Tyra Banks filed a lawsuit against Netflix following the controversial series Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.
The former presenter of the show America’s Next Top Model claims that the platform selectively culled excerpts from her interview in order to present her in an unfavorable light.
People magazine reports that Tyra Banks called the series “defamatory” after giving a more than three-hour interview, of which only 16 minutes made it into the final cut.
“Tyra Banks participated in the Netflix documentary series because she felt viewers deserved a frank conversation about the show’s legacy – its successes and its shortcomings,” the complaint states. The former supermodel claims that the 16 minutes of her participation were “taken out of context and reassembled” in a “false and defamatory” manner.
The complaint continues: “Worse still, the false narrative that the producers constructed – through selective editing, deliberate omissions and surgical manipulation of running footage – implied that Ms. Banks had knowingly allowed a contestant to be sexually assaulted on her show, that she had exploited that contestant’s trauma to drive ratings, and that she did not even remember it when asked. This narrative about Ms. Banks is a complete fabrication – one that Netflix has released to a global audience of millions. »
Tyra Banks is also taking the show to task for airing comments from ANTM judge Miss J Alexander, who said she hasn’t visited her since her stroke.
“If the producers had informed Ms. Banks that part of the narrative of the Netflix series would include Miss J claiming that Ms. Banks never visited her in the hospital, Ms. Banks would have explained that she had been living in Australia for two and a half years,” the complaint states.
America’s Next Top Model was a reality television show in which women from all over the United States competed to win the title of America’s “it girl” in the modeling world. Tyra Banks co-created and hosted the show for 22 seasons.
The show, which aired from 2003 to 2018, launched the careers of Winnie Harlow, Leila Goldkuhl and Yaya DaCosta, among others.
