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. Want to be on
Speaker 1: some you want to be on the show. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Curse of America's Next Top Model. I'm Richard Armstrong. Hey, y'all,
Speaker 1: we're back with part two of this bonus episode. I'm
Speaker 1: with my editor Monik la Board and we're doing a
Speaker 1: deep dive on the new ANTM Netflix Dock. We left
Speaker 1: off talking about one of the most disturbing revelations in
Speaker 1: the docu series, What Happened to Shandy Sullivan on A
Speaker 1: and TM Cycle two. In the documentary, Shandy describes an
Speaker 1: incident on set where producers invited over some guys to
Speaker 1: the model house. They were drinking and Shandy was really
Speaker 1: drunk and she and one of the guys ended up
Speaker 1: having a sexual encounter, but Shandy was too drunk to consent,
Speaker 1: and without consent, that is sexual assault. A and TM
Speaker 1: filmed the whole thing, including the assault, and aired it
Speaker 1: and all of these years later, when Tyra and Kinmock
Speaker 1: were asked about what happened to Shandy on the docuseries,
Speaker 1: they refuse to take accountability. In fact, kin Mock justified it, well,
Speaker 1: what about when Kinmock said they kept filming because it
Speaker 1: was a documentary.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, bull shit, Like it is not a documentary.
Speaker 2: Even documentaries are produced, they know what they're gonna get
Speaker 2: and they edit it to look a certain way like
Speaker 2: it is okay, we know that it is not a documentary.
Speaker 2: People were typecast, people were told who to be, and
Speaker 2: the scenes that we saw, the reactions that we saw
Speaker 2: at that was all set up and planned. Like calling
Speaker 2: in a documentary. That really rubbed me the wrong way. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what do you think?
Speaker 1: Oh my god. I was like, we literally know, like
Speaker 1: we know that this thing. If your idea of a
Speaker 1: documentary is we show up and document whatever's happen, right, I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, no, we know for sure.
Speaker 1: We had producers on record saying to us, yeah, we
Speaker 1: stirred the pot. Yeah, we created drama. Yeah, we did
Speaker 1: all these things and stuff for him to sort of
Speaker 1: be like they intervened. I mean they intervened when the
Speaker 1: person that they didn't think that the person who won
Speaker 1: All Stars, Angelie was suitable to be on the show,
Speaker 1: they intervened and kicked her off the show in a retap.
Speaker 1: But you know what I mean, they intervened. They intervened
Speaker 1: a lot, Like they intervened a lot to cause certain
Speaker 1: situations that would play great for the camera. They intervened
Speaker 1: a lot. And so for you to take this road
Speaker 1: of like oh everybody knew when they came on the
Speaker 1: show that we're just going to film what happens when
Speaker 1: we're talking about a girl getting literally assaulted, yep, when
Speaker 1: you are literally filming a blackout, drunk woman being sexually assaulted,
Speaker 1: Like this is what we're talking about. What you didn't
Speaker 1: want to intervene, not like a squabble between two contestants,
Speaker 1: you know. And that for me, again, that's the sort
Speaker 1: of thing that you say we were wrong, Like that's
Speaker 1: all this I don't want to hear about, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a documentary and that's just something you say, you
Speaker 1: know what, we were wrong and we should have handled
Speaker 1: that differently, and you know. But I don't know why
Speaker 1: I get shot every time I hear lack of accountability
Speaker 1: from Kim Mock and Tyre, I think that's just they
Speaker 1: don't feel bad. That's what we're supposed to take away
Speaker 1: from this. They don't feel that bad about this. Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. The only time we saw Kim Mock
Speaker 2: take accountability was on the Dead Body shoot, which was
Speaker 2: disturbing to see, but yeah, he gave a pretty good
Speaker 2: example of accountability. He was like, that was wrong. That
Speaker 2: was my call and that was the wrong call. And
Speaker 2: we should not have done that period and that it's like,
Speaker 2: why is that so hard to say? Can we say
Speaker 2: that more for some of this other stuff that happened.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's that that isn't legally implicating it all. It's
Speaker 2: just unsavory and that's why he was able to say
Speaker 2: it and take accountability for that one. But I would
Speaker 2: have liked to see a lot more of that from
Speaker 2: ken Bock and Tyra.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And there was a lot of stuff that the
Speaker 1: doc didn't get into that we talked about, right, So
Speaker 1: watching the Psachi series we had all this context. One
Speaker 1: of those things for me, and it's what we're talking
Speaker 1: about now, was the amount of manipulation that happened behind
Speaker 1: the scenes, whether that was manipulating scenes, creating drama, manipulating
Speaker 1: who actually won, setting up challenges so certain people did
Speaker 1: really well and others didn't. That for me was something
Speaker 1: they didn't get into as much that we certainly talked about.
