Tyra Banks sued Netflix on Saturday for defamation, claiming her testimony was manipulated for the streamer’s recent “America’s Next Top Model” docuseries.
Banks is suing Netflix, 89 Blocks Holdings, EverWonder Studio, Netflix Music and co-directors Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan for false light, defamation by implication, breach of contract and false endorsement. According to the lawsuit, obtained by Variety, Banks’ lawyers claim the former “ANTM” host gave “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model” a “three-and-a-half-hour” interview, only to have it cut down to “about 16 minutes.” What was left, according to the suit, was “reassembled to support a false and defamatory narrative unrelated to what she actually expressed.” It added that the “accountability Ms. Banks took” for some of the show’s shortcomings “ended up on the cutting room floor.”
“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,” the suit read. “That narrative about Ms. Banks is a complete fabrication—one that Netflix streamed to a global audience of millions.”
