Tyra Banks sues Netflix over ‘surgical manipulation’ on America’s Next Top Model documentary

Tyra Banks has reportedly filed a defamation lawsuit against Netflix over their America’s Next Top Model docuseries, in which she featured.

The 52-year-old former supermodel was the marquee interviewee of the series, which reappraised the noughties reality show. 

In coverage of Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, Banks was criticised from some corners for not appearing more remorseful for the treatment of contestants on the programme.

Banks has now fired back with a lawsuit claiming her portrayal in the docuseries, directed by Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan, was defamatory and was ‘edited to support a false narrative’.

She is claiming that the accountability she took for certain controversial moments in the show was edited out of the docuseries, according to court documents seen by People.

The former ANTM executive producer and host also claimed that the Netflix docuseries used only 16 minutes of the three-and-a-half-hour interview she sat for.

She is alleging that her commentary was ‘stripped of context and reassembled to support a false and defamatory narrative unrelated to what she actually expressed’.

Banks is said to be asking for a jury trial to determine the ‘appropriate’ amount she would deserve in damages.

The publication reported that the lawsuit reads: ‘Tyra Banks participated in the Netflix documentary series America’s Next Top Model because she believed viewers deserved a candid conversation about the show’s legacy – its successes and its shortcomings.

‘There are aspects of the show for which Ms Banks takes accountability and she wanted ANTM viewers to hear that from her directly.

‘Going into her interview, Ms Banks did not limit the ANTM topics the interviewer could ask.’

The documents continued: ‘The Netflix series Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model was sold to viewers as a ‘documentary series’. Netflix called it ‘the definitive, must-watch chronicle of America’s Next Top Model’. 

‘The genre matters. Viewers of a documentary do not expect manufactured drama or constructed narratives. They expect facts. Because they were promised a documentary, that is exactly how viewers interacted with the Netflix series.

‘Worse, the false narrative the producers constructed – through selective editing, deliberate omission, and surgical manipulation of continuous footage – included that Ms Banks knowingly allowed a contestant to be sexually assaulted on her show, exploited that contestant’s trauma for ratings, and then could not even remember it when asked. 

‘That narrative about Ms Banks is a complete fabrication – one that Netflix streamed to a global audience of millions.’

The contestant referred to is cycle two model Shandi Sullivan, who was filmed being intimate with a man in Milan, in what was framed as a cheating scandal. 

But Sullivan implied to Netflix that she had been too drunk to give consent and also alleged that the production had manipulated the situation for the sake of the show, including filming the harrowing moment she called her boyfriend to tell him.

Metro contacted Netflix and Tyra Banks’s representatives for comment on this story.

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