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Watch Dirty Rotten Scandals Episode Season 1 Episode 4 online in HD on Dailymotion (2026).
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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.
00:13Tyra 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 crazier 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.
00:51There are literally people in blackface on TV in the 2000s.
00:56This is all people see.
00:57Ezra's beautiful cover girl.
00:58It seems like Tyra is sort of working her shit out on other people.
01:02Tyra was breaking the girls down,
01:04so she could feel better about herself.
01:06Be quiet to everybody!
01:07Be quiet!
01:08Barring something from this!
01:10When you create an environment that you told me
01:13was going to be better than this,
01:14and then you make it worse,
01:17that's fucking fucked 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?
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? And 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, 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 gonna be plucked out of obscurity,
02:51and we're gonna 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
03:11doesn't actually do anything for anybody,
03:13well, you got a machine going. Keep making the money.
03:18A 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.
03:35And then Tyra said, go back to your life with no money.
03:41Well, 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 gonna be a big cosmetics campaign.
04:59It was just gonna be convention work.
05:01They knew that my mom was about to lose her house,
05:05and I was told,
05:06you win this, you're a millionaire overnight,
05:09you take care of your family.
05:10And, 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 gonna stay?
05:51And they said, we don't know.
05:54For one year, I was indebted
05:57to 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,
06:06and I had to figure out
06:09how am I gonna 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.
06:20But 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.
06:3645 different countries worldwide
06:40had their own version of Top Model.
06:43Tyra Banks became a mogul.
06:45She was a Top Model actress,
06:49creator and executive producer
06:52of a global franchise.
06:55It feels really good.
06:57Having a 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.
07:20And you guys are going to speak like 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, 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
07:47and like she should be the one to create their careers.
07:50But in all honesty, the show is about Tyra Banks.
07:53And 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.
08:05No, 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 helping.
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
08:39because 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, you will be seeing you again, know that.
09:08High hopes for you.
09:11So I thought the agencies will be calling me.
09:15No, nobody 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
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,
09:46I 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,
10:04they brought back all of these returning contestants.
10:09Cycle 5 made me the enemy of my own life around the globe on repeat.
10:14Well, 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
10:28they kept us in the vans for 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.
10:54Some are given roles as wardens.
10:56Some are given roles as prisoners.
10:58And then you watch what happens.
11:00And sit on these benches
11:02and made them wear paper bags over their heads for hours
11:06to make them vulnerable
11:08and feel completely out of place and confused.
11:13That's what they did to us on All Stars.
11:17The bag over the head.
11:19If I had Hair Girl, I'd be pulling it right now
11:21because it was stressful.
11:25It's important to keep in mind where reality television comes from.
11:29In the 1960s and 1970s,
11:31you actually have these sociological experiments
11:33that are recorded and then broadcast on television,
11:37taking real people
11:38and putting them in very sort of arduous situations
11:42to see how they will react.
11:45There's an idea that
11:46if you throw ordinary people
11:48into extraordinary circumstances,
11:50you will learn something about human nature.
11:53And I think that America's Next Top Model
11:55is very much building on that legacy.
11:59What makes reality television so compelling
12:01is that you get to see real people
12:03feel really vulnerable.
12:05However,
12:06how can it showcase that vulnerability
12:08without exploiting it?
12:14And then we're in Greece.
12:17It was the Cycle 17,
12:19the All Stars,
12:20the finale.
12:21It's Allison,
12:23it's Anjali,
12:24and it's me.
12:25The top three.
12:26The final three.
12:28The final runway.
12:29The gods, the goddesses.
12:31It was so hot on the beach.
12:33The whole set looked like it was half broken down.
12:38And then I won this show.
12:45Couldn't believe it.
12:46Like, oh my God.
12:48I'm gonna be able to take this opportunity
12:50and really just live out my dreams again
12:53and just do it right,
12:54because now I'm a little bit more gamed up.
12:56I can move and I can network properly, you know?
12:59This is great.
13:01A few weeks later,
13:03I was back in Buffalo
13:05and I had gotten a phone call.
13:07And it was from Michelle Mock,
13:10the casting director.
13:12She was like,
13:13hey, we wanna fly you to New York City
13:16because we wanna talk about sponsorships.