Speaker 1: Another thing that was big for us we did two
Speaker 1: whole episodes the Psyche Vowels didn't really talk about the
Speaker 1: Psyche valves, which you know, this was a part of
Speaker 1: the process where everybody went through. You were told it
Speaker 1: was for your own safety, but actually they were using
Speaker 1: it also to produce the show. One thing for me
Speaker 1: that Kimmock said, though, I was like, wait, that's it,
Speaker 1: You're admitting the thing. He said that a lot of
Speaker 1: the young women who came on the show had troubled
Speaker 1: backgrounds or didn't have a great family life, and they
Speaker 1: didn't get validation at home, and so they came to
Speaker 1: A and TM seeking that validation. And the troubled childhood
Speaker 1: or difficult upbringing pattern is something we also uncovered when
Speaker 1: recording for the podcast.
Speaker 2: I was surprised that they didn't get into that at all,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't an accident that this show knew about
Speaker 2: all of these women's deep traumas and then brought them
Speaker 2: back up at really strikingly convenient times. So, like, it
Speaker 2: was really strange to see Ken Mock acknowledge that some
Speaker 2: of these girls had come on the show from difficult
Speaker 2: backgrounds having issues at home, because we had talked about like,
Speaker 2: what is the pattern there? Why are we seeing this
Speaker 2: pattern where so many of these women have a really
Speaker 2: traumatic background, And the pattern is that they were all
Speaker 2: selected to be on the show, Like those were the contestants,
Speaker 2: you picked it wasn't an accident that they all had
Speaker 2: traumatic backgrounds and that was used against them to break
Speaker 2: them down while the cameras were on. So it felt
Speaker 2: really tone deaf that he said that, not acknowledging how
Speaker 2: that information got translated to the producers and the fact
Speaker 2: that those particular women were chosen for the show. And
Speaker 2: then I just think I've really enjoyed our episodes about
Speaker 2: psyche vwels. That was really illuminating for me about how
Speaker 2: reality TV shows work period, but especially how psyche vwls
Speaker 2: can be misused and abused on shows like this. So
Speaker 2: I think they were missing that for sure. Another thing
Speaker 2: that we brought up on our show that they didn't
Speaker 2: get into in the Netflix dock was the contracts that
Speaker 2: these I mean a lot of times girls were signing,
Speaker 2: these teenagers were signing and being told to sign in
Speaker 2: the moment in the room and not getting the chance
Speaker 2: to look it over, also not really understanding what they
Speaker 2: were signing. And we got a copy of the contract
Speaker 2: went through it, talked about it on an episode of
Speaker 2: the podcast, but that was that was completely missing from
Speaker 2: the Netflix stock.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was actually surprised by that because it's one
Speaker 1: of the things that I think you hear the models
Speaker 1: criticize the show for the most was just how exploited
Speaker 1: of their contracts were and how they got nothing out
Speaker 1: of being on the show. You know, we heard from
Speaker 1: models who told us that like they couldn't even they
Speaker 1: couldn't make any money from it. So like they couldn't
Speaker 1: even start a YouTube channel, you know, a paid channel
Speaker 1: that where they're talking about their experience on ATM. They
Speaker 1: couldn't write a book, they couldn't do anything, and this
Speaker 1: is all in the contract. Meanwhile, Tyra was getting really rich.
Speaker 1: And I think that that I actually think that that
Speaker 1: is one of the biggest missing perspectives on this doc.
