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00:05Top Model was a pop culture sensation.
00:09The person that wins is going to go from being nobody
00:11to being the star in eight weeks.
00:14Tyra Banks was the air that we breathed.
00:16Everyone wanted to be her.
00:18Tyra wasn't trying to help these girls.
00:20They were trying to create a great TV show.
00:23The crazy the models were,
00:25the better ratings they got on television.
00:27I don't understand why I don't have any friends.
00:29I break my daughter all day.
00:32Why do you her?
00:33The psych evaluations were no joke.
00:35It also shows Tyra.
00:36Do we think they can handle the pressure?
00:38They were weaponizing my childhood trauma for entertainment.
00:42She's drunk.
00:43They just with me emotionally.
00:46Over the years, it became more and more exploitative.
00:48Brittany, an African-American woman.
00:50There are literally people in blackface on TV in the 2000s.
00:55This is all people see.
00:57Ezra's beautiful cover girl.
00:58It seems like Tyra is sort of working her out on other people.
01:02Tyra was breaking the girls down so she could feel better about herself.
01:06Be quiet, everybody.
01:07Be quiet.
01:08Borrow something from this.
01:10When you create an environment that you told me was going to be better than this,
01:14and then you make it worse?
01:17That's **** up.
01:24I have the opportunity to introduce a special guest for you here this evening.
01:29She's Beauty.
01:30She's Grace.
01:31She's writing a tell-all book about her time on America's Next Top Model.
01:34Are you ready? Please give it up for Sarah Hartshorn!
01:43For years after the show, I defended it like crazy.
01:47And people would ask, wasn't it terrible? Wasn't it awful?
01:50And I'd say, no, no, no.
01:51I was on America's Next Out Model after the show,
01:54worked for many years as a plus-size model.
01:57And then I quit modeling, gained a bunch of weight,
02:00became a plus-size person.
02:01Weird how those aren't the same thing.
02:04I was convinced that Tyra and the producers
02:07never meant any ill will or had any bad intentions.
02:11They were just trying to make good TV.
02:14But then in 2020, a lot of people rewatched the show
02:16and sort of started to come to terms
02:19with how problematic a lot of it had been.
02:21There was so much body shaming on the show.
02:23I didn't even realize the comments they were making were toxic.
02:25And it was this, like, sort of awakening.
02:28And I had it at the same time.
02:30People kept saying, that's so messed up, that's so messed up.
02:32And I was like, wait, was that so messed up?
02:46We all have that fantasy that we're going to be plucked out of obscurity
02:51and we're going to become rich and famous.
02:52But even those who won Top Model,
02:55while they might be famous as reality personalities,
02:58were never really that famous as models.
03:02Maybe in the first few seasons, Tyra earnestly believed in her ability
03:07to make a career modeling for these women.
03:09But once you have evidence that your show doesn't actually do anything for anybody,
03:14well, you got a machine going. Keep making the money.
03:17A lot of people might have assumed that we were paid to be on that show.
03:21We were not paid to be on the show.
03:23We worked 12, 16-hour days.
03:26And even when we were sleeping, there were cameras on us.
03:29We were given $37 a day to buy our food.
03:33These girls don't get residuals in the entire sets.
03:37Go back to your life with no money.
03:40Well, I collect millions and millions off of their faces.
03:51Adrienne Curry won the first season of Top Model.
03:54In the first couple of seasons, they got this coveted cover girl contract.
04:00I'm really happy with Adrienne's success.
04:02She has cosmetics contracts.
04:04She's doing really, really well.
04:06And she's making a lot of money.
04:08Like, a lot.
04:11This is before the era of these contestants being all over social media.
04:16So if you tell me that Adrienne Curry is doing incredibly well
04:21and making a lot of money, I have no way of fact-checking that.
04:24A $100,000 contract does not mean a $100,000 check.
04:28It was actually just the promise of the opportunity to do
04:34a $100,000 worth of work over a year.
