‘America’s Next Top Model’ Netflix Doc: An On-Camera Sexual Assault, Tyra Banks’ Firing Her Cast, Miss J’s Stroke — and Everything Else We Learned

“America’s Next Top Model,” created by supermodel Tyra Banks, premiered in May 2003, and ran for 24 seasons on three different networks. Banks’ initial conception — as recounted in “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model,” a three-part docuseries streaming on Netflix on Feb. 16 — was for the competition aspect of “American Idol” to be mated […] Home TV Lists Feb 16, 2026 9:30am PT ‘America’s Next Top Model’ Netflix Doc: An On-Camera Sexual Assault, Tyra Banks’ Firing Her Cast, Miss J’s Stroke — and Everything Else We Learned By Kate Aurthur Plus Icon Kate Aurthur Latest Jill Zarin Fired From E!’s ‘RHONY’ Reunion Show ‘The Golden Life’ After Racist Bad Bunny Tirade (EXCLUSIVE) 6 days ago SimonSits, aka Isabel Klee, on the Puppy Bowl, Being a Rescue Influencer and Why You Should Donate to Kill Shelters 1 week ago ‘Cape Fear’ First Look Shows Javier Bardem as Vengeful Max Cady as Apple TV Series Sets Premiere Date 2 weeks ago See All ©CW Network/Courtesy Everett Collection “America’s Next Top Model,” created by supermodel Tyra Banks, premiered in May 2003, and ran for 24 seasons on three different networks. Banks’ initial conception — as recounted in “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model,” a three-part docuseries streaming on Netflix on Feb. 16 — was for the competition aspect of “American Idol” to be mated with the communal living documentary treatment of “The Real World,” set within the world of fashion. She developed the series with showrunner Ken Mok and took it out to pitch: Every network said no, except for UPN, the least-watched of the broadcasters. There, “America’s Next Top Model” became a watercooler, word-of-mouth hit, and a must-watch for the younger viewers UPN sought. Banks’ term “smize” entered the lexicon and even if the show never launched an actual supermodel into the world (more on that later), it did provide early opportunities for model Winnie Harlow (who’s said publicly the show did nothing for her career), Yaya DaCosta (who transitioned to acting), Eva Marcille (later on “The Real Housewives of Atlanta”), Nyle DiMarco (who won both “ANTM” and “Dancing With the Stars”), Molly O’Connell (currently on Bravo’s “Southern Charm”) and several others. During the lockdown period of COVID in 2020 — when many people were bored at home and looking for shows to watch — “America’s Next Top Model” once again became a zeitgeist topic. This time, however, viewers were watching the show through the lens of the post-George Floyd reckoning on race, and time has not been kind to “ANTM.” The way the judges would so casually and often cruelly critique the young women’s bodies was one matter of contention; photoshoot themes of crime scenes and race-swapping (resulting in Blackface) were another. Banks is interviewed for “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model,” and even though she says at the start, “I haven’t really said much. But now it’s time,” she doesn’t take accountability for much. By the end of the third episode, she tells the audience she hopes that they’re as open to being called out as she is: “Because that day will come,” she says, affecting the stilted-sounding delivery she uses throughout the series. It’s a moment of fabricated wisdom from Banks that’s immediately undermined by the documentarians — directors Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan — who cut to “ANTM” Cycle 6 winner Danielle Evans, who says, “Girl, that is absolutely ridiculous. Perfect time to stop.” (Evans, whose harrowing account of Banks forcing her to get the gap in her teeth closed, or she’d be cut from the competition, emerges from “Reality Check” as a voice of reason, and its most charismatic pundit.) Also prominently featured in the docuseries are Jay Manuel, Banks’ former makeup artist and the creative director on “ANTM”; photographer and judge Nigel Barker; and runway coach and judge J. Alexander. Miss J and Mr. J, as they were called, along with Barker, have clearly done a lot of processing about their time on the show and their relationships (or lack thereof) with Banks, adding insightful commentary into the show’s beginning, middle and end. But “Reality Check” saves its biggest shock — that Miss J had a debilitating stroke in December 2022 — for the final act of its third episode, when viewers see that he’s in a wheelchair (and has a moving reunion with Manuel and Barker). From the aftermath of Miss J’s stroke and how he’s recovering, to the show’s most cringeworthy photoshoots, to how Banks feels now about losing it on Tiffany Richardson (“We were all rooting for you!”), there is much to dissect in “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.” The origins of “ANTM” — and early bumps in the road Image Credit: Courtesy of Netflix Season 1 of “America’s Next Top Model” had such a low budget that the whole season was shot in a hotel in New York City, where the cast also lived. Before they got there, though, executive producer Ken Mok recounts the difficulties the show had with the network, which he says pushed back against the diversity of the show’s cast. Both Mok and Banks tell the story of wanting to cast a particular woman who was Latina, but Leslie Moonves, the head of CBS (who in 2018 would be ousted because of allegations of s