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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, that's up.
01:24I have the opportunity to introduce a special guest for you here this evening.
01:28She's beauty.
01:30She's Grace.
01:30She's writing a tell-all book about her time on America's Next Top Model.
01:34Are you ready?
01:35Please give it up for Sarah Hartshorn!
01:43For years after the show, I defended it like crazy.
01:47And people would ask, like, wasn't it terrible?
01:49Wasn't it awful?
01:50And I'd say, no, no, no.
01:51I was on America's Next Top 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.
02:31That's so messed up.
02:32And I was like, wait.
02:34Was that so messed up?
02:46We all have that fantasy that we're going to be plucked out
02:50of obscurity and 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,
03:04Tyra earnestly believed in her ability to make a career modeling
03:08for these women.
03:09But once you have evidence that your show doesn't actually
03:12do anything for anybody,
03:13well, you got a machine going.
03:16Keep making the money.
03:18A lot of people might have assumed
03:19that 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,
03:56they 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
04:14being all over social media.
04:16So if you tell me that Adrienne Curry is doing incredibly well
04:21and making a lot of money,
04:22I 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
04:33to do $100,000 worth of work over a year.
04:39But there was a clause that said that if circumstances arise
04:43and that work can't be provided,
04:46they were under no obligation to pay you.
04:50After five months, I'm kind of like,
04:52uh, what's going on?
04:56And it wasn't going to be a big cosmetics campaign.
04:59It 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.
05:07You're a millionaire overnight.
05:08You take care of your family.
05:10And I, you know, I told my family this
05:13and I felt like I failed them.
05:21America's Next Top Model is...
05:27Yolana.
05:28The day when Tyra showed my picture,
05:30it 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
05:44when I went to New York City
05:45and I signed with the modeling agency.
05:49And my mother said,
05:50well, where's Yolana going to stay?
05:51And they said, we don't know.
05:54For one year,
05:56I was indebted to the franchise
05:58America's Next Top Model.
06:00I had to do a lot of appearances.
06:02I never got paid for any of them.
06:04I was sleeping on a couch
06:06and I had to figure out,
06:09how am I going to eat?
06:14Tyra's production company at the time
06:16was quite literally called Bankable Productions, right?
06:19Which is a play on her name.
06:21But you copyright the format
06:23and then sell it all over the globe.
06:25Then you do get to literally rake in
06:28a lot of the profits.
06:3745 different countries worldwide
06:40had their own version of Top Model.
06:43Tyra Banks became a mogul.
06:46She was a Top Model,
06:48actress,
06:49creator,
06:50and executive producer
06:52of a global franchise.
06:55It feels really good.
06:56Having the show be such a hit
06:58and be so successful
06:59just makes me just go home at night
07:01and smile as I'm going to sleep.
07:03I left the show broker
07:05than I'd ever been in my life.
07:16Why do you want to be a supermodel?
07:18Being a supermodel,
07:18you have to have that confidence
07:19and you guys are going to speak
07:21like a supermodel.
07:22In the first season,
07:23the word supermodel appeared way more
07:26than it did in the subsequent seasons.
07:27Those clients wanted to book you.
07:30That's the signs of a Top Model in the making.
07:33Thereafter,
07:34it 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
07:43from Tyra Banks.
07:45Being that she picked them
07:47and she should be the one to create their careers.
07:50But in all honesty,
07:51the show is about Tyra Banks.
07:54And I don't think she's going to try
07:56to make you more famous than her.
07:59Tyra loves to portray herself
08:01as somebody who has a helping hand.
08:05No.
08:05She's doing this all to manipulate people
08:08for her own profit.
08:11The central delusion of the show
08:13is that Tyra is helping you
08:16just because you are getting exposure
08:19because you're on TV.
08:20But like being on television
08:21is not help.
08:23It's not.
08:27I grew up in the hood of Buffalo.
08:29East Side Girl through and through,
08:31716 all day.
08:33I was always tall, always skinny.
08:36So that meant that I got ridiculed
08:39because I didn't look like the other girls.
08:41In the urban community,
08:44I wasn't curvy, wasn't thick.