Speaker 1: That it wasn't just like, oh, you were on the
Speaker 1: show and you were humiliated a bit, right, Like, I
Speaker 1: don't even know if people fully understand they didn't get
Speaker 1: compensated at all, Like they had to buy their own food.
Speaker 1: That actually shocked to be when we found it. When
Speaker 1: we first started working on this, I'd heard some other
Speaker 1: models say they had a per dim a day, right,
Speaker 1: but I still didn't. It didn't connect to me that
Speaker 1: they had to actually you set per dim to feed themselves,
Speaker 1: because I'm just thinking, like if you're on a show,
Speaker 1: they feed you, right, like, at the very least you're
Speaker 1: gonna get three meals a day, because like, wouldn't they
Speaker 1: want you to like eat, But like we come to
Speaker 1: find out, know they want you starving and mad. That's
Speaker 1: something that like the Netflix stock doesn't get into. And
Speaker 1: I think that really just further drives home the exploitation
Speaker 1: they experienced because knowing even in the short term, your
Speaker 1: basic needs were not even met on this show. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you're humiliating yourself so tire can make millions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's that like agreement that we now kind
Speaker 2: of audiences now understand with people who go on reality
Speaker 2: TV shows that like, yeah, you're gonna be humiliated, probably
Speaker 2: by the production team, regardless of what show it is,
Speaker 2: but you will get if you want it, a lot
Speaker 2: of Instagram followers depending on how you do on the
Speaker 2: show and how you market yourself, like you can become
Speaker 2: an Internet celebrity afterwards. But this is a time when
Speaker 2: that was not an option. So not only were they
Speaker 2: paid like pennies to appear basically on the show, they
Speaker 2: didn't get to build that brand afterwards at all. So
Speaker 2: it's just like such an interesting moment in time they
Speaker 2: were left out to dry. They did have a scene
Speaker 2: with Danny Evans talking about launching her modeling career afterwards
Speaker 2: and being explicitly told you're not getting gigs because you
Speaker 2: were on A ANDTM and people don't want to work
Speaker 2: with you because of that. It looks bad. Basically, what
Speaker 2: did you think about what she said on the doc?
Speaker 2: That was new information that Tyra had approached her years
Speaker 2: later and told her that she was aware of that stigma.
Speaker 1: And then she didn't do anything for her.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that either. Well, one thing, I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting about the relationship between Tyra and Danny Evans.
Speaker 1: We're talking about how Tyra rarely apologizes to anybody, Like
Speaker 1: she'll apologize for like to the audience, but not to
Speaker 1: a person. It was like a half assed apology. It
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I shouldn't have done that. But Danny
Speaker 1: Evans's the gap, telling Danny Evans to get her gap
Speaker 1: closed and ultimately closing it a bit. That's one of
Speaker 1: the things that Tyra has addressed in the past, and
Speaker 1: so to hear Danny say that, like, yeah, Tyra admitted
Speaker 1: to just sort of leaving me out to Dry. I
Speaker 1: think it sort of made me wonder if Tyra like
Speaker 1: really resented Danny for some reason because she turned her
Speaker 1: down on getting the Gap club because she didn't take
Speaker 1: her advice explicitly. Did she just sort of hang her
Speaker 1: out to dry? If that's just what Tyra did with
Speaker 1: all the girls and Danny just so happened to like
Speaker 1: run into her and she was feeling truthful that day.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but yeah, it did make me think about,
Speaker 1: like there's something there's a dynamic happening between Tyron and
Speaker 1: Danny where Tyre did feel the need to address what
Speaker 1: she did to her, but also didn't feel the need
Speaker 1: to help her, which is interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a big point that we made in
Speaker 2: the podcast, which is that.
Speaker 1: A lot of these.
Speaker 2: Women after coming on the show weren't actually welcomed into
Speaker 2: the fashion industry. It wasn't actually a credential that they
Speaker 2: had won antm. It was the opposite. It was like
Speaker 2: a stain because it was seen as like taki to have,
Speaker 2: you know, gone on a reality TV show and with
Speaker 2: someone like Danny, I mean seeing that she had got
Speaker 2: herself after the show into an agency where she was
Speaker 2: trying auditioning and then just looking at some of her
Speaker 2: photos after the show from her career, even looking at
Speaker 2: her now, you're like, oh, you actually could have made it.
