Speaker 1: Hi, Curse Up listeners, I know you miss me on
Speaker 1: your feed. Don't worry. We're working on an all new
Speaker 1: season of Curse Of coming out later this year. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you can't stop thinking about the shocking
Speaker 1: stories you heard about America's Next Top Model, you'll definitely
Speaker 1: want to check out our new docuseries from E Dirty
Speaker 1: Rotten Scandals. In the series, you'll hear from the America's
Speaker 1: Next Top Model participants you heard from on Curse Of,
Speaker 1: and a few you didn't like former A and TM
Speaker 1: judge Janis Dickinson. Dirty Rotten Scandals unveils the dark underbelly
Speaker 1: of the long running TV series through the untold stories
Speaker 1: of former contestants, and shows what happens when a golden
Speaker 1: opportunity for aspiring models unravels into a harrowing saga of exploitation,
Speaker 1: shattered dreams, and resilience. You can find the two part
Speaker 1: docuseries Dirty Rotten Scandals America's Next Top Model on E Network.
Speaker 1: Check your local TV provider schedule. On this episode, we're
Speaker 1: continuing to look into ANTM psychological evaluations and how they
Speaker 1: were really used. If you haven't listened to our first
Speaker 1: episode on the psyche valve. Go back and listen to that,
Speaker 1: and before I go on, I want to say that
Speaker 1: this episode is particularly dark. We're talking about trauma, including
Speaker 1: sexual assault and physical abuse. We're also talking about suicide
Speaker 1: and suicidal ideation. Now onto the episode. While I was
Speaker 1: doing interviews for this show, I asked every model I
Speaker 1: spoke to what they were told the antm psyche vowel
Speaker 1: was for. Here's what Psycho twenty four is.
Speaker 2: Gina Turner said, they were explaining on a stage what
Speaker 2: the use of the psyche yowls were for, and it
Speaker 2: was just like, just so we can understand you and
Speaker 2: get to know you better and just make this a
Speaker 2: great experience. They didn't really say it was to manipulate you,
Speaker 2: or to think ahead of you, or to think before.
Speaker 3: You could, or to put together a certain narrative.
Speaker 1: But once she got cast on the show, that's exactly
Speaker 1: how her psyche vow was used. Gina had a traumatic childhood.
Speaker 1: She said her mother struggled with drug addiction and because
Speaker 1: of that, Gina was in and out of poster care.
Speaker 1: As an adult, she experienced sexual assault in suicidal ideation.
Speaker 1: She told the show psychologists all of this Gina expected
Speaker 1: that what she told them would stay in those rooms,
Speaker 1: that it was all necessary information to ensure everyone's safety.
Speaker 1: Gina was cast on the show, but once the camera
Speaker 1: started rolling, she discovered that those deeply traumatic experiences she
Speaker 1: shared in her psyche Vle had been given to A
Speaker 1: and TM producers. Gina had a whirlwind of a season.
Speaker 1: She was eliminated, brought back, eliminated again, then saved, and
Speaker 1: went on to become one of two finalists, only to
Speaker 1: lose the competition in the finale. After one of those eliminations,
Speaker 1: the producers pulled her for an exit interview.
Speaker 2: They interviewed me for seven hours. They caught me in
Speaker 2: a room with an interviewer, a sound guy, and a cameraman.
Speaker 2: The majority of that interview was them poking and prodding
Speaker 2: at me and asking me questions about, you know, how
Speaker 2: traumatizing my childhood was, and like things I've gone through
Speaker 2: with my mom, and like being in and out of
Speaker 2: foster care, and how was it, you know, having a
Speaker 2: mom who you know struggled with drug addiction and what did.
Speaker 1: That do to you? For legal reasons, I have to
Speaker 1: say this, we can't confirm what Gina is saying about
Speaker 1: her mom here, but according to Gina, she shared this
Speaker 1: with the A and TM psychologists and the show producers
Speaker 1: brought it up in this confessional. Gina says she started
Speaker 1: to shut down, but the producers didn't stop until they
Speaker 1: got the reaction they wanted.
Speaker 2: Then the conversation very quickly turned into them talking about
Speaker 2: personal traumas and like my mental health and me talking
Speaker 2: about being suicidal. And I just remember, for hours and
Speaker 2: hours on Andy just kept focusing on me being suicidal,
Speaker 2: and it's like, I just want to talk about something happy.
Speaker 3: I don't want to talk about growing up in foster care.
Speaker 2: I don't want to talk about what it's like to
Speaker 2: see my mom smoke crack through a doorway. I don't
Speaker 2: want to I don't want to talk about any of
Speaker 2: that shit. And like it was specifically about the suicidal thing.
Speaker 2: I was exhausted. I was physically self exhausted, and I
Speaker 2: remember putting my handsmut and I was like, I don't
Speaker 2: want to talk about it anymore, and I'm crying.
Speaker 1: I wanted to win American on some model.
Speaker 4: I thought I could do it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about it anymore.
Speaker 4: But that is literally the clip that they use for
Speaker 4: how I emotionally responded for losing the competition, and that
Speaker 4: will forever stick with me, like my exit from that
Speaker 4: show visually, at least the way it was presented was
Speaker 4: actually me talking about being suicidal.
Speaker 1: Gina would be the last Top Model contestant to experience
Speaker 1: this kind of pressure in an pipulation because that clip
Speaker 1: we just heard was from the final episode of A
Speaker 1: and TM ever made after fifteen years, the show went
Speaker 1: off the air in twenty eighteen, and they closed it
Speaker 1: out the same way they started.