04:38But there was a clause that said that if circumstances arise
04:43and that work can't be provided, they were under no obligation to pay you.
04:50After five months, I'm kind of like, uh, what's going on?
04:56And it wasn't going to be a big cosmetics campaign.
05:00It was just going to be convention work.
05:01And they knew that my mom was about to lose her house.
05:05And I was told, you win this, you're a millionaire overnight,
05:09you take care of your family.
05:10And, you know, I told my family this, and I felt like I failed them.
05:21America's Next Top Model is...
05:27Yolana.
05:28The day when Tyra showed my picture, it was almost like cold water thrown at my face.
05:34I wasn't expecting the win.
05:37It was almost just like an out-of-body experience.
05:41But then it really hit the next day when I went to New York City
05:45and I signed with the modeling agency.
05:49And my mother said, well, where's Yolana going to stay?
05:51And they said, we don't know.
05:54For one year, I was indebted to the franchise America's Next Top Model.
06:00I had to do a lot of appearances.
06:02I never got paid for any of them.
06:05I was sleeping on a couch.
06:07And I had to figure out, how am I going to eat?
06:14Tyra's production company at the time was quite literally called Bankable Productions, right?
06:19Which is a play on her name.
06:20But you copyright the format and then sell it all over the globe.
06:25Then you do get to literally rake in a lot of the profits.
06:3745 different countries worldwide had their own version of Top Model.
06:42Tyra Banks became a mogul.
06:46She was a top model, actress, creator, and executive producer of a global franchise.
06:55It feels really good having the show be such a hit and be so successful.
06:59Just makes me just go home at night and smile as I'm going to sleep.
07:04I left the show broker than I'd ever been in my life.
07:16Why do you want to be a supermodel?
07:18Being a supermodel, you have to have that confidence.
07:20And you guys are going to speak like a supermodel.
07:21In the first season, the word supermodel appeared way more than it did in the subsequent seasons.
07:28Those clients wanted to book you. That's the signs of a top model in the making.
07:33Thereafter, it was America's next top model.
07:36And I don't think that that shift is a mistake.
07:41I think a lot of girls really expect a lot from Tyra Banks.
07:45Being that she picked them and like she should be the one to create their careers.
07:50But in all honesty, the show is about Tyra Banks.
07:54And I don't think she's going to try to make you more famous than her.
07:59Tyra loves to portray herself as somebody who has a helping hand.
08:04No, she's doing this all to manipulate people for her own profit.
08:11The central delusion of the show is that Tyra is helping you.
08:16Just because you are getting exposure because you're on TV.
08:20But like being on television is not help.
08:23It's not.
08:27I grew up in the hood of Buffalo.
08:29East Side Girl through and through 716 all day.
08:33I was always tall, always skinny.
08:36So that meant that I got ridiculed because I didn't look like the other girls.
08:41In the urban community, I wasn't curvy, wasn't thick.
08:47And I remember Tyra saying that she got bullied for being tall and skinny.
08:52And I was like, oh my God, I got bullied for being tall and skinny too.
08:56Girl, we are soul sisters.
08:58And in cycle 14, I was okay with placing top four.
09:01Because some of the girls who don't win get signed.
09:05Oh, trust me.
09:06You will be seeing you again.
09:07Know that.
09:08High hopes for you.
09:11So I thought the agencies will be calling me.
09:15No.
09:15Nobody called me.
09:17Nobody wanted to work with me.
09:19Because of how I was portrayed on the show.
09:21Okay, because you want me to be this hood ghetto bitch.
09:23No, I know how to conduct myself, bitch.
09:25I worked at a bank.
09:27Urban, ghetto, whatever you want to call it.
09:29And they said they can't market that.
09:31And that scares clients.
09:34There was embarrassment because I had been on such a big show that shows in so many countries.
09:40And then I had nothing to show for it.
09:42When they called me to do All Stars, I just wanted another chance.