Speaker 2: You really have the genetics, you had the face, you
Speaker 2: are a supermodel, and this show hurt you more than
Speaker 2: it helped you. That I think we see a copy
Speaker 2: and pasted onto a lot of women, but just Stanny
Speaker 2: was the most obvious example in the Netflix doc, and
Speaker 2: I would have liked to see more stories like hers
Speaker 2: of trying to make it afterwards, like we heard with Yanna.
Speaker 2: I think Eanna similarly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean it also made me think of someone
Speaker 1: who wasn't on the Netflix doc. She was in our pod.
Speaker 1: She's also going to be on the e Dirty Broden's
Speaker 1: Gambles series Angelie. Yes, because I thought about the things
Speaker 1: that these women had to go do to like make
Speaker 1: ends meet right, Like Angelie told probably one of the
Speaker 1: most moving and disturbing and memorable stories I think on
Speaker 1: our podcast YEP. On Angelie's original season, she did pretty well.
Speaker 1: She got off the show, couldn't find work, could not
Speaker 1: find work at all. No one took her seriously. Angelie
Speaker 1: got like the angry black girl, ghetto girl, edit on
Speaker 1: her season she could not get work. Angelie ends up
Speaker 1: being trafficked like sex traffic, and she ends up getting
Speaker 1: out of it. Not long after, she goes back on
Speaker 1: A ANDTM All Stars. She wins the whole thing and
Speaker 1: they take away her win because the contract allowed her to,
Speaker 1: and Angelie after that still never got that modeling opportunity.
Speaker 1: It's like she did the things she was supposed to do,
Speaker 1: she won the show, and that still didn't help her
Speaker 1: at all. So that for me, it was really interesting
Speaker 1: that Netflix didn't talk about that. Of course, we decided
Speaker 1: to tie it to the contracts because that's how they
Speaker 1: were able to strip her win, but just that, in
Speaker 1: and of itself, that story to show that like this
Speaker 1: show did not help women, and even when they were
Speaker 1: in a position to help the women who really needed help,
Speaker 1: they went out of their way to not help them
Speaker 1: if they didn't represent whatever standard bullshit standard they'd come
Speaker 1: up with.
Speaker 2: You know, seeing Tyra in this dock and how bad
Speaker 2: she comes off, it does make me wonder she didn't
Speaker 2: want someone to actually be the next supermodel like Queen,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like she might have not
Speaker 2: actually wanted to share that spotlight that title that could
Speaker 2: be a part of this as well that I didn't
Speaker 2: let myself think about during the podcast production because it
Speaker 2: felt like it wasn't substantiated fully. But seeing her in
Speaker 2: this Netflix dock consistently deflecting and then knowing how much
Speaker 2: these women wanted and could have made it in the industry,
Speaker 2: but she didn't go to bat for them at all,
Speaker 2: it makes me wonder what her motivations were there.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean that is true because I feel like
Speaker 1: Tyra came up in an era where there could only
Speaker 1: be one There could only be one black supermodel, right,
Speaker 1: and so she was pitted against Naomi Campbell, And while
Speaker 1: Tira presented herself was like girl power, I love all women.
Speaker 1: We know like based on the show that like, she
Speaker 1: certainly didn't, and so I could That's such a good point, MO,
Speaker 1: Like she maybe did not want to create her rival.
Speaker 1: She didn't want to take the create the person who
Speaker 1: would now be known as the other black supermodel. It's
Speaker 1: like it comes from this like mindset of scarcity, and
Speaker 1: it isn't it's not always your fault that you have
Speaker 1: that mindset of scarcity, but I guess it's just in
Speaker 1: huge contrast with how Tyra actually presented herself. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the point. I didn't think about a lot either,
Speaker 1: like did Tyra even want any of these girls to
Speaker 1: be top models? Because then who was Tyra?
Speaker 2: And with Angelie the documentary, not getting into Angelie was
Speaker 2: a real missed opportunity in the Netflix talk I mean,
Speaker 2: even though they didn't have her interview, they still could
Speaker 2: have talked about that, talked about it, and they didn't.