Speaker 3: They still couldn't put me in a positive light. They
Speaker 3: still couldn't empower me. They still tried to like keep
Speaker 3: me boxed into this like poor pitiful underdog girl, And
Speaker 3: for that, I can say, fuck them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to beyond some. You want to beyond some.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Curse of America's Next Top Model. I'm
Speaker 1: Bridget Armstrong. On this episode, we're continuing our deep dive
Speaker 1: into ANTM psychological evaluations. Last episode, you heard the models
Speaker 1: say they were told their conversations with the show psychologists
Speaker 1: were to make sure they were a safe choice for
Speaker 1: the show. They told the psychologists their deepest, darkest secrets
Speaker 1: because that's what they were asked to do. Like Gina,
Speaker 1: most contestants thought they were speaking to the psychologists in confidence,
Speaker 1: but they were wrong. I've talked to contestants who say
Speaker 1: their traumatic experiences were later used by producers to manipulate
Speaker 1: them for the cameras. The fact that producers were even
Speaker 1: allowed to do that was buried deep in the contestants' contracts.
Speaker 1: And then there's the lingering question about the real purpose
Speaker 1: of the psyche Vow. There are several contestants whose trauma
Speaker 1: history and history with suicidal ideation should have gotten them
Speaker 1: red flagged by the show psychologists. After A and TM,
Speaker 1: some of those contestants turned to drugs and alcohol, and
Speaker 1: one even took her own life. In the contract the
Speaker 1: contestants signed, they waived their rights to confident GI, meaning
Speaker 1: if the psychologists unearthed something in the psyche Vow that
Speaker 1: made a potential cast member of danger, they had the
Speaker 1: permission to share with producers, which makes sense, but they
Speaker 1: also had permission to share anything else they found out
Speaker 1: in the evaluations. The contract says quote information obtained by
Speaker 1: producers may be used for purposes of selecting participants and
Speaker 1: in connection with the program in general, including but not
Speaker 1: limited to the production of the program. That language is
Speaker 1: pretty vague, but that one line gave producers the clearance
Speaker 1: to use what was shared in the psyche vow to
Speaker 1: produce A and TM. If I saw it the way
Speaker 1: it was written in the contract, I don't think I
Speaker 1: would connect the dots, and most of the models I
Speaker 1: talked to told me they didn't understand this part of
Speaker 1: the process. ANTM made a point of telling contestants the
Speaker 1: psyche vow was for their safety, but they didn't mention
Speaker 1: its other use, maybe because they knew the contestants wouldn't
Speaker 1: be so forthcoming with their personal trauma if they knew
Speaker 1: how it would be used. Producers bringing up contestants deepest
Speaker 1: trauma on set seemed to be a pattern for A
Speaker 1: and TM. Sarah hart Torn saw it on cycle nine.
Speaker 1: Somebody had a.
Speaker 5: Sick relative, a very sick relative that they were close to,
Speaker 5: and they would ask them about it all the time.
Speaker 1: They would push her and push her and push her, like,
Speaker 1: are you afraid they're going to die while you're here?
Speaker 1: Are you afraid that if you don't win, you will
Speaker 1: have missed out on time?
Speaker 2: With them?
Speaker 1: In vain and even more disturbing, UV Gomez from Cycle
Speaker 1: four told me something she opened up about during her
Speaker 1: A and TM psyche val was later shared with the
Speaker 1: producers of Tyra's talk show without UV's provision.
Speaker 5: They asked us all these questions about like our early
Speaker 5: childhood or life or traumas, and the Tyra's show called
Speaker 5: me because I had a pretty traumatic childhood, to say
Speaker 5: the least, and they used some of the information that
Speaker 5: I had told them for America's Next Time Model about
Speaker 5: my family, and they were like, we're doing the show
Speaker 5: where you confront family, and we know your mom was
Speaker 5: a very absent mother and there were some abuse and neglect.
Speaker 5: We want you to come on the show and confront
Speaker 5: her about it. I said, absolut freako lutely not. We'll
Speaker 5: talk to each other.
Speaker 1: Face to face.
Speaker 5: I ain't taken her own TV to call my mom out.
Speaker 5: But the fact that they did that, I felt violated.
Speaker 5: That they used that, it felt very grimy. We were
Speaker 5: there talking to a psychologist about all our woes and
Speaker 5: struggles and then you're gonna bring it back up.
Speaker 1: It just felt very yucky. Again, for legal reasons, I
Speaker 1: have to say this. We can't confirm what UV is
Speaker 1: saying about her mom here, but this is what she says.
Speaker 1: She told the A and TM psychologists, and somehow that
Speaker 1: information later got to the producers of Tyra's talk show.
Speaker 1: It was an entirely different program but owned by the
Speaker 1: same production company. During my reporting on A ANDTM, this
Speaker 1: idea of producers manipulating the contestants with personal trauma from
Speaker 1: their past came up a lot. But it wasn't just
Speaker 1: in those confessional interviews or behind the scenes. Some models
Speaker 1: say their trauma was used to create storylines, conflict, and
Speaker 1: shocking moments on the show, and I talked to a
Speaker 1: producer who confirmed that. Former A ANDTM creative producer Andrew
Speaker 1: Patterson told me that if a contestant shared a fear
Speaker 1: of something in the psyche Val, he was told about
Speaker 1: it so he could craft photoshoots and runways that would
Speaker 1: put the contestant face to face with their fears. The
Speaker 1: contestant would either come out triumphant having face their trauma,
Speaker 1: or have a complete meltdown. Either way, it made good TV.