13:18Since you won.
13:20Okay, fine.
13:24I end up going to the Mandarin Oriental,
13:27which is a five-star hotel.
13:30And the attorney for CBS is there.
13:33The casting director, Michelle Mock, is there.
13:37And was like,
13:38now we need to get down to business.
13:40I'm like, oh, okay.
13:45We can't air you as the winner.
13:48And I was like, why?
13:51Because you were engaging in sex work.
14:07After cycle 14,
14:08before I went on All Stars,
14:10I was in a bind,
14:12and I was just desperate to,
14:14you know, to make some money.
14:19And someone took advantage of me.
14:21A predator swooped in
14:24and just put me on a path of self-loathing
14:28and destruction and harm.
14:33I obviously didn't make the best choice,
14:36but I was desperate
14:38and I wasn't thinking straight.
14:41Now, here I am
14:43at the Mandarin Oriental.
14:46I just won this show.
14:48This show that will change my life for the better.
14:52Just for them to take my shit away from me.
14:56I get why they technically can do that,
15:01because escorting is illegal.
15:04But for a show that is gifting a prize for selling beauty,
15:11to disqualify a woman using her agency to sell her beauty,
15:17is hypocritical, sexist, and misogynist.
15:27Before All Stars, I meet with the casting director,
15:31Michelle Mock, in L.A.
15:34She's asking me,
15:35what have you been up to since the show?
15:37Oh, just modeling?
15:39Anything else?
15:41She flat out asked me.
15:42She was like,
15:44um, were you being pimped?
15:48She held my hand and she said,
15:54um, I know what happened to you,
15:58but I want you to take this opportunity and run with it.
16:03That is exactly what she said.
16:05This is like confirming that somebody knew what had happened to me.
16:12They knew everything about all of us.
16:14You literally have our blood type and our fingerprints.
16:18She was set up from the very beginning
16:20to be the one that's disqualified at the end.
16:26Anjali didn't make any money doing the thing
16:29you promised you would help her make money doing.
16:32And you snatch it away from her.
16:35That's cruel.
16:38My dream was right there.
16:40Like someone dangling candy in front of a kid.
16:43Like almost, almost, almost.
16:45I was supposed to walk away with $100,000,
16:48but they gave me $300 cash.
16:52Like some pity money that sent me on my way.
16:58Two months later, the producers called me.
17:01We're going to do a reshoot for the finale.
17:05And then on the show, they said Anjali is disqualified.
17:10It turns out that after shooting was wrapped,
17:12our production team and the network learned information from Anjali
17:16that disqualifies her from the competition.
17:20America's next top model is Lisa.
17:27So when the episode aired, Lisa is the on-air winner of Cycle 17 All-Stars.
17:35Nothing about me being the original winner or why we had to disqualify Anjali.
17:42So now the trending topic on Twitter was me.
17:45What happened to Anjali?
17:47I went back to change the narrative so people would stop calling me an alcoholic bitch.
17:53That definitely didn't happen.
17:55They actually made it worse.
17:58There was fans coming after me, asking what happened to Anjali.
18:05So now I have people reaching out to me and of course I don't want to talk about it because
18:09I'm embarrassed.
18:10I just went through something so traumatic.
18:13The attorney for CBS told me, you know, Anjali, you did this to yourself.
18:18Yes, thank you.
18:19Thank you for being so kind and telling me that I up.
18:23People kept talking about it.
18:25And so they brought in the ratings.
18:28I felt used.
18:30I felt like a throwaway.
18:33There could have been a sensible excuse as to why Anjali didn't make the final runway.
18:39She got sick or something.
18:42But y'all wanted people to question what happened to me to boost your ratings.
18:49It's not right.
18:50It was wrong.
18:52The system we're in already punishes poverty.
18:54You told me that if I worked hard I could get this thing.
18:58I got it and you took it from me.
19:01And then to strip that from her and she actually needs it and you give it to a white woman?
19:10You gotta be kidding me, yo.
19:21It wasn't always about who the best model was.
19:24It was about who would be the best spokesperson for the brand.
19:29Top Model took Anjali's win away because Cover Girl allegedly was not happy that an escort won.