09:47I went through all the past cycles and brought back your favorite.
09:52As Top Model goes on, you have to keep the format fresh.
09:56You start to see the show needing to come up with more kinds of gimmicks.
10:01In Cycle 17, the All Stars Cycle, they brought back all of these returning contestants.
10:09Cycle 5 made me the enemy of my own life around the globe on repeat.
10:15Well, then why'd you go back?
10:17I went back for revenge.
10:18I went back for redemption.
10:20I went back to change my life.
10:23But one of the biggest, biggest red flags on All Stars was they kept us in the vans for like
10:31four or five hours.
10:36With paper bags over our heads.
10:40Do you know what this all reminds me of?
10:44The Stanford Prison Experiment.
10:48With the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971, you're putting people in prison.
10:53Some are given roles as wardens.
10:56Some are given roles as prisoners.
10:58And then you watch what happens.
11:01Before the Stanford Prison Experiment started, they had everybody line up and sit on these benches.
11:07And made them wear paper bags over their heads for hours to make them vulnerable.
11:13And feel completely out of place and confused.
11:18That's what they did to us on All Stars.
11:22The bag over the head.
11:24If I had Hair Girl, I'd be pulling it right now because it was stressful.
11:30It's important to keep in mind where reality television comes from.
11:33In the 1960s and 1970s, you actually have these sociological experiments that are recorded and then broadcast on television.
11:42Taking real people and putting them in very sort of arduous situations to see how they will react.
11:49There's an idea that if you throw ordinary people into extraordinary circumstances, you will learn something about human nature.
11:58And I think that America's Next Top Model is very much building on that legacy.
12:04What makes reality television so compelling is that you get to see real people feel really vulnerable.
12:10However, how can it showcase that vulnerability without exploiting it?
12:19And then we're in Greece.
12:22It was the Cycle 17, the All Stars, the finale.
12:26It's Allison, it's Anjali, and it's me.
12:30The top three.
12:31The final three.
12:33The final runway.
12:34The gods, the goddesses.
12:36It was so hot on the beach.
12:39The whole set looked like it was half broken down.
12:43And then I won this show.
12:50Couldn't believe it, like, oh my God.
12:53I'm gonna be able to take this opportunity and really just live out my dreams again and just do it
12:59right.
12:59Because now I'm a little bit more gamed up.
13:01I can move and I can network properly, you know?
13:04This is great.
13:06A few weeks later, I was back in Buffalo and I had gotten a phone call.
13:12And it was from Michelle Mock, the casting director.
13:17She was like, hey, we want to fly you to New York City because we want to talk about sponsorships
13:23since you won.
13:25Okay, fine.
13:29I end up going to the Mandarin Oriental, which is a five-star hotel.
13:35And the attorney for CBS is there.
13:38The casting director, Michelle Mock, is there.
13:42And was like, now we need to get down to business.
13:45I'm like, oh, okay.
13:50We can't air you as the winner.
13:53And I was like, why?
13:56Because you were engaging in sex work.
14:12After Cycle 14, before I went on All Stars, I was in a bind and I was just desperate to,
14:19you know, to make some money.
14:24And someone took advantage of me, a predator, swooped in and just put me on a path of self-loathing
14:33and destruction and harm.
14:38I obviously didn't make the best choice, but I was desperate and I wasn't thinking straight.
14:46Now, here I am at the Mandarin Oriental.
14:51I just won this show.
14:53This show that will change my life for the better.
14:57Just for them to take my shit away from me.
15:01I get why they technically can do that.
15:06Because escorting is illegal.
15:09But for a show that is gifting a prize for selling beauty, to disqualify a woman using her agency to
15:21sell her beauty is hypocritical, sexist, and misogynist.
15:32Before All Stars, I meet with the casting director, Michelle Mock, in L.A.
15:39She's asking me, what have you been up to since the show?
15:42Oh, just modeling?
15:44Anything else?
15:45She flat out asked me.