Speaker 1: We throw these elements of fear because it's a competition
Speaker 1: reality show. Listen, you know, let's see how they reacted.
Speaker 1: I always thought these photo shoots and runways were designed
Speaker 1: to get a reaction out of all the contestants, but
Speaker 1: Andrew told me sometimes he would look at their casting
Speaker 1: files for personal phobias and design challenges to fuck with
Speaker 1: specific contestants. Those photo shoots and runways usually involve spiders
Speaker 1: or heights, you know, a little fear factor element. Most
Speaker 1: people are afraid of bugs and hanging off the side
Speaker 1: of tall buildings. But Lisa the Model says it got
Speaker 1: a lot more personal. You've heard from Lisa before. She's
Speaker 1: the one who peed in a diaper on cycle five
Speaker 1: and was later awarded that controversial win in cycle seventeen.
Speaker 1: During her initial A and TM Psychebile, Lisa says she
Speaker 1: was asked about her most disgusting experience. Strange question, but
Speaker 1: Lisa had just been through something that she couldn't forget.
Speaker 6: I had taken care of my grandpa and my grandma.
Speaker 6: Me and my grandma were really close, and my grandpa
Speaker 6: had just passed away, and at the funeral, my grandma
Speaker 6: had the worst accident ever. It was basically just like
Speaker 6: she couldn't control going to the bathroom. So when she
Speaker 6: went to the bathroom at the funeral, the service is
Speaker 6: going on. She has the hugest accident number two right.
Speaker 6: I realized she didn't come back. She was with the walker,
Speaker 6: and so I went to the bathroom to go check
Speaker 6: on her, and I realized that she shit all over herself.
Speaker 6: It's all over her dress. She was trying to clean herself.
Speaker 6: She doesn't have that much balance. I'm realizing that it's
Speaker 6: on the walls because she has it on her hands.
Speaker 6: There's poop everywhere, and this is her husband's funeral. So
Speaker 6: I'm just like holding in trying to be strong for her,
Speaker 6: but I'm also devastated. This smile is disgusting. I cleaned
Speaker 6: everything up as fast as I could with just paper,
Speaker 6: towels and water. We didn't come out for like twenty minutes.
Speaker 6: So we finally came out.
Speaker 1: We were what.
Speaker 6: I cleaned this as best we could, but we smelled
Speaker 6: like poop, and I just thought, this is the worst
Speaker 6: way for my grandma to have this experience.
Speaker 1: Lisa says she shared all of this with the show psychologist.
Speaker 6: I'm curious of what the other girls said. I guess
Speaker 6: my story beat theirs.
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 6: On cycle five, they had us do a challenge guess
Speaker 6: what the challenge was. The challenge was to go through
Speaker 6: a obstacle course in Kalmanor where you're completely covered in Kalmanor.
Speaker 6: You have to like dig yourself in the ground to
Speaker 6: get under something, not touch things.
Speaker 1: Lisa's gonna go first.
Speaker 6: Where's my army Grease? Here you go, it's getting heaven.
Speaker 7: She is tough here what leave.
Speaker 8: Me like this? Go right on, army all the way down.
Speaker 9: Fun when you get dirty, girl, I love being dirty,
Speaker 9: so this actually is nothing to me.
Speaker 1: I just have to add there is some question about
Speaker 1: whether it was mud manure or mud mixed with manure,
Speaker 1: but either way, it was nasty. That was the whole
Speaker 1: point of the challenge.
Speaker 6: And then they lock you in the limo. They filled
Speaker 6: everything with covered it in plastic and made you just
Speaker 6: sit in there with each other with the windows up
Speaker 6: for about four hours where everyone just smells like poop.
Speaker 1: And there's a.
Speaker 6: Moment actually that aired on television where I'm like just
Speaker 6: sitting in the car and all the girls are bitching
Speaker 6: and I'm just a complete silence because I realized what
Speaker 6: this is. I realized that they got this from my
Speaker 6: story of my grandma.
Speaker 1: I felt completely manipulated After doing the obstacle course and
Speaker 1: sitting in the limo, the contestants had to go to
Speaker 1: a casting with l Girl magazine and try to be
Speaker 1: pretty and charming while covered with manure or mud or
Speaker 1: some combination. It's worth noting Lisa won the challenge. Lisa
Speaker 1: told me this experience isn't even the most disturbing thing
Speaker 1: she shared with the A and TM psychologist. She says
Speaker 1: she was very candid about her difficult childhood and the
Speaker 1: sexual abuse she survived after the break. You hear what
Speaker 1: Lisa shared during her psyche vile and why I think
Speaker 1: it should have been a red flag for producers. Plus
Speaker 1: we'll talk about the other contestants who may have exhibited
Speaker 1: signs of trauma who later met tragic ends. As I've
Speaker 1: been reporting on A and TM, I noticed the pattern.
Speaker 1: I've talked to over a dozen models for this show
Speaker 1: and watched hundreds of their inner and I've been alarmed
Speaker 1: at how many A ANDTM contestants are abuse survivors. I
Speaker 1: know abuse is common, especially for women, but on every
Speaker 1: cycle there are multiple contestants with harrowing backgrounds. And something
Speaker 1: about this pattern sticks with me because I don't think
Speaker 1: it's coincidental. Lisa Demato told me she shared everything with
Speaker 1: the ANTM psychologists, including her darkest childhood trauma.