19:39If you have a presenting sponsor that pays for production, you gotta keep your presenting sponsor happy.
19:47By Cycle 24 it wasn't even a modeling competition anymore.
19:49It was a gimmicky TV show.
19:56Tyra over the years was really good at fetishizing and gimmicking up people who looked even more different than the
20:06difference she used to celebrate.
20:08And what makes you interesting, special, different?
20:09I have a disease called alopecia universalis, so it's autoimmune.
20:13It attacks my hair follicles and my hair glots out.
20:15It's hard to talk about.
20:19I was like a super fan of the show before I was even on it.
20:23I know the show like the back of my hand.
20:24Every winner, every contestant, from every season.
20:28I had a lot of insecurities about losing my hair.
20:31But I thought being on the show was an opportunity for me to kind of find myself and figure out
20:37who I was without other people telling me like what was beautiful.
20:41But out of all 24 seasons of America's Next Top Model, the sponsor has always been a makeup brand.
20:50My season was the only season that the sponsor was a hair company.
20:55How was I ever gonna win once I was told Pantene was the sponsor?
20:59I don't have hair.
21:01You cast a girl with alopecia on a hair product competition.
21:07I mean, it's cruel. It's evil.
21:10Look, I can imagine to be a buxom 17-year-old black girl in France selling your looks, you're probably
21:19treated like a zoo animal.
21:21But you promised me you were gonna do it different.
21:24So why didn't you do it different?
21:27Right away during my audition process, I walked into the room, I was like, hi, I'm Gina.
21:32They were like, so you went from childhood modeling to like va-va-boom.
21:37And Tyra's like looking at me like this.
21:39And I was like, are you guys referring to Playboy?
21:43As soon as I said that, I noticed Tyra's expression change to like kind of smug and like cold.
21:51And when I said the idea of selling sex worked for me, being sexy in my career worked for me.
21:56Tyra didn't like that. And her response to me was, you sound like a prostitute.
22:03Tyra made an entire career off of being sexy. I mean, the biggest thing she's known for is Victoria's Secret.
22:08It blew my mind that she was that offended by it.
22:12And this is within minutes of meeting somebody that I idolized my entire life.
22:17So I told them, I lost my hair at the same time every girl was getting boobs and like having
22:22a glow up.
22:23I did something to grow into and step into my own femininity.
22:27And as soon as I said that, she looks at me and goes, now tell me about alopecia while I'm
22:33mid-breakdown.
22:35I see a very beautiful girl with hair or without hair.
22:39Do your neck still look fierce.
22:42None of the conversation about Playboy and why I was crying like that was ever shown.
22:47That was the first, the very first way that they manipulated my emotions to get a certain scene.
22:56They always would do this manipulation surrounding the concept of my story with my hair.
23:02I am ready with your tie over.
23:04Gina, that wig that you have, you're going to have to say goodbye to her.
23:07I never saw that video. I never saw Tyra say that to me.
23:11I was told I was getting a wig.
23:12The editing process changed that video.
23:15Can we take your wig off now?
23:17Because I don't even know what's under.
23:20I just never know. It's a surprise at a time.
23:22Like I always hoped that there's hair that I would say.
23:25They literally just told me they were giving me hair and then all of a sudden it was different.
23:30I had never shaved my head like that before.
23:34It felt like touching a snake.
23:35Like, I just felt like creepy crawly in my own skin.
23:40Looking back on it, their editing was that deceptive that they were actually able to make an audience think that
23:46I felt powerful.
23:51I felt so small.
23:57How do you get the reality TV show, Emmy?
23:59Make sure you have a sad arc of someone who's gone through some massive struggle.
24:04To show why their circumstances are so desperate that they're entitled to public sympathy.
24:13The production of the show really know how to make sure that they cast girls that came from a really
24:21hard or toxic childhood background.
24:25Tell me about growing up and all the things that you went through and all the tragedy.
24:30I've been just passed off to family members a lot.
24:36I was molested, raped.
24:39They were really good at casting someone who was struggling with something.
24:43You got brothers and sisters.
24:45You're my brother's dad.
24:48I think Renee from my season was going through some things in her life already.
24:53Tyra, you have to understand, I have a family to take care of.