15:47She was like, um, were you being pimped?
15:53She held my hand and she said, um, I know what happened to you, but I want you to take
16:05this opportunity and run with it.
16:08That is exactly what she said.
16:10This is like confirming that somebody knew what had happened to me.
16:17They knew everything about all of us.
16:19You literally have our blood type and our fingerprints.
16:23She was set up from the very beginning to be the one that's disqualified at the end.
16:31Anjali didn't make any money doing the thing you promised you would help her make money doing.
16:37And you snatch it away from her.
16:40That's cruel.
16:43My dream was right there.
16:45Like, someone dangling candy in front of a kid.
16:48Like, almost, almost, almost.
16:50I was supposed to walk away with $100,000, but they gave me $300 cash.
16:57Like, some pity money that sent me on my way.
17:03Two months later, the producers called me.
17:06We're gonna do a reshoot for the finale.
17:10And then, on the show, they said Anjali is disqualified.
17:15It turns out that after shooting was wrapped, our production team and the network learned information from Anjali that disqualifies
17:22her from the competition.
17:25America's next top model is Lisa.
17:32So, when the episode aired, Lisa is the on-air winner of Cycle 17 All-Stars.
17:40Nothing about me being the original winner or why we had to disqualify Anjali.
17:47So, now, the trending topic on Twitter was me.
17:50What happened to Anjali?
17:53I went back to change the narrative so people would stop calling me an alcoholic bitch.
17:58That definitely didn't happen.
18:00They actually made it worse.
18:03There was fans coming after me, asking what happened to Anjali.
18:10So, now, I have people reaching out to me and, of course, I don't want to talk about it because
18:14I'm embarrassed.
18:15I just went through something so traumatic.
18:17The attorney for CBS told me, you know, Anjali, you did this to yourself.
18:23Yes, thank you.
18:24Thank you for being so kind and telling me that I up.
18:28People kept talking about it.
18:30And so, they brought in the ratings.
18:33I felt used.
18:35I felt like a throwaway.
18:38There could have been a sensible excuse as to why Anjali didn't make the final runway.
18:44She got sick or something.
18:47But y'all wanted people to question what happened to me to boost your ratings.
18:54It's not right.
18:55It was wrong.
18:57The system we're in already punishes poverty.
18:59You told me that if I worked hard, I could get this thing.
19:03I got it.
19:05And you took it from me.
19:06And then, to strip that shit from her, and she actually needs it, and you give it to a white
19:13woman?
19:15You got to be kidding me, yo.
19:26It wasn't always about who the best model was.
19:29It was about who would be the best spokesperson for the brand.
19:34Top Model took Anjali's win away because Cover Girl, allegedly, was not happy that an escort won.
19:44If you have a presenting sponsor that pays for production, you got to keep your presenting sponsor happy.
19:51By Cycle 24, it wasn't even a modeling competition anymore.
19:54It was a gimmicky TV show.
19:56Whoa, whoa, whoa.
19:58It's a big step.
19:59Okay?
20:01Tyra, over the years, was really good at fetishizing and gimmicking up people who looked even more different than the
20:10different she used to celebrate.
20:12And what makes you interesting, special, different?
20:15I have a disease called alopecia universalis, so it's autoimmune.
20:18It attacks my hair follicles and my hair falls out.
20:20It's hard to talk about.
20:24I was like a super fan of the show before I was even on it.
20:28I know the show like the back of my hand.
20:29Every winner, every contestant, from every season.
20:33I had a lot of insecurities about losing my hair, but I thought being on the show was an opportunity
20:40for me to kind of find myself
20:41and figure out who I was without other people telling me, like, what was beautiful.
20:46But out of all 24 seasons of America's Next Top Model, the sponsor has always been a makeup brand.
20:55My season was the only season that the sponsor was a hair company.
21:00How was I ever going to win once I was told Pantene was the sponsor?
21:04I don't have hair.