08:47And I remember Tyra saying that
08:50she got bullied for being tall and skinny.
08:52And I was like, oh my God.
08:53I got bullied for being tall and skinny too.
08:56Girl, we are soul sisters.
08:58And in cycle 14,
08:59I was okay with placing top four
09:01because some of the girls who don't win
09:04get signed.
09:05Oh, trust me.
09:06You will be seeing you again.
09:07Know that.
09:08Bye, y'all.
09:08High hopes for you.
09:11So I thought the agencies will be calling me.
09:14No.
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
09:22this 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
09:36because I had been on such a big show
09:38that shows in so many countries
09:40and then I had nothing to show for it.
09:42When they called me to do All Stars,
09:45I just wanted another chance.
09:47I went through all the past cycles
09:49and brought back your favorite.
09:52As Top Model goes on,
09:54you have to keep the format fresh.
09:56You start to see the show
09:58needing to come up with more kinds of gimmicks.
10:01In Cycle 17, the All Stars Cycle,
10:04they brought back all of these returning contestants.
10:09Cycle 5 made me the enemy of my own life
10:12around 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
10:26on All Stars was they kept us in the vans
10:30for like four 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,
10:51you'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,
11:03they had everybody line up and sit on these benches
11:07and made them wear paper bags over their heads for hours
11:11to 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
11:26because it was stressful.
11:30It's important to keep in mind
11:31where reality television comes from.
11:34In the 1960s and 1970s,
11:36you actually have these sociological experiments
11:38that are recorded and then broadcast on television,
11:41taking real people and putting them
11:44in very sort of arduous situations
11:47to see how they will react.
11:50There's an idea that if you throw ordinary people
11:53into extraordinary circumstances,
11:54you will learn something about human nature.
11:58And I think that America's Next Top Model
12:00is very much building on that legacy.
12:04What makes reality television so compelling
12:06is that you get to see real people feel really vulnerable.
12:10However, how can it showcase that vulnerability
12:13without 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.
12:51Like, oh my God.
12:53I'm gonna be able to take this opportunity
12:55and really just live out my dreams again
12:58and just do it right,
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
13:10and I had gotten a phone call.
13:12And it was from Michelle Mock, the casting director.
13:17She was like, hey, we wanna fly you to New York City
13:21because we wanna talk about sponsorships since you won.
13:25Okay, fine.
13:29I end up going to the Mandarin Oriental,
13:32which 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,
14:15I was in a bind and I was just desperate
14:18to, you know, to make some money.
14:24And someone took advantage of me, a predator,
14:28swooped 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,
14:41but 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
15:15to disqualify a woman using her agency to sell her beauty
15:22is hypocritical, sexist, and misogynist.
15:32Before All Stars, I meet with the casting director,
15:36Michelle Mock in L.A.
15:39She's asking me,
15:40what have you been up to since the show?
15:42Oh, just modeling?
15:44Anything else?
15:46She flat out asked me.
15:47She was like, um, were you being pimped?
15:53She held my hand and she said,
15:59um, I know what happened to you,
16:03but I want you to take this 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.
16:16They 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
16:25to be the one that's disqualified at the end.
16:31Anjali didn't make any money doing the thing
16:34you 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,
16:53but 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 going to 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,
17:17our production team and the network learned information from Anjali
17:21that disqualifies her from the competition.
17:25America's next top model is Lisa.
17:32So when the episode aired,
17:35Lisa is the on-air winner of Cycle 17 All-Stars.
17:40Nothing about me being the original winner.
17:43Or why we had to disqualify Anjali.
17:47So now, the trending topic on Twitter was me.
17:50What happened to Anjali?
17:52I 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,
18:19you 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, and 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. It 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, and 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 gotta be kidding me, yo.
19:26It wasn't always about who the best model was. It was about who would be the best spokesperson for the
19:32brand.
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 gotta keep your presenting sponsor happy.
19:52By Cycle 24, it wasn't even a modeling competition anymore. It was a gimmicky TV show.
20:01Tyra, over the years, was really good at fetishizing and gimmicking up people who looked even more different than the
20:11different she used to celebrate.