Speaker 6: Cycle five, they had me see three different therapists, but
Speaker 6: I passed from all of them, which is also an
Speaker 6: important thing to let you know. According to them, if
Speaker 6: you get cast on the show, it means that you
Speaker 6: are safe.
Speaker 1: Just the heads up, Lisa is going to talk about
Speaker 1: childhood sexual abuse. Here's what she told ANTM psychologists, and
Speaker 1: take a debress. Okay.
Speaker 6: When I went into my psycle valuations with the therapists
Speaker 6: on cycle five, they asked me about my relationship with
Speaker 6: my mother, my parents, my upbringing, as they did with everybody.
Speaker 6: For me, I had been molested by my mom's boyfriend
Speaker 6: from the time I was eight till twelve. My sister
Speaker 6: and I just lived in fear. It was a devastating existence.
Speaker 1: Lisa says she tried to tell her mom and she
Speaker 1: didn't believe her. Instead, she blamed Lisa.
Speaker 6: Whenever I would stick up for myself to my mom
Speaker 6: and be like, we don't deserve this, she would tell
Speaker 6: us like, who do you think you are? Like you're nothing,
Speaker 6: Go fucking kill yourself. That's the way my mom would
Speaker 6: talk to me. So, yeah, top model, the therapist all
Speaker 6: knew about.
Speaker 1: This, you know the deal. Legally, I have to say
Speaker 1: I can't confirm the things Lisa told me about her mother.
Speaker 1: But Lisa said when she shared this with the A
Speaker 1: ANDTM psychologists, she was still in her early twenties. She
Speaker 1: hadn't fully worked through a lot of her trauma. She
Speaker 1: said she'd thought about taking her own life before being
Speaker 1: on A ANDTM Cycle five. Doctor Stephen Stein is the
Speaker 1: psychologist who worked on reality shows like Survivor and Big Brother.
Speaker 1: You met him last episode. I asked doctor Stein what
Speaker 1: other concerns, aside from aggression and safety issues, would make
Speaker 1: him rule out someone as a potential cast member.
Speaker 7: Someone who may show signs of suicide. May I have
Speaker 7: had experiences or attempted of suicide.
Speaker 1: Lisa wasn't the only one who told me she talked
Speaker 1: about suicide with the A ANDTM evaluators. Remember, at the
Speaker 1: beginning of this episode, Gina says producers pushed her to
Speaker 1: talk about her own experience with suicidal thoughts. That was
Speaker 1: something that psychologists must have noted before Gina was cast.
Speaker 1: Doctor Stein said the other red flag he looks for
Speaker 1: are addiction is. Lisa's edit on Cycle five pretty much
Speaker 1: revolved around her perceived drinking problem, and she told me
Speaker 1: the stress of being on A and TM contributed to
Speaker 1: her drinking.
Speaker 9: I had been drinking because the way they were torturing
Speaker 9: me in my interviews. They kept abusing me with my
Speaker 9: childhood drama. They kept manipulating my feelings.
Speaker 6: And it was just devastating. I was trying to self sue.
Speaker 6: That's what the drinking was. It was me self soothing.
Speaker 1: After A and TM Cycle five, Lisa did another reality show,
Speaker 1: celeb Rehab. That show's premise is in the name famous
Speaker 1: people live in a house together while getting help for
Speaker 1: drug and alcohol issues from a doctor who specializes an addiction.
Speaker 1: We don't know if the A ANDTM psychologists knew anything
Speaker 1: about Lisa's potential drinking problem when she auditioned for Cycle five,
Speaker 1: but they definitely knew about it when they brought her
Speaker 1: back for All Stars. Lisa's told me the models on
Speaker 1: All Stars understood the show more their second time around,
Speaker 1: so they weren't as eager to play into the drama.
Speaker 1: Lisa said. When producers couldn't get the juice they needed
Speaker 1: in the confessionals, they turned to alcohol.
Speaker 6: They had guys there with champagne, so they're like, Okay,
Speaker 6: well if we can't get them from the interviews, we'll
Speaker 6: get them right away and see who can get drunk
Speaker 6: and get this thing going. I said no to the
Speaker 6: champagne probably about five times.
Speaker 1: I'm not a mental health professional, but if I'm just
Speaker 1: judging based on what doctor Stein told me and the
Speaker 1: information I've gathered about the A ANDTM evil, I don't
Speaker 1: know if Lisa should have been cast on A and TM.
Speaker 1: Even if A ANDTM producers didn't know about her alcohol
Speaker 1: abuse and history of suicidal thoughts before cycle five, they
Speaker 1: should have known after Lisa told consulting producer Oliver Twist
Speaker 1: about how after she was eliminated from cycle five, she
Speaker 1: stayed on set in a whole hotel nearby waiting for
Speaker 1: the season to rap, as is the case with all
Speaker 1: the contestants. While they were stuck in limbo, Lisa says
Speaker 1: she and another contestant faked a suicide attempt as a prank.
Speaker 1: She says that got her labeled a liability on set
Speaker 1: and sent home immediately. But a few years later, when
Speaker 1: A and TM was casting for their all star season,
Speaker 1: They called her and asked her to join the cast,
Speaker 1: which she did. There are other models who may have
Speaker 1: had serious trauma in their past, models who made it
Speaker 1: on the show and later went down dangerous paths. Kimberly
Speaker 1: Razuski was a contestant on cycle ten. She had blonde
Speaker 1: hair around face in a poudy expression. She had a
Speaker 1: very cute, almost baby face that masked the pain she
Speaker 1: was carrying inside.
Speaker 10: I'm Kim, I'm twenty years old from western Massachusetts.