Speaker 1: It's one of the biggest scandals that ever happened on ANTM.
Speaker 1: I'm like, talk about it, mentioning it, I guess. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is the problem. We also ran into right and
Speaker 1: we had ten eleven episodes if you count the bonus.
Speaker 1: There's just so much crazy shit that went down on
Speaker 1: that show. You really do have to pick what you're
Speaker 1: going to talk about and what you're going to say
Speaker 1: about it, and so, you know, hated for him. Netflix
Speaker 1: only had three episodes, so there's a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: that they skipped over that I was like a little
Speaker 1: surprised by. And I think Angelee's story is certainly one
Speaker 1: of them, because when have you ever heard of like
Speaker 1: somebody winning the whole thing and then having this huge
Speaker 1: scandal where their win is taken away. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: because they never did another All Stars after that either, right.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah. And the other thing we didn't see from
Speaker 2: the Netflix stock that they could have gone into but
Speaker 2: they didn't, which we talked about in our last episode
Speaker 2: of the podcast, is what these contestants, what these former
Speaker 2: contestants actually want from Tyra. And it differs, you know,
Speaker 2: we heard different takes on what they want, but a
Speaker 2: lot of them just want accountability. Some of them just
Speaker 2: want a phone call where Tyra says, hey, I know
Speaker 2: that what happened on that show was not okay, and
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, and that was my call and I wish
Speaker 2: it had gone down differently, and I respect you and
Speaker 2: I wish that it hadn't happened. You know, like a
Speaker 2: lot of them just wanted that, But some of them
Speaker 2: want money. You know, they're like, my image is still
Speaker 2: being replayed over and over again and I'm making no
Speaker 2: money on this. But we didn't hear any of those
Speaker 2: perspectives on what they want from Tira. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's really missing too, because I think it
Speaker 1: changes the conversation from we were victims, we had this
Speaker 1: thing happened to us, We just need to talk about it,
Speaker 1: and it makes it seem like there's no way to
Speaker 1: be actually accountable. And then it's Answerry, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like there are tangible things that can be
Speaker 1: and a lot of these models know that and they're
Speaker 1: saying that.
Speaker 2: I completely agree. Yeah, all right, so let's really go
Speaker 2: deep on Tyra because we both have been talking about
Speaker 2: Tyra for a year and what does she know, what
Speaker 2: does she not know? What does she oh? These women,
Speaker 2: these contestants from the show, what does she represent? What
Speaker 2: did she do? What did she not do? And why
Speaker 2: is she the person that we put all of this
Speaker 2: all and is that there? You know, these are questions
Speaker 2: we grappled with, especially you. I mean when we were
Speaker 2: first working on this series, it was hard for you
Speaker 2: to cop down too hard on Tyra. At the beginning,
Speaker 2: you were like, I don't know if she's the villain,
Speaker 2: So yeah, let's talk about that now.
Speaker 1: It is something I grapple with a lot. And in
Speaker 1: the beginning I was like, I don't think she's a villain.
Speaker 1: Then I was like, I think she's an evil genius.
Speaker 1: Then like even on the last episode, like when we
Speaker 1: were still weighing this question, out like we had. We
Speaker 1: had a whole segment, a whole section where we were
Speaker 1: talking about all the things Tara did do right, right,
Speaker 1: and all the criticism that Tyra's gotten that isn't the
Speaker 1: same as like white men in her same position, similarly
Speaker 1: positioned white men, they don't get the same sort of criticism.
