What To Know
- Tyra Banks filed a defamation lawsuit against Netflix, alleging that the docuseries Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.
- The lawsuit claims the series was falsely marketed as a documentary and accuses producers of manipulating footage.
- Banks is seeking a jury trial and damages for lost business opportunities.
Tyra Banks is suing Netflix for defamation over Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.
On Saturday, June 13, the former America’s Next Top Model host, 52, filed a lawsuit claiming the docuseries was edited to perpetuate a false narrative. Banks hosted the modeling competition series for all but one of its 24 seasons, which aired from 2003 to 2018.
The supermodel asked for a jury trial to determine the “appropriate” amount in damages — including the “loss of future business opportunities, loss of business income, [and] other compounding losses as will be shown at trial,” according to court documents obtained by People.
“Tyra Banks participated in the Netflix documentary series America’s Next Top Model (ANTM) because she believed viewers deserved a candid conversation about the show’s legacy — its successes and its shortcomings,” the lawsuit reads. “There are aspects of the show for which Ms. Banks takes accountability, and she wanted ANTM viewers to hear that from her directly.”
The court documents continued, “Going into her interview, Ms. Banks did not limit the ANTM topics the interviewer could ask. During a three-and-a-half-hour interview, Ms. Banks answered questions about the show’s groundbreaking history, including criticism of decisions she would approach differently today.”
Additionally, the lawsuit says the three-episode Netflix show was falsely marketed to viewers as a “documentary series.”
“Netflix called it ‘the definitive, must-watch chronicle of America’s Next Top Model.‘ The genre matters,” it claimed. “Viewers of a documentary do not expect manufactured drama or constructed narratives. They expect facts. Because they were promised a documentary, that is exactly how viewers interacted with the Netflix Series.”
The court documents also alleged that Banks’ remarks were “stripped of context and reassembled to support a false and defamatory narrative unrelated to what she actually expressed.”
Finally, the lawsuit claims, “Worse, the false narrative the producers constructed — through selective editing, deliberate omission, and surgical manipulation of continuous footage — included that Ms. Banks knowingly allowed a contestant to be sexually assaulted on her show, exploited that contestant’s trauma for ratings, and then could not even remember it when asked. That narrative about Ms. Banks is a complete fabrication — one that Netflix streamed to a global audience of millions.”
In the docuseries, Banks also teased that a 25th cycle of America’s Next Top Model was in the works. A premiere date has not been announced, as of writing.
Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, streaming on Netflix