21:06You cast a girl with alopecia on a hair product competition.
21:12I mean, it's cruel. It's evil.
21:15Look, I can imagine to be a buxom 17-year-old black girl in France selling your looks, you're probably
21:24treated like a zoo animal.
21:26But you promised me you were going to do it different.
21:29So why didn't you do it different?
21:32Right away during my audition process, I walked into the room.
21:35I was like, hi, I'm Gina.
21:37They were like, so you went from childhood modeling to, like, va-va-boom.
21:42And Tyra's, like, looking at me like this.
21:44And I was like, are you guys referring to Playboy?
21:48As soon as I said that, I noticed Tyra's expression changed to, like, kind of smug and, like, cold.
21:56And when I said the idea of selling sex worked for me, being sexy in my career worked for me.
22:01Tyra didn't like that.
22:03And her response to me was, you sound like a prostitute.
22:08Tyra made an entire career off of being sexy.
22:10I mean, the biggest thing she's known for is Victoria's Secret.
22:13It blew my mind that she was that offended by it.
22:17And this is within minutes of meeting somebody that I idolized my entire life.
22:22So I told them, I lost my hair at the same time every girl was getting boobs and, like, having
22:27a glow up.
22:28I did something to grow into and step into my own femininity.
22:33And as soon as I said that, she looks at me and goes, now tell me about alopecia, while I'm
22:38mid-breakdown.
22:39I see a very beautiful girl with hair or without hair.
22:44Do your next fellow fierce.
22:47None of the conversation about Playboy and why I was crying like that was ever shown.
22:52That was the first, the very first way that they manipulated my emotions to get a certain scene.
23:01They always would do this manipulation surrounding the concept of my story with my hair.
23:07I am ready with your tie over.
23:09Gina, that wig that you have, you're gonna have to say goodbye to her.
23:12I never saw that video. I never saw Tyra say that to me.
23:16I was told I was getting a wig.
23:17The editing process changed that video.
23:20Can we take your wig off now?
23:22Because I don't even know what's under.
23:25I just never know. It's a surprise at a time.
23:27Like, I always hope that there's hair that ever since there's not.
23:30They literally just told me they were giving me hair and then all of a sudden it was different.
23:35I had never shaved my head like that before.
23:39It felt like touching a snake, like, and I just felt like creepy-crawly in my own skin.
23:45Looking back on it, their editing was that deceptive that they were actually able to make an audience think that
23:51I felt powerful.
23:56I felt so small.
24:02How do you get the reality TV show Emmy?
24:04Make sure you have a sad arc of someone who's gone through some massive struggle
24:09to show why their circumstances are so desperate that they're entitled to public sympathy.
24:18The production of the show really know how to make sure that they cast girls that came from a really
24:26hard or toxic childhood background.
24:30Tell me about growing up and all the things that you went through and all the tragedy.
24:34I've been just passed off to family members a lot.
24:41I was molested, raped.
24:44They were really good at casting someone who was struggling with something.
24:48You got brothers and sisters. You're my brother's dad.
24:53I think Renee from my season was going through some things in her life already.
24:58Tyra, you have to understand, I have a family to take care of.
25:01My husband was living on the beach. My son's living with his mom.
25:04I have a lot on my shoulders right now.
25:07And something was kind of spiraling.
25:09Listen, I do talk. I don't feel guilty about talking.
25:13And people have been disrespectful to me.
25:15Is that true? Y'all don't like me either?
25:19After the show, Renee, she was in a bad way.
25:24There were a string of arrests, Alway accused of breaking into people's homes and cars, stealing weapons, money and other
25:33valuable items.
25:35Renee did an interview in prison.
25:39I was like in shock.
25:41Everybody says, well, wow, you have all this great opportunity.
25:44But when it comes down to it, I got into the world and I went, okay, like here I am,
25:50you know, ready to do this.
25:51And it was just closed door after closed door after closed door.
25:54I couldn't get past the reality TV stigma that had been put on me.
