Tyra Banks took a moment during last week’s ESSENCE Black Women in Hollywood Awards to talk about the good and bad that came out of her show America’s Next Top Model, which aired from 2003 to 2018.
Tyra created ‘ANTM’ in 2003 and served as the show’s host for all but one of its 24 Cycles. While accepting the Luminary Spotlight honor last week, Tyra spoke about the series, telling the crowd they had “no idea how hard we fought to bring the diversity to that television show at a time when it didn’t exist.”
Tyra also acknowledged that, at times, the show was problematic, and some of the things she said on the show were not great.
Over the past few years, clips of the early 2000s reality show have resurfaced on social media, often highlighting how controversial (and, at times, offensive) some of the things shown on ‘ANTM’ were. (For instance, Tyra once made her contestants model as homeless people. Another photoshoot forced the contestants to model as a person of a different race, essentially making some white contestants wear blackface makeup.)
@space_kiiitty This episode was a hot mess 😪 #antm #americasnexttopmodel #tyrabanks #cultureappropriation #blackface #toxic #fypシ #foryoupage #model ♬ original sound – Jansita
While Tyra noted how hard the show fought to break certain barriers, she also admitted that she didn’t always “get it right,” telling the audience, “I said some dumb s**t.”
“ … But I refuse to have my legacy be about some stuff linked together on the Internet when there were 24 cycles of changing the world,” she said. “And I am so excited that I, and so many of us, have opened that door for others to follow.”
Tyra went on to praise herself (and the show) for fighting to have a diverse lineup of contestants on the show.
“To show different beauties at a time when the world was like, ‘What? You casting that?'” she said in her speech. “A time when people in the fashion industry were telling me, ‘You putting the girls from the hood on your show?’ I was like, ‘Why can the girl from the trailer park become a supermodel but the girl that’s chillin’ in the park in the hood can’t?’ And we fought and we struggled and we made it happen.”
This is not the first time Tyra has talked about scenes from ‘ANTM’ that haven’t aged well. Tyra addressed some of the problematic clips back in 2020 when ‘ANTM’ was on heavy rotation for many fans– both new and old– amid the pandemic, resulting in many of the clips making their rounds on social media.
One viral clip from Cycle 4 showed contestants taking part in a “7 Deadly Sins” photoshoot in a graveyard that placed them in coffins. This photoshoot happened to take place immediately after contestant Kahlen Rondot had learned that her best friend from back home had passed away. (While Kahlen was offered the option to sit out for this particular photoshoot, she decided to participate.)
After being called out for the incident– as well as some of the show’s other questionable photoshoots and comments made to contestants– Tyra eventually issued an apology on social media.
“Been seeing the posts about the insensitivity of some past ‘ANTM’ moments and I agree with you,” Tyra wrote in a since-deleted tweet. “Looking back, those were some really off choices. Appreciate your honest feedback and am sending so much love and virtual hugs.”
Shortly after Tyra (sort of) apologized for her part in some of the show’s controversial moments, Jay Manuel, former Creative Director for ‘ANTM,’ told Variety that, despite his title on the show, he was often “scared to speak up” during “uncomfortable” moments– including some of those that went viral in 2020.
Meanwhile, ‘ANTM’ co-creator Ken Mok admitted to the outlet that while he will now look “at some of those moments and cringe,” he insisted that “the entire creative team made the choices on those shows– not just Tyra.”
Tyra spoke out during an interview with the Chicks in the Office podcast in 2020 about ‘ANTM’ and the controversy surrounding it. She spoke in detail about the race-changing challenge, stating that, at the time, she thought she was celebrating the beauty of being multiple races, but later realized the challenge wasn’t viewed in that way by critics and the public.
“It’s my job to say, ‘Yes, I’ve apologized for it, and we’re going to apologize again and keep apologizing for it because it was wrong,'” she said. “…if you think my intention was to make it negative and make it bad and harken back to blackface back in the day, that was not my intention.”
She added that she wanted to do something positive, but “just went about it in a way that was a little ignorant.”
Watch some of the most controversial ‘ANTM’ moments below.
(Photos: Instagram; YouTube)
7 Responses
Screw that dumb cow. Didn’t do anything to actually get these girls anywhere. None are household name professional models. On top of that she revealed several times to the black contestants that they (the judges) were ROOTING for them. So congratulations for performing racism with the tiniest amount of power lol. I was honestly surprised this mess is still going. It ran its course long long ago. You have more of a chance becoming a model just hanging out on Instagram in your swimsuit drinking coconut smoothies and selling ozempic shots lol.
How can she still (and well, even as the adult she was back then) be so willfully ignorant about everything?
What exactly did you “do for the world”? Because it wasn’t anything positive, it wasn’t even positive for the participants, much less the rest of the world. She didn’t break down any barriers, she didn’t challenge any ideals, she didn’t change or contribute to the idea of diverse beauty, or beauty at all, really. She did absolutely nothing but showcase her own ass and willful ignorance. The women on the show didn’t benefit, in fact, many of them suffered some serious mental gymnastics at the hands of her arrogant ignorance-and many of them have said so over the years. No one watching the show gained any benefit. No little girl sitting in the hood, the trailer park, the city, the suburbs or even a multi-million dollar mansion gained any sense of “I can be be pretty too, I can be a model too”. It was a shit show, start to finish. Sure, good trash tv, but it was exactly that TRASH TV, nothing positive came of it. It only lasted as long as it did, because trash tv, especially reality trash tv was sought after (and still is). That doesn’t make it some monumental positive life-changing learning experience for the world, lol.
It wasn’t just dumb shit, it was racist, classist, bigoted, ignorant, arrogant and just about any other word you can come up with and tie in with offensive. FFS Tyra read the gd room, hell, read the gd planet woman. “Little ignorant”, what in the actual hell, lol. If anyone ever believed she was of sound mind, this should probably showcase precisely why she isn’t and never was.
Not one of them ever became a Top Model. Or “America’s Next Best Friend.”
We were ALL rooting for them!!!!
I will always remember the girl who married and divorced Peter Brady. If I’m not mistaken she won and had to literally fight for her prizes and money.
She is a straight up nasty hoe. She was so hated by all on AGT and DWTS.
Yeah girl. It’s just “words & shit”, not ppls real lives or anything. As long as those ratings slayed, it’s all good & shit