America’s Next Top Model’s first winner has spoken out about the fact that none of the show’s contestants were paid to appear in the brand-new Netflix documentary.
The Netflix doc, called Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, delves into some of the wild behind-the-scenes controversies from the reality modelling talent show.
Some of these controversies however were not as much behind-the-scenes as they were the scenes themselves, with one model speaking out about how no one intervened as she was filmed being sexually assaulted whilst blackout drunk.
The show’s creator Tyra Banks has also spoken out about the series’ controversial blackface photoshoot, so the documentary is clearly unafraid of addressing the show’s most serious moments.
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The very first winner of the show however has spoken out about the documentary, slamming it for the ‘pathetic’ reason that they were not paid to appear.
Adrianne Curry won cycle one however has been pretty outspoken in her criticism of not just the doc, but Tyra Banks and America’s Next Top Model.
Taking to X, Curry said of the documentary: “They didnt pay ANY of the girls in the Netflix top model documentary. They said it would seem they were ‘swaying’ them to say things. I see nothing has changed!”
One reply said: "Pathetic. They deserve to be compensated for contributing their stories and experiences to something that is going to make the producers."
Curry's tweet was accompanied with a ‘same old sh*t, different day’ GIF, likely a reference to the fact that contestants on America’s Next Top Model were not paid to appear on the show, receiving a small daily stipend for food and toiletries.
The winners of the show were not even guaranteed their prize money and very few contestants on the show went on to become full time models.
As this was in the days before Instagram where reality fame could be leveraged into financial success, most of the contestants on the show were forced to return to their jobs from before the show.
Whilst it is not standard for interviewees of documentaries to be paid for their testimony, Curry’s post pointed to historic issues regarding the show and its treatment of the girls.
In separate posts the cycle one winner claimed that she was the ‘first girl’ to be sexually assaulted on the show.
She said: “Fun fact...I was the first woman to be sexually assaulted on top model...they titled the episode Girl deals with a pervert.
“A man reached up my skirt out of nowhere on the street...2x I was scolded for being so upset by it & missing a casting and was almost eliminated.”
One of the girls who did appear in the documentary, Shandi Sullivan, spoke about her experience in cycle two of being sexually assaulted during the show.
After a segment in which the girls drank with male models in Milan she stated that she ‘blacked out’ and woke up with one of them ‘on top of her’.
This was then edited into a storyline about her cheating on her boyfriend, with the cameras filming her emotional breakup phone call with him.
Executive producer Ken Mok spoke about the incident and why they decided to keep filming, saying: “We treated Top Model as a documentary. And we told the girls that. We would go over the rules.
"There's going to be cameras with you 24/7, day in and day out, and they're going to cover everything — the good, the bad, and everything in between. No matter what happens while you're on camera, we're going to document all of that.”
Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model is available to stream on Netflix now.
Topics: Netflix, TV and Film, TV, Documentaries, Money
Michael Slavin