Speaker 11: So what do you do for a living?
Speaker 6: I wreck at a bank.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell her.
Speaker 12: Do you ever to take money?
Speaker 8: A lot of money?
Speaker 1: You do? What do you take money? Oh?
Speaker 11: We steal it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh god no, the federal offense. Kim's time on the
Speaker 1: show was brief. She decided to leave after the first
Speaker 1: elimination of the season.
Speaker 3: Do you want to be here?
Speaker 10: To be completely honest, like the whole fashion thing, it
Speaker 10: doesn't interest.
Speaker 8: Me at all.
Speaker 10: Here?
Speaker 6: Why did you come here?
Speaker 10: I've learned how to like express the pictures, but like
Speaker 10: the whole designer thing, like you know, I don't believe
Speaker 10: in the whole like you know, I need to wear
Speaker 10: designer outfits and like.
Speaker 13: You don't need to wear designer outfits as a model.
Speaker 10: Well I know that, but I'm just saying, like, I
Speaker 10: don't find it interested.
Speaker 2: Do you want to just go home?
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, go home.
Speaker 1: Later after the cycle ended, Kim revealed the real reason
Speaker 1: why she self eliminated. Right before filming. Her ex boyfriend
Speaker 1: died by suicide and Kim was having a hard time coping.
Speaker 1: We don't know if Kim shared this information with A
Speaker 1: and TM, but it seems like she might have because
Speaker 1: after the season, she was asked to share the real
Speaker 1: story on Tyra's talk show. Here's Kim's segment on The
Speaker 1: Tyra Show.
Speaker 10: Three months before the show, my ex boyfriend committed suicide.
Speaker 10: It was by far the hardest thing I've ever gone through,
Speaker 10: and at that point in my life, it was so sudden.
Speaker 3: I rushed into the whole top.
Speaker 10: Model thing, which I actually I loved passion, I loved
Speaker 10: being that, I loved meeting Tira, and I wanted it
Speaker 10: so bad, but I didn't feel good on the inside.
Speaker 10: I was a mess, you know. I got there and
Speaker 10: I'm like, this is just overwhelming. I can't do this
Speaker 10: right now because all I have is the death on
Speaker 10: my mind.
Speaker 13: And your ex boyfriend was not the first person in
Speaker 13: your life to commit suicide.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 10: When I was in seventh grade, my mom committed suicide.
Speaker 10: So it kind of even made it worse because I
Speaker 10: started feeling like, oh my god, what am I doing
Speaker 10: to people? Why is everyone around me dying? And I
Speaker 10: got into a pretty bad depression and a lot of anxiety.
Speaker 10: It was in and out of the hospital, having panic attacks.
Speaker 2: It was hard.
Speaker 1: We might never know how much of this Kimberly shared
Speaker 1: with the A ANDTM psychologist, because tragically, Kim took her
Speaker 1: own life in twenty sixteen. We don't know if her
Speaker 1: participation in the show contributed to her mental health decline,
Speaker 1: but we do know the pressure of being on A
Speaker 1: ANDTM was too much for her to handle. That's why
Speaker 1: she walked off the set herself. But if the show
Speaker 1: conducted thorough psyche vows, how did someone like Kim slip
Speaker 1: through the cracks? Unfortunately, Kimberly's story is just one of
Speaker 1: the A and TM tragedies that raise its C questions.
Speaker 1: Here's a conversation Jay Manuel had on his YouTube live
Speaker 1: with drag Queen Raja, who you may know from RuPaul's
Speaker 1: Drag race. Raja was also a makeup artist on A
Speaker 1: and TM.
Speaker 14: There's an elephant in the room to this season that
Speaker 14: I find a little bit like maybe there was a
Speaker 14: curse to it because we got to talk about Jael
Speaker 14: and Renee.
Speaker 1: The season they're referring to is cycle eight. That season
Speaker 1: had two contestants who faced tough times after the show.
Speaker 1: Jay l Strauss was one of them. Jl was the
Speaker 1: wild child of her season. She was fun though, like
Speaker 1: if you went out with her, you would have the
Speaker 1: time of your life, but you might end the night
Speaker 1: running from the police. But sometimes her behavior on A
Speaker 1: and TM seemed a bit erratic. There was an episode
Speaker 1: on cycle eight where the models were being judged on
Speaker 1: how well they interacted with celebrities at a party. Fifty
Speaker 1: Cent was there and what started out is a seemingly
Speaker 1: flirty inter action ended with him pushing her into a pool.
Speaker 9: Yeah him, mad.
Speaker 1: Jale deserved it because she didn't leave that man alone.
Speaker 1: Jayo was being annoying, but pushing her into a pool
Speaker 1: took it too far. That's where fifty Cent's always been
Speaker 1: an asshole. Here's Jasline, the winner of cycle eight, talking
Speaker 1: to Oliver Twist. She's recalling Jail's behavior on their season.
Speaker 11: Jayo was a rock star on our season. She's like
Speaker 11: reality TV star Gold Gold. But when you think about
Speaker 11: some of these personalities now in retrospect, how and why
Speaker 11: they were developed that way, there was actually something already
Speaker 11: being rooted from her background that was causing her to
Speaker 11: kind of outburn the way she would on the show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jaslene seems to be skating around something. We all
Speaker 1: saw Jayl's behavior was off. We don't know if JL
Speaker 1: had substance abuse issues at the time, and I have
Speaker 1: to say there's no evidence that she did, but she
Speaker 1: did have friends who were struggling with addiction. We saw
Speaker 1: her getting news of a friend's overdose death during her season.
