Banks fired Alexander, Manuel, and Barker. 

Banks said that the network told her to do it.  

“It shocked me. I was like, what? There was no need to  replace them,” Mok recalled. 

“For my birthday, Tyra sent me flowers…And then I was fired five days later,” said Alexander. 

Barker noted that he felt “betrayed.” 

“It was difficult, because I didn’t have a backup plan at that point. I had been on ‘Top Model’ for 17 seasons.” 

Manuel alleged that they agreed to put out a press release framing the situation like they hadn’t been fired.

He said he felt that it was “deliberate” that the show didn’t allow people “who have been part of it “since its inception” to move “forward in their careers with grace.” 

Banks called it the “hardest news I have ever had to deliver in my existence” and said, “I cried myself to sleep that night.” 

She called Alexander, Manuel, and Baker, “some of the closest people in my life, And me and Ken have to deliver that news that the deal is up, that it is over? You can imagine what that feels like.”

“But bosses have bosses, and the big boss was very clear, there are no sacred cows. And I heard that meaning, ‘you too, Tyra. So pick up the phone and do what I’m telling you to do.’” 

Banks said that she doesn’t believe they were aware that the order “came from above.”

“To this day, I think they think that it was me, and Ken,” she explained.

Alexander’s heath battle 

Alexander revealed that he suffered a stroke in Dec. 2022. He spent five weeks in a coma, and couldn’t walk and talk. 

“It was emotional. I cried. I’m not ashamed to say that I cried. And once I was in the hospital, Jay and Nigel came to visit,” he said.

“That was just such a terrible shock, and really upsetting and horrifying and scary,” Barker recalled. “The two of us cried together, and I held him.” 

Although Alexander is now talking and participated in the doc, the camera panned out to show him in a wheelchair. 

“I taught models how to walk and now I can’t walk, not yet. I’m determined to walk. You’re gonna see me again, I’m sure. It’s not over for me yet,” he said. 

Banks says there will be a “Cycle 25” 

After the show, Banks moved to Australia where she continued her entrepreneurial endeavors with “Smize & Dream” ice cream. 

“I live in Australia now. I feel like my work is not done. You have no idea what we have planned for Cycle 25!” she said. 

She did not elaborate further, and no Cycle 25 has been announced. Page Six reached out for comment.