26:01And then there's Mariana Pujar, Cyclist 21.
26:06I felt like we had like a similar shared path and background.
26:12She was this girl who was also an urban girl, a girl with a little sass, a little spunk.
26:17There's a little toughness in there.
26:19Yeah. Where's that come from?
26:20I had like a abusive boyfriend at 13.
26:22I didn't have that love for my dad.
26:24So I was kind of looking for that with him.
26:26And just like all the urban girls, girls like me, girls who are labeled with an attitude.
26:33She was having a hard time getting signed after being portrayed as difficult or as a villain.
26:39She's young. She has no direction.
26:41She picked the wrong guy to love.
26:44I was so upset about how she was treated like nothing.
26:55She was killed.
27:04Yeah, you want that prize, don't you?
27:08Reality TV in general, people will get cast who are relying on this to make their paycheck.
27:15I was hoping that I could use this to pay off all of the bills that, you know, we're swimming
27:20in debt.
27:20We don't have any place to live.
27:22And I just feel like I failed.
27:23I feel like I failed my family.
27:25They are easy to exploit because they are the most desperate and are willing to accommodate the most things.
27:31If I think that Tyra Banks is my only shot, I'm going to give everything I have.
27:38Okay, it's just six weeks of this crazy, crazy competition and I'll never have to live in a roach infested
27:45apartment again.
27:45Well, then I'm going to do every challenge to the max.
27:49When you come from a background where you're used to being abused, being taken advantage of, you're already used to
27:57not standing up for yourself, not setting boundaries.
28:01So it's very easy for productions like this to emotionally manipulate us for entertainment and Tyra just gets away with
28:10it.
28:20I don't think Tyra had a responsibility to take care of these women.
28:24It would have been relatively impossible, but she had a responsibility to be honest with them.
28:30And I think where she chose to employ that honesty ultimately was cruel and where the honesty was needed was
28:38completely ignored.
28:41When Mariana passed away, Tyra's post was like, oh, Mariana, we love you forever, forever in our hearts.
28:51And I was just like, girl, that is bullshit.
28:56Tyra and the judges say they care about us. They want us to have a good career.
28:59We believe this, but if y'all would have reached out to her and helped her, could she have been
29:07in a different situation?
29:12I did not get a single phone call from Tyra, from anybody checking up.
29:18Wow. Filming all stars.
29:22Kim Mock, he came in a room and he says, I just want to thank you girls so much because
29:26you girls put my girls through college.
29:30And the silence in the room at that point was deafening.
29:35We did not come on this show to make your family's life better.
29:40We came on this show to make our lives better.
29:43I wanted to be able to give young girls that dream because it's an amazing dream and I had the
29:47power to give them that dream.
29:49Call it for what it is. It's a business to you and that's fine.
29:53Don't go and do a media blitz about how you care about us.
29:57You didn't and you don't.
30:00I really do think that sometimes Tyra thought she was doing good things.
30:05It's not true.
30:08But when you get high off your own supply, more than making a bajillion dollars, she got an ego stroke.
30:18Tyra's face was all over the place.
30:21In the house, on the show, it was an environment of worship, like a sort of deity situation.
30:26Tyra created her own language, which she has trademarked a smize.
30:32Smize!
30:34Smiling with your eyes.
30:35Booty tooch.
30:38H to T.
30:39I need a little bit more H to T. What does that mean?
30:42Head to...
30:43You get Tyra mail that like leaves a little cryptic riddle about what your next challenge is going to be.
30:49Solid tips.
30:51Care to dye.
30:52The branding of the whole situation is like Tyra. It's Tyra's world. We're in it.
30:58I read the book Cultish about cults of every level.
31:02And it really breaks down the tools that they all use.
31:06Top model.
31:08They used all of them.
31:11The unifying definition that people have around what makes something a cult or not is high control.
31:17They controlled when we went to the bathroom, when we ate, when we slept, when we were allowed to speak
31:20to each other.