Speaker 13: Jaylle checked her messages and found out that a close
Speaker 13: friend of hers had passed away.
Speaker 2: Hello, what's going on?
Speaker 1: She overdose?
Speaker 13: Oh no, okay, I'm gonna call you back because I'm
Speaker 13: gonna gosye, because I'm gonna freak okay.
Speaker 1: Oh God. After being eliminated from cycle eight, JL developed
Speaker 1: an addiction to meth and other drugs. In twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: Her family reached out to The Doctor Phil Show to
Speaker 1: try to get her help. When she appeared on the show.
Speaker 1: She looked nothing like the beautiful, vibrant model we met
Speaker 1: on ANTM a few years before. She was gone and
Speaker 1: her skin was blatchy, her teeth had started to write.
Speaker 1: She looked way older than twenty nine.
Speaker 15: You're doing drugs, you're living in crappy hotels, you're stripping
Speaker 15: in some sleezed ball Jointone didn't know all that, Oh
Speaker 15: I didn't.
Speaker 1: Where isn't everybody's business.
Speaker 15: I didn't bring it up until you lied. If you
Speaker 15: had just said yes, then we would have gone on
Speaker 15: and talked about something else. Look, I get it, but
Speaker 15: you've had a crappy deal all along. What happened to
Speaker 15: you when you were ten years old?
Speaker 1: Oh my god?
Speaker 15: That you don't have to talk about it. You know
Speaker 15: what I'm talking about, right? And you reached out for help, right?
Speaker 15: And did they believe you? No, they didn't believe you.
Speaker 15: This isn't just your problem. This is a family problem.
Speaker 1: Doctor Phil seemed to be alluding to something bad that
Speaker 1: happened to JL when she was a kid. I don't
Speaker 1: know if she shared that with the A and TM psychologist.
Speaker 1: Jelle later said she felt exploited by the Doctor Phil show.
Speaker 1: And from the tape it sounds like he was more
Speaker 1: interested in putting her on blast than actually helping her.
Speaker 1: But Jall eventually got clean. She got a job as
Speaker 1: an addiction counselor and remained clean for five years before
Speaker 1: tragically passing of breast cancer in twenty eighteen. Other Top
Speaker 1: Model contestants, including Carrie d English, the Cycle seven winner,
Speaker 1: have shared their opinions about Jal's time on ANTM. Carrie
Speaker 1: D told Gawker she didn't think A and TM producers
Speaker 1: did enough to vet Jail, especially given the stress of
Speaker 1: being on the show and the struggles the model's face.
Speaker 1: After Carrie D added that quote, all they saw was
Speaker 1: a personality good for television. The psyche vow was supposed
Speaker 1: to be a guardrail to make sure nothing by happened
Speaker 1: on set, to try to minimize the things the show
Speaker 1: could be held liable for or that could harm the production,
Speaker 1: But there was a glaring blind spot. It wasn't concerned
Speaker 1: with how the show itself might affect contestants' mental health
Speaker 1: in the long run. After contestants were sent home, they
Speaker 1: told me no one from A ANDTM ever checked in
Speaker 1: on them or their mental well being. They thought being
Speaker 1: on the show would be their ticket into the modeling industry.
Speaker 1: But as we know, many former contestants experienced rejection after rejection,
Speaker 1: in part because of how the show portrayed them after
Speaker 1: the break. The story of one model who says being
Speaker 1: on A ANDTM sent her into a downward spiral towards
Speaker 1: drugs and crime. Renee Alway made it to the final
Speaker 1: three on cycle eight. She did well in the competition,
Speaker 1: but she was the season's villain. She had beefs with
Speaker 1: a few models. One of them almost came to blows.
Speaker 1: It got so bad Tyra came to the house to
Speaker 1: do an intervention where Renee was the subject. Tyra sat
Speaker 1: Renee down beside her and had each girl go around
Speaker 1: and say how Renee had wronged them.
Speaker 3: You've been negative to everybody so many times.
Speaker 1: It's like, how am I gonna believe you?
Speaker 6: At the casting wig, You're not saying very good things.
Speaker 13: I feel like she has more issues inside that she
Speaker 13: has to deal with, because I think.
Speaker 12: That's just all the front.
Speaker 13: She makes a lot of valid points, but she says
Speaker 13: that there is stuff going on internally with you.
Speaker 2: When we talk.
Speaker 6: You had a tendency to talk down to somebody.
Speaker 1: Renee was defensive at first, but after hearing how the
Speaker 1: girls felt about her, she showed some vulnerability.
Speaker 13: This is your chance to address all of these girls
Speaker 13: right now today.
Speaker 12: I'm sorry for anything I might said, took, hurt or
Speaker 12: find you guys. It's a defense mechanism for myself. I've
Speaker 12: been hurt bite anybody that I've ever loved besides my
Speaker 12: husband and my son, it's hurt me.
Speaker 1: From that episode on, Renee tried to change her attitude
Speaker 1: and she made it to the final three on that
Speaker 1: season one thing A and TM Loved a redemption arc.
Speaker 1: After she left the show, Renee did the top model
Speaker 1: spin off, Modelville, a competition reality show that aired as
Speaker 1: a recurring segment on Tyra's talk show. Here's Renee talking
Speaker 1: with another contestant, Bianca Golden, about how hard it was
Speaker 1: to get modeling jobs after A and TM. It's very
Speaker 1: rare for black models to work right now.