24:56My husband was living on the beach.
24:58My son was living with his mom.
24:59I have a lot on my shoulders right now.
25:01I feel guilty about talking .
25:03And people have been disrespectful to me.
25:05Is that true? Y'all don't like me either?
25:08After the show, Renee, she was in a bad way.
25:14There were a string of arrests.
25:17Allway accused of breaking into people's homes and cars.
25:20Stealing weapons, money and other valuable items.
25:25Renee did an interview in prison.
25:29I was like in shock.
25:32Everybody says, well, wow, you have all this great opportunity.
25:34But when it comes down to it, I got into the world and I went, okay, like here I am,
25:40you know, ready to do this.
25:41And it was just closed door after closed door after closed door.
25:44I couldn't get past the reality TV stigma that had been put on me.
25:51And then there's Mariana Pujar, Cycle 21.
25:56I felt like we had like a similar shared path and background.
26:02She was this girl who was also an urban girl, a girl with a little sass, a little spunk.
26:07There's a little toughness in there.
26:09Yeah. Where's that come from?
26:10I had like a abusive boyfriend at 13.
26:12I didn't have that love for my dad.
26:14So I was kind of looking for that with him.
26:16And just like all the urban girls, girls like me, girls who are labeled with an attitude.
26:23She was having a hard time getting signed after being portrayed as difficult or as a villain.
26:29She's young. She has no direction.
26:31She picked the wrong guy to love.
26:34I was so upset about how she was treated like nothing.
26:45She was killed.
26:54Yeah, you want that prize, don't you?
26:56Yeah.
26:58Reality TV in general, people will get cast who are relying on this to make their paycheck.
27:04I was hoping that I could use this to pay off all of the bills that, you know, we're swimming
27:10in debt.
27:10We don't have any place to live.
27:12And I just feel like I, I feel like I failed my family.
27:15They are easy to exploit because they are the most desperate and are willing to accommodate the most things.
27:21If I think that Tyra Banks is my only shot, I'm going to give everything I have.
27:28Okay, it's just six weeks of this crazy, crazy competition and I'll never have to live in a roach infested
27:35apartment again.
27:36Well, then I'm going to do every challenge to the max.
27:39When you come from a background where you're used to being abused, being taken advantage of, you're already used to
27:47not standing up for yourself, not setting boundaries.
27:51So it's very easy for productions like this to emotionally manipulate us for entertainment and Tyra just gets away with
28:00it.
28:10I don't think Tyra had a responsibility to take care of these women.
28:14It would have been relatively impossible, but she had a responsibility to be honest with them.
28:20And I think where she chose to employ that honesty ultimately was cruel and where the honesty was needed was
28:28completely ignored.
28:31When Mariana passed away, Tyra's host was like,
28:36Oh, Mariana, we love you forever, forever in our hearts.
28:41And I was just like, girl, that is bull .
28:46Tyra and the judges say they care about us. They want us to have a good career.
28:50We believe this.
28:52But if y'all would have reached out to her and helped her, could she have been in a different
28:58situation?
29:02I did not get a single phone call from Tyra, from anybody checking up.
29:08Wow. Filming all stars.
29:12Ken Monk, he came in the room and he says, I just want to thank you girls so much because
29:16you girls put my girls through college.
29:20And the silence in the room at that point was deafening.
29:25We did not come on this show to make your family's life better.
29:30We came on this show to make our lives better.
29:33I wanted to be able to give young girls that dream because it's an amazing dream and I had the
29:37power to give them that dream.
29:39Call it for what it is. It's a business to you and that's fine.
29:43Don't go and do a media blitz about how you care about us. You didn't and you don't.
29:50I really do think that sometimes Tyra thought she was doing good things.
29:55It's not true.
29:58But when you get high off your own supply, more than making a bajillion dollars, she got an ego stroke.
30:08Tyra's face was all over the place. In the house on the show, it was an environment of worship, like
30:15a sort of deity situation.
30:16Tyra created her own language, which she has trademarked a smize.
30:23Smize!
30:24Smiling with your eyes.
30:25Booty tooch.
30:26A booty tooch.
30:28H to T.
30:29I need a little bit more H to T. What does that mean?