31:21They isolated us from our friends and family.
31:23We weren't allowed to have magazines, we weren't allowed to have newspapers, we weren't allowed to have anything that showed
31:27what day it was or what time it was.
31:31Down to using the same phrase over and over again.
31:34If you violate the confidentiality agreement, we will dock your wages for the rest of your life.
31:38We will dock your wages for the rest of your life.
31:40We will dock your wages for the rest of your life.
31:45Tyra is the sun and the moon.
31:47Because it's her show and she holds your fate in her hands.
31:53If you think about the main season cast photos, where they will slowly just remove people, like they just disappear.
32:00It's like Tyra controls who gets to exist and who does not get to exist.
32:07We were so sucked into doing what they wanted.
32:10And just following every order.
32:14Because Tyra Banks was just the air that we breathed.
32:19We would do anything for her.
32:23I think fame and validation are two different things.
32:26Because Tyra was famous.
32:28But she wanted to be revered and respected.
32:32Designers don't talk about Tyra the way designers talk about Naomi Campbell.
32:37I think that's the kind of thing that eats at Tyra.
32:41We know Tyra Banks. She is famous.
32:44I think she wants more than that.
32:56You've just seen the beginning of Tyra. She is starting to build an empire.
33:01She looks up to Oprah like nobody else.
33:07I don't think Tyra gets the Tyra show if Tyra doesn't do Top Model.
33:13I don't think anyone is like, oh, yeah, this one girl who did Victoria's Secret.
33:17I want to hear what her opinions are.
33:23Tyra wanted me to come on the Tyra Banks show.
33:25And the producer called me and said, we'll pay $750 and we want to interview you about your childhood trauma.
33:33And I said, not happening.
33:35We all agree that we will just talk about your experience on Top Model.
33:40Great.
33:41My makeup is done.
33:43It's my turn to go get interviewed by Tyra.
33:46And all of a sudden I hear.
33:49Now I think everybody remembers Lisa as what people, the fans say, the wild child from Cycle 5.
33:55And then she said, but what you don't know is that she has been physically and sexually abused most of
34:02her childhood.
34:05It was like ice in my veins.
34:08And then I look over and I see Tyra just sitting there.
34:11I'm like, you. I was like, you, you.
34:14I was so livid.
34:19The PA really calmly takes me backstage.
34:23And then he opens the door to some room and he just closes the door behind him.
34:33They locked me in a closet.
34:39I was in there, I don't know, like 20, 30 minutes.
34:43I was like, I don't want to go back.
34:44And they're like, well, then you aren't going to get the $750.
34:48And so I got back up on stage and finished shooting.
34:57I know Tyra went through a lot.
35:00But was she a hurt person hurting other people?
35:04Some people could give her that title.
35:08But, you know, to be honest, I don't think Tyra really reveals herself very much to people.
35:15You couldn't really get to her in that way.
35:19I wish I could tell you what you get out of this experience except a lifetime of hate comments on
35:24Instagram.
35:26All I wanted was to have a career and to put money in my pocket.
35:29I thought being on the show was going to get me in.
35:33It turned out to be the opposite, actually.
35:36There were quite a few lasting effects after the show.
35:39For a period of time, it was uncomfortable for me to eat in public because of feedback about my weight.
35:52After the show, I developed a workout disorder where I would want to burn almost everything that I'd eaten for
36:00the day.
36:01I became so tiny until a point where I stopped menstruating for two years.
36:09And I went with a physician and he said, you know, you're now impacting.
36:14Sorry.
36:17You're not going to be able to be a mother or have a child if you continue trying to always
36:26lose weight and be this thin.
36:30And that really scared me.
36:35Who knows?
36:37Maybe these women would not have had a modeling career anyway.
36:43But you promised me something.
36:46And you didn't deliver.
36:48My life is worse off.
36:50And you own my face.
36:53How are you any different from a pimp selling dreams?
