What We Learned From The America’s Next Top Model Doc

via Netflix

Netflix’s America’s Next Top Model documentary has landed – and it’s as controversial as expected.

Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model features host Tyra Banks, executive producer Ken Mok, and a whole host of models and former contestants, more than willing to discuss their time on the show.

ANTM has over the years become infamous for its questionable challenges, impossible body standards, and of course, Tyra’s outbursts – all filmed for the purpose of entertainment and ever increasing viewerships.

But oftentimes, the reality of the show was even worse than what was shown on screen.

Here are five things we learned from the tell-all doc.

(This article contains references to sexual assault) 

1. The body shaming was rife

via Netflix

Look, we don’t need a documentary to tell us that America’s Next Top Model thrived on the prevalence of diet culture and promoted unhealthy and unrealistic body standards.

Still, the new series does give an insight into just how regular the body shaming was – and how integral it was to the show.

Cycle 10 winner Whitney Thompson says she was cast on the show as producers attempted to be more inclusive, but that her size was a constant source of ridicule on set.

She also says that she was repeatedly given the wrong size clothes on shoots and relied on Xanax to get through the experience. “I would cry in the shower every day because the shower is the only place that the cameramen couldn’t come,” she says.

“It was a big juxtaposition to go into the fashion world where people are like, ‘You’re such a fat cow. It was just demeaning.’”

2. Tyra doesn’t come across great

via Netflix

Also unsurprising, but Tyra Banks doesn’t come across particularly well in the documentary.

Although she does take responsibility for the ways she treated certain contestants on ANTM, even apologising directly to some models, her overall attitude towards the show’s many controversies are that it was a “different time.”

Furthermore, the former model actually lays the blame partially on audiences who watched the show, rather than producers.

“You guys were demanding it. And so we kept pushing… more, and more, and more,” she says.

3. Jay Manuel was iced out

via Netflix

ANTM former Creative Director Jay Manuel says he originally wanted to leave the series after eight cycles, because he “didn’t like what the show was becoming.”

However, when he made Tyra aware of his feelings she refused to speak to him, simply responding to his email with a curt, “I am disappointed.”

After that, Manuel says his remaining time on the show was hostile – particularly when it came to Tyra.

“It was clear I was not allowed to speak with her outside [being on camera],” he says. “It was like psychological torture, I felt broken.”

4. Tyra thought controversial photoshoots would go down well

via Netflix

One of ANTM’s most controversial moments came in the form of a challenge that saw contestants switch races for a photoshoot.

Tyra, however, recalls thinking the episode would be a good idea and would, in her words, challenge perceptions of beauty.

“I didn’t think it was controversial, I was in my own little bubble in my own little head,” she says. “This was my little way of showing the world that brown and black is beautiful.

“But we put it out there and the world was like, ‘are you crazy, have you lost your mind?’”

5. Nobody intervened in Shandi Sullivan’s alleged assault

via Netflix

On cycle two of the show, contestant Shandi Sullivan was allegedly assaulted by a male model while filming in Italy.

Speaking in the series, Shandi says that she had drank two bottles of wine until she “blacked out” and therefore, could not give consent. She was then filmed by the crew as part of storyline about her “cheating” on her boyfriend.

“I just knew sex was happening, and then I passed out,” she says. “I remember him on top of me. I was blacked out. No one did anything to stop it. And it all got filmed, all of it.”

Executive producer Ken Mok attempted to justify the reason why nobody intervened as cameras kept rolling, “We treated Top Model as a documentary. And we told the girls that. We would go over the rules.

“There’s going to be cameras with you 24/7, day in and day out, and they’re going to cover everything — the good, the bad, and everything in between.”