30:32Head to toe.
30:34You get Tyra mail that like leaves a little cryptic riddle about what your next challenge is going to be.
30:39Solid tips.
30:41Hair to dye.
30:42The branding of the whole situation is like Tyra. It's Tyra's world. We're in it.
30:48I read the book Cultish about cults of every level.
30:52And it really breaks down the tools that they all use.
30:56Top model.
30:58They used all of them.
31:01The unifying definition that people have around what makes something a cult or not is high control.
31:07They controlled when we went to the bathroom, when we ate, when we slept, when we were allowed to speak
31:10to each other.
31:11They isolated us from our friends and family.
31:13We weren't allowed to have magazines. We weren't allowed to have newspapers.
31:16We weren't allowed to have anything that showed what day it was or what time it was.
31:21Down to using the same phrase over and over again.
31:24If you violate the confidentiality agreement, we will dock your wages for the rest of your life.
31:28We will dock your wages for the rest of your life.
31:30We will dock your wages for the rest of your life.
31:43We will dock your wages for the rest of your life.
31:45Where they will slowly just remove people. Like they just disappear.
31:50It's like Tyra controls who gets to exist and who does not get to exist.
31:56We were so sucked into doing what they wanted.
32:00And just following every order.
32:04Because Tyra Banks was just the air that we breathed.
32:09We would do anything for her.
32:13I think fame and validation are two different things.
32:16Because Tyra was famous.
32:18But she wanted to be revered and respected.
32:22Designers don't talk about Tyra the way designers talk about Naomi Campbell.
32:27I think that's the kind of thing that eats at Tyra.
32:31We know Tyra Banks. She is famous.
32:34I think she wants more than that.
32:46You've just seen the beginning of Tyra.
32:48She is starting to build an empire.
32:51She looks up to Oprah like nobody else.
32:57I don't think Tyra gets the Tyra show if Tyra doesn't do Top Model.
33:03I don't think anyone is like, oh, yeah, this one girl who did Victoria's Secret.
33:07I want to hear what her opinions are.
33:13Tyra wanted me to come on the Tyra Banks show.
33:16And the producer called me and said, we'll pay $750.
33:20And we want to interview you about your childhood trauma.
33:23And I said, not happening.
33:25We all agree that we will just talk about your experience on Top Model.
33:30Great.
33:31My makeup is done. It's my turn to go get interviewed by Tyra.
33:36And all of a sudden, I hear...
33:39Now, I think everybody remembers Lisa as what people, the fans say, the wild child from Cycle 5.
33:45And then she said, but what you don't know is that she has been physically and sexually abused most of
33:52her childhood.
33:56It was like ice in my veins.
33:58And then I look over and I see Tyra just sitting there.
34:01Like, you. I was like, you, you. I was so livid.
34:09The PA really calmly takes me backstage.
34:13And then he opens the door to some room and he just closes the door behind him.
34:22They locked me in a closet.
34:28I was in there, I don't know, like 20, 30 minutes.
34:32I was like, I don't want to go back.
34:34And they're like, well, then you aren't going to get the $750.
34:38And so I go back up on stage and finish shooting.
34:47I know Tyra went through a lot.
34:50But was she a hurt person hurting other people?
34:54Some people could give her that title.
34:58But, you know, to be honest, I don't think Tyra really reveals herself very much to people.
35:05You couldn't really get to her in that way.
35:09I wish I could tell you what you get out of this experience except a lifetime of hate comments on
35:14Instagram.
35:16All I wanted was to have a career and to put money in my pocket.
35:19I thought being on the show was going to get me in.
35:23It turned out to be the opposite, actually.
35:26There were quite a few lasting effects after the show.
35:29For a period of time, it was uncomfortable for me to eat in public because of feedback about my weight.
35:42After the show, I developed a workout disorder where I would want to burn almost everything that I'd eaten for
35:50the day.
35:51I became so tiny until a point where I stopped menstruating for two years.
35:59And I went with a physician and he said, you know, you're now impacting.
36:04Sorry.
36:07You're not going to be able to be a mother or have a child if you continue trying to always
36:16lose weight and be this thin.
36:20And that really scared me.
36:25Who knows?
36:27Maybe these women would not have had a modeling career anyway.
