Netflix issues response after Tyra Banks sues over ‘America’s Next Top Model' documentary
Tyra Banks' legal team is demanding Netflix release her complete, unedited interview from a documentary she claims twisted her image beyond recognition, as the streaming giant moves to have her lawsuit thrown out entirely.
The supermodel and former America's Next Top Model host filed a defamation suit against Netflix in June, arguing that Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model used selective editing to paint a false and damaging picture of her time running the show.
She's asking for a jury trial and unspecified damages.
Now Netflix and production company EverWonder Studio have filed both an anti-SLAPP motion and a motion to dismiss, according to court documents seen by ABC News.
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Anti-SLAPP motions are typically used to strike down lawsuits seen as attempts to silence free speech, and in this case, the defendants argue Banks simply didn't like how she came across.
Why is Tyra Banks suing Netflix?
According to the complaint, Banks agreed to take part in the docuseries believing it would give a fair account of both the highs and controversies of America's Next Top Model, the reality competition she created and pitched to UPN, hosting it for its first 22 of 24 seasons after its 2003 debut.
She alleges producers never gave her the chance to properly respond to claims other participants had already made about her before she even sat down for her interview, and says those accusations were deliberately kept from her at the time.
Netflix, however, insists that isn't good enough grounds for a defamation claim.
In its filing, the company argues Banks' issue "ultimately amount[s] to dissatisfaction with the amount of her interview that was included and how it was edited," warning that letting the case proceed on that basis could let any unhappy documentary subject sue over editorial choices they simply disagreed with.
"Defamation law does not permit that result, and courts do not second-guess editorial judgments merely because an interview subject would have preferred different ones," the motion states.
A Netflix spokesperson gave a statement to ABC News defending the project and its directors, Daniel Sivan and Mor Loushy, describing them as 'respected documentarians who thoroughly interviewed the people behind America's Next Top Model.'
"Tyra Banks was given the opportunity to speak openly about her experience and the creators fairly presented her perspective alongside those of every other participant shown in this documentary," the spokesperson added. "We stand behind 'Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model' and will continue to vigorously defend it."
Netflix also argues Banks can't show she's likely to win her state law claims, insisting the series doesn't reasonably suggest the defamatory meaning she's alleging, nor was there any intent to convey it.
Banks' attorney, Tom Clare of Clare Locke, pushed back hard on that framing in his own statement, insisting the case isn't about creative control or Banks simply being unhappy with the edit.
"The facts are the facts and, here, the facts are recorded and being hidden by Netflix," Clare said, repeating his call for the full interview footage to be made public so viewers can judge the discrepancy for themselves.
UNILAD has contacted Netflix and representatives for Tyra Banks for comment.
Topics: Netflix
Thomas Bamford