Speaker 1: Like we even went there with it, and I did
Speaker 1: leave feeling like we've been really fair to Tyra while
Speaker 1: like holding her to account. But after watching the Netflix
Speaker 1: doc and watching how she feels about it now, I
Speaker 1: almost feel like we could have went harder. We didn't
Speaker 1: go far enough, Like I am now convinced she is
Speaker 1: a villain. Like if there were any questions in my
Speaker 1: mind before seeing her still sort of dodge accountability, underlined
Speaker 1: the fact that she does not give a fuck, And
Speaker 1: how could you watch this thing and know what happened
Speaker 1: to these girls and hear them say like, huh, you know,
Speaker 1: like this kind of ruined my life and your answer
Speaker 1: is still but this is what the people wanted, even
Speaker 1: her thing, but this was like the scariest thing. I'm like,
Speaker 1: is this a threat Tarra? The thing she said about
Speaker 1: like are you gonna be prepared when people come for
Speaker 1: you talking to the audience, like this audience said, likely,
Speaker 1: we don't have a multimillion dollar TV show. Are you
Speaker 1: going to be prepared when they come for you? Because
Speaker 1: they are coming, or they will come for you. That
Speaker 1: statement was so defensive, and it was trying to deflect
Speaker 1: again the blame that she holds in this, and it
Speaker 1: just was so like it was almost the sort of
Speaker 1: thing that a villain in a movie would say when
Speaker 1: they're caught, they're coming for you next. And I'm just
Speaker 1: like Tyra girl like down sing. Like you said, you
Speaker 1: pointed out one of her her fashion choice, even so
Speaker 1: it made her look like a villain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the trench coat, right, like that was a wild
Speaker 2: stylistic choice. I don't know if she made that choice
Speaker 2: or style has made that choice, but that was the
Speaker 2: wrong choice. Like, the trench coat is so representative of
Speaker 2: I have something to hide, So that just visually was
Speaker 2: a mistake. But then man, she was hollow. She was
Speaker 2: so hollow in her answers. She came off as really insincere.
Speaker 2: And she's had you made the point earlier. You know,
Speaker 2: she's had five years since twenty twenty to come up
Speaker 2: with a better answer than it was a different time
Speaker 2: and everyone's getting canceled these days, and she kind of
Speaker 2: made it seem in this dock even still, Like it's
Speaker 2: a few internet trolls as opposed to a pattern of
Speaker 2: her behavior over a twenty year period of time that
Speaker 2: the broader culture is reckoning with and calling out as
Speaker 2: not acceptable. Why would she show up to this interview
Speaker 2: and not have better answers? I don't get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that Tira either really doesn't understand that
Speaker 1: she did something wrong, right, like she really believes her bullshit,
Speaker 1: or she knows exactly what she's doing. She knows that
Speaker 1: like these answers that lack accountability are gonna get people
Speaker 1: mad and get people talking, and she's continuing to give
Speaker 1: these answers because it sparks conversation. I mean, we're talking
Speaker 1: about it now. There are three there's two documentaries in
Speaker 1: a podcast all about A and M. Tyra Banks, a
Speaker 1: show that went off years ago and premiered twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: And so I think part of that could be she
Speaker 1: knows that that, like, on the way hand, likes you know,
Speaker 1: I said I thought Tyra was maybe an evil genius, right.
Speaker 1: I certainly think Tyron knows what catches people's attention, and
Speaker 1: she knows how to hold their attention.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, And she says that she's like I can
Speaker 2: sense what people want, I can taste it, you know,
Speaker 2: And she's right.
Speaker 1: She is right, And I wonder if Tyra knows that
Speaker 1: people want a villain. People want a villain, and they
Speaker 1: want her to be the villain. And it continued. It
Speaker 1: is something that continues to drive conversation around her and
Speaker 1: her show. And she's the person who hasn't been on
Speaker 1: televisioning year, she hasn't been a professional modeling years, but
Speaker 1: we're still talking about her so much. And so yeah.
Speaker 1: The other option is Tarah knows exactly what she's doing,
Speaker 1: and she knows by giving these sort of vague, hollow answers,
Speaker 1: it'll get people talking, it'll get people to pay attention.
Speaker 1: I mean, she has incentive to. I guess because of
Speaker 1: some of the news that they revealed. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the season twenty five hint
Speaker 1: that terrifying. I was like Tea's and twenty girl know
Speaker 1: about that a little bit more. But like maybe that's
Speaker 1: the reason she's doing the interview in the first place.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's why she's trying to get this conversation started,
Speaker 1: because now we're all gonna tune in and see has
Speaker 1: Tyra changed. It's a different time now, is it going
Speaker 1: to be different? That could be what Tyra was, or
Speaker 1: it's the opposite. Tyra really doesn't understand how callous she seems,
Speaker 1: which is possibly scarier.
