Why Tyra Banks banned this 'painful' topic from America's Next Top Model documentary
Topics: Netflix, Documentaries
William Morgan
Featured Image Credit: Netflix
Topics: Netflix, Documentaries
Modeling superpower Tyra Banks has spawned yet another wave of fiery discourse about 2000s reality TV, after sitting for a new no holds barred docuseries about the notorious America's Next Top Model set.
Banks created the groundbreaking modeling competition when she was aged just 29 and, in a move that would become typical of her hugely successful media career, there was barely a single part of Top Model that she did not have a hand in either as executive producer, host, or supposed big sister to the contestants.
But in the new Netflix documentary, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, for once, Banks was given no creative control or question in advance. And it shows, as a number of her former co-workers and contestants lay into the now 52-year-old media mogul.
With public opinion about the often cruel hit show shifting in recent years, Banks had questions to answer about bullying, racism, and objectification on set. But while she attempted to explain what happened, she refused to talk about one particularly 'painful' incident in the show's 15 year run.
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That is, her difficult relationship with the show's original creative director and one of its key figures in the early seasons, Jay Manuel.
While Banks was prepared to answer questions about contestants being reduced to tears on the three part docuseries, she clammed up and refused to speak further about the situation with Manuel, which saw him eventually leave the show in 2012 after five years of disharmony on set.
However, with Banks unable to stop them, the documentary's creators roped in Manuel to explain what caused the schism. Unlike Banks, he was not afraid to lay down why their friendship ended after so many years, with Manuel first working as her makeup artist and joining her as she created the show.
But it all ended after an email in 2007, where Manuel told long-time collaborator Banks that he wanted to leave the show after the next series. He received only a three word response from the ANTM creator: "I am disappointed."
Manuel explained: "After that email exchange, all communication just stopped. It should’ve been the opportunity to have a heart-to-heart, but that did not happen."
Ultimately, he would return for the following series. But Manuel said that Banks had taken his attempted resignation personally and would only speak to him when the cameras were rolling.
"It was like we were strangers," he said on the documentary.
With former contestants and judges alike unloading about some of the worst things they saw on set, including making models take part in a 'homeless' photoshoot, the makeup artist chose to speak further about their on-set tensions after the Netflix series aired.
He told People earlier this month that him being frozen out left him 'so broken by the end of that cycle because of the mental torture of what was going on.'
Manuel added that, since leaving the show in 2012, Banks had not contacted him once. Even if she finds their situation too 'painful' to speak about on camera.
But in another sit-down, with Interview Magazine, Manuel said he would do it all again if he could. "Do I regret being on America’s Next Top Model? Absolutely not," he said.
Adding: "I own it. But I wish I had a better sense of boundaries and the ability to help create a truly safe environment for all of the girls."