20:12And what makes you interesting, special, different?
20:15Um, I 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. Every 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 and figure out who I was without other people telling me, like, what
20:44was beautiful.
20:46But out of all 24 seasons of America's Next Top Model, the sponsor has always been a makeup brand.
20:54My 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.
21:25But you promised me you were going to do it different. So why didn't you do it different?
21:32Right away during my audition process, I walked into the room. I 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. And 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. And her response to me was, you sound like a prostitute.
22:08Tyra made an entire career off of being sexy. I 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 going to 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 hoped 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.
24:35I'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.
24:50You'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.
25:02My 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.
25:11I don't feel guilty about talking.
25:13And people have been disrespectful to me.
25:15Is that true?
25:15Y'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.
25:36Renee did an interview in prison.
25:39I was like in shock.
25:42Everybody 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, I went, OK, like, here
25:50I am, you 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, Cycle 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.
26:19Where'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?
27:06Yeah.
27:12Yeah.
27:21Yeah.
27:23Yeah.
27:24I 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.
27:46Well, 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.
28:55Tyra and the judges say they care about us.
28:58They want us to have a good career.
29:00We believe this.
29:02But if y'all would have reached out to her and helped her, could she have been in a different
29:08situation?
29:12I did not get a single phone call from Tyra, from anybody checking up.
29:19Wow. Filming all stars.
29:22Kim Mock, he came in the 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.
30:07But 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.
30:20In the house, on the show, it was an environment of worship, like a sort of a deity situation.
30:27Tyra created her own language, which she has trademarked a smize.
30:33Smize!
30:34Smiling with your eyes.
30:35Booty tooch.
30:36A booty tooch.
30:38H to T.
30:39I need a little bit more H to T. What does that mean?
30:42Head to...
30:44You get Tyra mail that like leaves a little cryptic riddle about what your next challenge is going to be.
30:49Solid tips.
30:51Hair 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.
31:07They 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.
31:26We weren't allowed to have anything that showed what 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 because it's her show and she holds your fate in her hands.
31:53If you think about the main season cast photo, 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.
32:06We were so sucked into doing what they wanted and just following every order because Tyra Banks was just the
32:17air that we breathed.
32:19We would do anything for her.
32:23I think fame and validation are two different things because Tyra was famous, but she wanted to be revered and
32:30respected.
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.
32:58She 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 and the producer called me and said, we'll pay $750
33:29and 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. It's my turn to go get interviewed by Tyra.
33:46And all of a sudden I hear, now I think everybody remembers Lisa as what people, the fans say, the
33:54wild 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. And then I look over and I see Tyra just sitting there.
34:11Like, you. I was like, you, you. I was so livid.
34:19The PA really calmly takes me backstage and then he opens the door to some room and he just closes
34:28the door behind him.
34:32They locked me in a closet.
34:39I was in there, I don't know, like 20, 30 minutes. I 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 go back up on stage and finish shooting.
34:57I know Tyra went through a lot, but 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, sorry.
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.
36:48And my 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.
37:24Like, 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.
37:56It opened up this camaraderie and we didn't feel alone anymore.
38:07I've gone through therapy.
38:09I have had a great career in the world of broadcasting, fashion 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? A Memoir of Makeovers, Manipulation, and Not Becoming
38:48America's Next Top Model.
38:50When I started to write down the story and tell the things that happened that I had never said out
38:55loud before, it was surprisingly painful.
39:00Like, when I saw my own words on the page, I was like, that was a human being that was
39:07doing that to me.
39:10I ended up going back to school.
39:12I am an award-winning journalist.
39:15And 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 was because I wanted to tell stories of people's
39:31voices who were silenced, like 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 and help them start their own modeling careers with my
39:56company, Find Your Light.
39:58Oh, I love!
39:59And I have just gotten tons of models signed to modeling agencies and it has just been incredibly fulfilling to
40:06help these models establish 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 and for them to go seeking validation from
40:40someone 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.
40:58That'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 at 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
41:32of 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.
42:05You got the money for it.
42:07You got the money for it.
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