Speaker 2: I'm really torn about those two and they're both bad options,
Speaker 2: Like neither of them is better than the other. But
Speaker 2: to your the thing you brought up about her saying, oh,
Speaker 2: I hope you're prepared for when they come for you
Speaker 2: to I guess the producer asking her a question about
Speaker 2: the show that she made for twenty years. It really
Speaker 2: that to me, like portrayed a deeper sort of psychology
Speaker 2: and a deeper problem that reminded me of the mom
Speaker 2: in Unknown Number, the Netflix stock the mom Kendra Lacari
Speaker 2: when she sits down for her sort of confrontation interview
Speaker 2: and she says, oh, well, who hasn't made a mistake,
Speaker 2: who hasn't had wont too many drinks but decided to
Speaker 2: drive home anyway? And it's like, well, that's not what
Speaker 2: we're talking about here. We're actually asking you about some
Speaker 2: very specific things that you did. So to deflect that
Speaker 2: and to really think you're making a smart point in
Speaker 2: that deflection almost like betray as a deeper psychological lack
Speaker 2: of connecting the dots that make me think that maybe
Speaker 2: maybe it's the former. Maybe she genuinely does not believe
Speaker 2: she did wrong.
Speaker 1: We talked about this on our season. She likes to
Speaker 1: say a lot of times that people didn't know better
Speaker 1: back then, or all of a sudden in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: I think she says, it's in the dog verbati. I'm like,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, twenty twenty, everybody's looking
Speaker 1: back at like this was really wrong or something like that.
Speaker 1: She said, I'm like, well, before it'senty twenty, the models
Speaker 1: knew it was wrong because they say so, and hm.
Speaker 1: The fact that she still doesn't address that and we're
Speaker 1: all pretending, I mean, this is extreme. I'm going to
Speaker 1: give an extreme example, right. But it's like those people
Speaker 1: who try to justify racism because it was a different time,
Speaker 1: and they'll say, oh, you're back in the forties and
Speaker 1: the fifties. It was just different, and it pretends as
Speaker 1: though there were no black people who were saying like this,
Speaker 1: was wrong. Tyra likes to put it in this thing
Speaker 1: that like nobody knew, well the very least the people
Speaker 1: you were doing this too, knew it was wrong and
Speaker 1: they said it, So why don't they count?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I came into the podcast wanting her not to be
Speaker 1: the sole villain or wanting it to be something else,
Speaker 1: But seeing her on this docuseries, I don't know if
Speaker 1: she listened to Curse of I like to think she did,
Speaker 1: But seeing her on this docuseries and knowing that she's
Speaker 1: heard these criticisms and this still being her response is
Speaker 1: just at a certain point, fan or no fan, antim
Speaker 1: lover or no antim lover at a certain point, you can't.
Speaker 1: I can't make excuses. It's just it is what it is,
Speaker 1: you know. All Right, We're back for the final part
Speaker 1: of this conversation about the Netflix stock. Tiper had a
Speaker 1: huge platform with this docuseries, and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say I'm surprised, but I am disappointed that she didn't
Speaker 1: really take accountability in this docuseries for what went wrong
Speaker 1: on ANTM.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the biggest example of the fact that she
Speaker 2: is not taking accountability for what she what went wrong
Speaker 2: on ANTM is that this doc came out at the
Speaker 2: same time as the reboot was announced for cycle twenty
Speaker 2: five of ANTM.
Speaker 1: Have we not gone through enough? Like so, when I
Speaker 1: was watching the doc and knowing that we reached out
Speaker 1: to her, didn't get didn't response, I didn't want to
Speaker 1: do the show. And you know, it was announced that
Speaker 1: she was going to do the Netflix stock and I
Speaker 1: thought like, oh, maybe because Netflix is this huge platform.
Speaker 1: But she's she's going to do the biggest platform. If
Speaker 1: she's going to address all these things, she's gonna dress
Speaker 1: for once and for all on Netflix. Right, That's what
Speaker 1: I thought was her motivation for doing this in the
Speaker 1: first place. But by the time we got to the
Speaker 1: end of this dock where she's like, I'm not finished yet,
Speaker 1: truly terrifying words. Right by the time we get to
Speaker 1: that and she says season twenty five, I'm like, oh, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is the reason why she this is why. Yep,
Speaker 1: this was her justification because I don't think Tyr's going
Speaker 1: to do anything that's not going to benefit her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, being on this docu series was just a soft
Speaker 1: launch for the next season, something we certainly don't need
Speaker 1: for me. If there is going to be another season,
Speaker 1: I actually think Tyra should be pretty far away from it.