Speaker 13: Le Yeah, because it's really hard for me to find
Speaker 13: worn't too, And I'm like as white as they come.
Speaker 1: And here's Renee on Modelville talking about being abused as
Speaker 1: a child.
Speaker 13: I went through some horrible things when I was growing
Speaker 13: up and it made me very angry and bitter and
Speaker 13: just I don't know how to explain it, like I
Speaker 13: just get angry with people, you know, Like that was
Speaker 13: my mentality. And I was extremely abused when I was growing.
Speaker 13: And it wasn't just physical, it was mental, emotional, it
Speaker 13: was everything.
Speaker 1: Renee came in second place on Modelville in third place
Speaker 1: on ANTM. She did well on both shows, but that
Speaker 1: still didn't help her once she got into the real world.
Speaker 1: After Modelville, Renee's life took a turn for the worse.
Speaker 1: She was a mother, out of work and desperate to
Speaker 1: make it as a model. She said she'd use drugs
Speaker 1: before A and TM, but this time her habit got
Speaker 1: out of control. She developed an addiction to heroin that
Speaker 1: led to homelessness and a life of crime. In twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: she was arrested on felony burglary charges and sentenced to
Speaker 1: twelve years in prison. She got out early in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: We couldn't get Renee to do an interview for this podcast,
Speaker 1: so I went back to an interview she did with
Speaker 1: an ABC affiliate. It was taped while Renee was in prison.
Speaker 13: I got into the world and I went I went okay,
Speaker 13: like here, I am, you know, ready to do this,
Speaker 13: and it was just closed door after closed door after
Speaker 13: closed door. That was really hard to take. That was
Speaker 13: really hard to take. I felt like a failure because
Speaker 13: I couldn't get past the reality TV stigma that had
Speaker 13: been put on me.
Speaker 1: It's striking that when Renee was given the opportunity to
Speaker 1: speak out after her arrest, she pointed back to A
Speaker 1: and TM, saying the show set her up for failure.
Speaker 13: I mean, let's just take a look at I mean,
Speaker 13: just for America's next top bottle, and let's not look
Speaker 13: at any other reality TV competition.
Speaker 1: How many of those girls do you see working today?
Speaker 13: Very few, even the winners. Most of the winners are
Speaker 13: just on doing their regular life or barely making it
Speaker 13: in the industry. It's almost like a set up for failure.
Speaker 13: Once you're done with reality TV. They don't look back
Speaker 13: at you, they don't you know, there's no like check
Speaker 13: on you and see how you're doing. It's just over,
Speaker 13: it's done, and it's kind of all this build up
Speaker 13: for just a very big letdown.
Speaker 1: Like most of the models I've spoken with, Renee never
Speaker 1: heard from anyone from the show after she left.
Speaker 13: I can honestly tell you that I did not get
Speaker 13: a single phone call from Tyra, from anybody checking up
Speaker 13: until they wanted me to do Modelville, and then after
Speaker 13: that that was it.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 13: I mean, once you're out the door, you're out the door,
Speaker 13: and they look on to the next which you can't
Speaker 13: hardly blame them.
Speaker 1: Because that's their job.
Speaker 13: Their job is to keep moving forward and bringing new
Speaker 13: entertainment to the masses, and you know, that's what America wants.
Speaker 13: I can honestly say that there was never any outreach
Speaker 13: at all done after the show. I mean after the elimination,
Speaker 13: while we were still there, still filming, a therapist got
Speaker 13: on the phone and you talked to a therapist for
Speaker 13: about five ten minutes, and that was the gist of it,
Speaker 13: you know.
Speaker 1: And they says she doesn't blame A and TM for
Speaker 1: the choices she made and the part you didn't hear
Speaker 1: of that interview, she takes accountability for her actions. She
Speaker 1: acknowledges that lots of models are disappointed with their careers
Speaker 1: after A and TM and they don't turn to drugs
Speaker 1: or crime. I understand America's next top model isn't a
Speaker 1: mentorship program, no matter how much Tyra tried to sell
Speaker 1: us the Big Sister Act. Technically, the show doesn't have
Speaker 1: any responsibility to the models after they leave, and realistically
Speaker 1: not everyone was going to have a big modeling career,
Speaker 1: but at the very least, they could have done something
Speaker 1: to make sure the models were prepared to handle the
Speaker 1: potential let down, especially the girls who seem like they
Speaker 1: would take it the hardest. Offering additional mental health resources
Speaker 1: to contestants after a show RAPS isn't unheard of. In fact,
Speaker 1: doctor Stephen Stein says it's something he offers on the
Speaker 1: shows he works on, and he's been doing it for decades.
Speaker 14: Only.
Speaker 7: What I like to do, and many shows do, is
Speaker 7: we give them up to three sessions of therapy once
Speaker 7: they have completed the show. So usually I meet with
Speaker 7: them all when they're eliminated, see how they're doing. If
Speaker 7: we get the sense that somebody needs more help, I'll
Speaker 7: refer to someone in their hometown. I'll find a therapist
Speaker 7: for them and or choice of three therapists, and they
Speaker 7: can continue for two or three sessions or on their
Speaker 7: own more than that. Again, it depends on the show
Speaker 7: what they're willing to fund.
Speaker 1: From what I've heard, this isn't how it went down
Speaker 1: on A ANDTM. Even contestants I've spoken to who shared
Speaker 1: serious trauma histories or suicidal ideation in their casting say
Speaker 1: they received very little follow up from the show psychologists.