36:33But you promised me something.
36:36And you didn't deliver.
36:38And my life is worse off.
36:40And you own my face.
36:43How are you any different from a pimp selling dreams?
36:48In 2020, it was a moment of re-examination.
36:52I decided to go on my Instagram.
36:56What you guys do and the way that you guys would poke me and use my childhood trauma against me
37:04day in and day out.
37:06It was just so up.
37:08I don't know how you sleep at night.
37:10In that video, it got like 190,000 views.
37:15Like, I don't know, 2,000 comments, like literally overnight.
37:19It just blew up.
37:21It opened the doors to where other girls were contacting me because what I had said was exactly what happened
37:29to them.
37:30Tyra Banks, you speak on all this female empowerment and building people up and accepting their differences.
37:36When in reality, you do the opposite.
37:43Gina!
37:44Oh my god, it's a baby!
37:46It opened up this camaraderie.
37:49And we didn't feel alone anymore.
37:57I've gone through therapy.
37:59I have had a great career in the world of broadcasting.
38:04Fashion reporting, commentating.
38:06And, of course, being a mom to my son Alistair.
38:11I've kind of given up being so hard on myself.
38:15So, I've come out stronger.
38:20I worked after the show as a model, but I realized when I would show up to set that I
38:25was sick of being the least creative person there.
38:28So, I made the shift and I started working as a writer.
38:32I just wrote my book called You Want to Be On Top?
38:35A Memoir of Makeovers, Manipulation, and Not Becoming America's Next Top Model.
38:40When I started to write down the story and tell the things that happened that I had never said out
38:45loud before, it was surprisingly painful.
38:50Like, when I saw my own words on the page, I was like,
38:55that was a human being that was doing that to me.
39:00I ended up going back to school.
39:02I am an award-winning journalist.
39:06And I always say award-winning because you're going to put some respect on my name.
39:10You know, no matter what I've been through, I'm here now.
39:14Part of the reason why I got into a journalism career was because I wanted to tell stories of people's
39:21voices who were silenced, like how they tried to silence me.
39:29All right, so let's get into it.
39:31First of all, we need to have a lot of movement, dimension, and shapes.
39:36Who remembers those three key elements?
39:40Now, I help other aspiring models and I develop them and help them start their own modeling careers with my
39:46company, Find Your Light.
39:48Oh, I love!
39:49And I have just gotten tons of models signed to modeling agencies and it has just been incredibly fulfilling to
39:56help these models establish their confidence in themselves.
40:00More neck, more neck, more neck.
40:02Yeah, I think long neck.
40:04It's super important for you to be comfortable.
40:07It's important that we feel safe and like somebody actually cares.
40:14Being a mom now, the last thing that I want to do is raise two girls who have insecurities.
40:21Like, I never want them to feel the way that I did.
40:25The last thing this world needs is two more insecure little girls and for them to go seeking validation from
40:30someone who's also going to hurt them.
40:35When people go, you're just bitching, it was reality TV back then.
40:39Tyra Banks and Ken Mock are still profiting off of the tears and the trauma of girls to this day
40:45right now.
40:46That's why I'm still sitting here. That's why I'm still complaining.
40:50I think about Heidi Klum, who did Project Runway, but she never actually became like the public character of the
40:58show.
40:58When you contrast that to something like top model, it really is a control exercise to ensure that people understand
41:05that Tyra is the Alpha and Omega.
41:07Have my legacy be about some stuff linked together on the internet when there were 24 cycles of changing the
41:18world.
41:21It didn't change the world, it didn't change my world.
41:24It changed the world of the people you interacted with.
41:28I don't know what's subversive about making pretty girls feel bad for not being pretty enough.
41:36You didn't subvert anything.
41:38Tyra Banks is a woman with all kinds of issues, puppeteering a bunch of girls and giving them issues while
41:46she's working on her own issues.
41:49Get therapy. You got the money for it.
42:02It's not only an honor.
42:03It is a nun by helping her out.
42:03A کünthere Hause mimAST
42:05Did you get that food coming up with her when she hands could have been a deterrent?
42:08The thing you spent on that as soon as I felt was at that time of getting…
42:12Amazing!
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