It was the reality show that aimed to disrupt the fashion industry but, as a shocking Netflix docuseries details, it also became part of the problem
Even for those who didn’t watch the show religiously, there’s a scene in America’s Next Top Model that has broken through from reality TV infamy to hall-of-fame virality.
It’s when Tyra Banks, model-turned-TV-mogul, loses her temper in spectacular fashion at contest Tiffany Richardson, after misunderstanding her post-elimination response as something to be read as ungrateful. “I have never in my life yelled at a girl like this!” she screams. “When my mother yells like this, it’s because she loves me. I was rooting for you, we were all rooting for you, how dare you!”
The confrontation might have happened in 2005, before gifs and memes were as deeply embedded within our culture, but it’s managed to survive and mutate, a copy-paste punchline easily found on many a social media thread. Yet it doesn’t take much to figure out that something darker is happening in the scene and something even darker was taking place off-camera.
“There was a lot more that was really said,” says Jay Manuel, one of Tyra’s ex on-screen right-hand men, in a new docuseries. “I will probably never repeat the lines that were actually said in the room that day … People have tried to make it something funny but it really wasn’t.”