Speaker 1: And I should point out here that wasn't necessarily the
Speaker 1: psychologist's decision. Like doctor Stein said, the level of post
Speaker 1: show psychological care all came down to the budget, and
Speaker 1: that's a decision made at the very top. Certainly, after
Speaker 1: the success of its first few seasons, you'd think A
Speaker 1: and TM could have allocated more money for mental health resources,
Speaker 1: but they didn't. After she was eliminated, Renee always said
Speaker 1: she talked to a therapist for ten minutes on the phone.
Speaker 1: Other models I've talked to said something similar. Renee may
Speaker 1: be an extreme example of someone who couldn't handle the
Speaker 1: reality of life after reality TV, but I know she's
Speaker 1: not the only A and TM model who felt disappointed
Speaker 1: and depressed after leaving the show. Brittany Brower from Cycle
Speaker 1: four is one of the many models I talked to
Speaker 1: who felt that way.
Speaker 8: You're on this high from top model and then that
Speaker 8: starts to slow down.
Speaker 6: That's when the depression stage came and God takes.
Speaker 1: A toll on everything. Immediately after the show, Brittany was
Speaker 1: riding the wave of opportunities that came with her fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes of the thing, But as that time passed, people
Speaker 1: forgot about Brittany.
Speaker 6: The next cycle comes up, then another cycle comes up.
Speaker 6: It just took me a long time to bounce back
Speaker 6: from that. I had to like figure out who I
Speaker 6: was really again after top models.
Speaker 8: And figure out how to truly be me, like the
Speaker 8: strong version of me again and not be so like
Speaker 8: let down.
Speaker 1: Contestants were told the psyche vow measured their mental fitness,
Speaker 1: but beyond what they could be held accountable for. A
Speaker 1: and TM didn't seem to care much about the contestants
Speaker 1: long term well being. That may be well within their rights,
Speaker 1: but morally it raises questions. After talking to doctor Stein,
Speaker 1: I'm realizing A and TM was a particularly brazen offender
Speaker 1: in the world of reality TV. For twenty four seasons,
Speaker 1: it picked apart women's traumas and bodies to entertain us,
Speaker 1: and afterwards the show didn't even check on them. It
Speaker 1: didn't offer resources, which is the least they could do.
Speaker 1: That's what other shows are doing. At the time, and
Speaker 1: it didn't seem to learn or change its process as
Speaker 1: the rest of the industry took more accountability for their
Speaker 1: contestants well being. Then there's a matter of how they
Speaker 1: conducted the psyche vale and how they used them. If
Speaker 1: they were about safety, why would they cast contestants they
Speaker 1: ruled out as angry or troubled and bring them back
Speaker 1: to have confrontations on the show. Why would they cast
Speaker 1: contestants who'd shown signs of substance abuse. Why would they
Speaker 1: cast contestants who shared their history with suicidal ideation. Why
Speaker 1: would they cast the contestant who experienced the suicide of
Speaker 1: two loved ones, one of which had just happened. I
Speaker 1: think it's because they needed them. They needed people with
Speaker 1: traumatic backgrounds, behavioral issues, substance used disorders, and personality disorders,
Speaker 1: people who were likely to act out on camera. They
Speaker 1: needed these people to entertain us. So in a way,
Speaker 1: maybe the psyche Vow worked exactly as producers intended, as
Speaker 1: a way to find the people they thought they needed
Speaker 1: to make a good reality show, which is exactly what
Speaker 1: they did. One last thing before we go, we reached
Speaker 1: out to the executive producer of a and TM ken
Speaker 1: Mock so that he could provide more perspective on the
Speaker 1: psyche vowels and what we've discussed in this episode, but
Speaker 1: we did not hear from him before airing this episode.
Speaker 1: On the next episode, we'll explore how A and TM
Speaker 1: prioritized making the best reality TV, not the best models.
Speaker 6: And I get a tap on the peck Commo should
Speaker 6: up from ken Mark say stop it. We want to
Speaker 6: see these girls cry.
Speaker 2: This is going to make great television.
Speaker 6: And I just go back and I'm like, yeah, can
Speaker 6: is curtievered?
Speaker 3: A lot of those girls didn't get looked at as people.
Speaker 1: They were products. If they were boring, they got cut.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Curse of America's Next Top Model.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate the support. We'd love for you to
Speaker 1: really show your support by subscribing to our show on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts and don't forget to leave us a five
Speaker 1: star rating and review. If you love the show, tell
Speaker 1: your group, chat, your co workers, your friends, your mama
Speaker 1: to check us out, and if you don't, maybe keep
Speaker 1: that one to yourself. Thanks again to all of our listeners.
Speaker 1: The Curse of America's Next Top Model is a production
Speaker 1: of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in
Speaker 1: partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Speaker 1: Nancy Glass, hosted and senior produced by me Bridget Armstrong.
Speaker 1: Our story editor is Monique Leboard, also produced by Ben
Speaker 1: Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Associate producers are Alisha Key, Kristin,
Speaker 1: Melcurrie Curry Richmond. Consulting producers are Oliver Twist and Kate Taylor.
Speaker 1: Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Audio
Speaker 1: editing and mixing by Andrew Callaway and Matt del Vecchio.
Speaker 1: The Curse of America's Next Top Model theme music was
Speaker 1: composed by Oliver Bains. Music library provided by mid Music.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to everyone we interviewed for this podcast, especially
Speaker 1: the models for sharing their stories and For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Also check out the Glass podcast
Speaker 1: Instagram at Glass Podcasts for Curse of America's Next Top Model,
Speaker 1: behind the scenes content and more.