36:58In 2020, it was a moment of re-examination.
37:02I decided to go on my Instagram.
37:06What you guys do and the way that you guys would poke me and use my childhood trauma against me
37:14day in and day out.
37:16It was just so up.
37:18I don't know how you sleep at night.
37:20In that video, it got like 190,000 views.
37:25Like, I don't know, 2,000 comments, like literally overnight.
37:29It just blew up.
37:31It opened the doors to where other girls were contacting me because what I had said was exactly what happened
37:39to them.
37:40Tyra Banks, you speak on all this female empowerment and building people up and accepting their differences.
37:46When in reality, you do the opposite.
37:53Gina! Oh my god, it's amazing!
37:57It opened up this camaraderie.
37:59And we didn't feel alone anymore.
38:07I've gone through therapy.
38:09I have had a great career in the world of broadcasting.
38:14Fashion reporting, commentating.
38:16And, of course, being a mom to my son Alistair.
38:22I've kind of given up being so hard on myself.
38:25So, I've come out stronger.
38:30I worked after the show as a model, but I realized when I would show up to set that I
38:35was sick of being the least creative person there.
38:38So, I made the shift and I started working as a writer.
38:42I just wrote my book called You Want to Be On Top?
38:45A Memoir of Makeovers, Manipulation, and Not Becoming America's Next Top Model.
38:50When I started to write down the story and tell those things that happened that I had never said out
38:55loud before,
38:56it was surprisingly painful.
38:59Like, when I saw my own words on the page, I was like...
39:05That was a human being that was doing that to me.
39:10I ended up going back to school.
39:12I am an award-winning journalist.
39:16And I always say award-winning because you're going to put some respect on my name.
39:20You know, no matter what I've been through, I'm here now.
39:24Part of the reason why I got into a journalism career
39:27was because I wanted to tell stories of people's voices who were silenced,
39:33like how they tried to silence me.
39:39All right, so let's get into it.
39:41First of all, we need to have a lot of movement, dimension, and shapes.
39:46Who remembers those three key elements?
39:50Now, I help other aspiring models and I develop them
39:54and help them start their own modeling careers with my company,
39:57Find Your Light.
39:58Oh, I love!
39:59And I have just gotten tons of models signed to modeling agencies
40:02and it has just been incredibly fulfilling to help these models
40:07establish their confidence in themselves.
40:10More neck, more neck, more neck.
40:12Yeah, I think long neck.
40:14It's super important for you to be comfortable.
40:17It's important that we feel safe and like somebody actually cares.
40:24Being a mom now, the last thing that I want to do is raise two girls who have insecurities.
40:31Like, I never want them to feel the way that I did.
40:35The last thing this world needs is two more insecure little girls
40:38and for them to go seeking validation from someone who's also going to hurt them.
40:45When people go, you're just bitching, it was reality TV back then.
40:49Tyra Banks and Ken Mock are still profiting off of the tears and the trauma of girls to this day
40:55right now.
40:56That's why I'm still sitting here. That's why I'm still complaining.
41:00I think about Heidi Klum, who did Project Runway, but she never actually became like the public character of the
41:07show.
41:08When you contrast that to something like Top Model, it really is a control exercise to ensure that people understand
41:15that Tyra is the Alpha and Omega.
41:17At the expense of the contestants.
41:20I refuse to have my legacy be about some stuff linked together on the internet when there were 24 cycles
41:31of changing the world.
41:36It didn't change the world, it didn't change my world.
41:39It changed the world of the people you interacted with.
41:43I don't know what's subversive about making pretty girls feel bad for not being pretty enough.
41:51You didn't subvert anything.
41:53Tyra Banks is a woman with all kinds of issues, puppeteering a bunch of girls and giving them issues while
42:01she's working on her own issues.
42:04Get therapy. You got the money for it.
42:12Get therapy. You got it.
42:31Her nickname is like both my father andhake, phat
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