Speaker 1: I have a small criticism about Netflix reality shows. They're
Speaker 1: a little too earnest for me, right, Like Love is
Speaker 1: Blind is a ridiculous idea, and we're all like the
Speaker 1: way the show is shot, it's like this could actually work,
Speaker 1: and these people are for real, and this isn't the
Speaker 1: silliest thing you've ever seen, you know. I mean, even
Speaker 1: take a show like Cora, very earnest, very like sweet
Speaker 1: wholesome moments. Yeah, I think that's going to be kind
Speaker 1: of the tone of the season twenty five, a TM reboot.
Speaker 1: I think that is going to be Tyra trying to
Speaker 1: show her accountability. But the problem. One problem, we're still
Speaker 1: not going to know what's happening behind the scenes and
Speaker 1: if these contestants are being treated fairly right. Two, Tyro's
Speaker 1: sigma is already you come into it with that stigma.
Speaker 1: And then three, I think that's something you brought up
Speaker 1: when we were talking. It has a structural issue, like
Speaker 1: the show itself has a structural issues, So I'm wondering
Speaker 1: how you think they might approach that in a reboot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the structural issue that we talked about
Speaker 2: in the podcast, which is that the industry does not
Speaker 2: welcome reality TV stars. The real high fashion industry, like
Speaker 2: if these girls want to be on the cover of
Speaker 2: the industry does not welcome people from reality TV. But
Speaker 2: it's also true that the world is really different right now,
Speaker 2: Like we have Instagram models, we have different opportunities than
Speaker 2: we had twenty years ago when this show was first popular.
Speaker 2: So I think there are ways that the show can
Speaker 2: try to place them better in their careers and establish
Speaker 2: them better in their careers. That's the biggest thing that Well,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of big things they need to do.
Speaker 2: I completely agree with you that, like the best thing
Speaker 2: Tyer could do would be to put someone else in
Speaker 2: that hosting role, like put Winnie Harlowe in that hosting
Speaker 2: role and step away from the show. That would be
Speaker 2: the best thing she could do. I don't think she's
Speaker 2: going to do that because I think she wants to
Speaker 2: be in the spotlight. There's all kinds of things that
Speaker 2: I hope that they are doing better in this reboot.
Speaker 2: But the biggest thing in terms of like what was
Speaker 2: so sad in producing the podcast was hearing so many
Speaker 2: of these women who making it as a model, as
Speaker 2: a supermodel was their dream. So I do hope that
Speaker 2: the show structurally does more to place them in a
Speaker 2: successful career, in successful career opportunities after you know whoever
Speaker 2: wins Cycle twenty five. But it's a bad idea, just
Speaker 2: it's if we don't want it. I don't think I don't.
Speaker 1: Want it either. Okay, there's a few ways that I
Speaker 1: could maybe like it. Maybe one. I agree with everything
Speaker 1: you said, Tyrann needs to be fall fall fall away
Speaker 1: from this thing. But I think if they involved some
Speaker 1: of the models, like if they brought them back on
Speaker 1: to be mentors or to in some capacity, right, Like
Speaker 1: we know Kenya, who we spoke to, has like I think,
Speaker 1: a consulting agency where she works with like aspiring models.
Speaker 1: It'd be great to see her come on. Sea Harttorn
Speaker 1: said that she worked as a model for years. He's
Speaker 1: not working as a model anymore. But if they would
Speaker 1: be up for it, I would love to see them
Speaker 1: be involved in some way, whether it's judges or mentors
Speaker 1: or something like that. And obviously would love for them
Speaker 1: to be actually compensated this time. That could be interesting.
Speaker 1: One other thing though, and I completely agree with you
Speaker 1: that I don't think that Tyro's gonna stay out of
Speaker 1: the spotlight on this one. It's because it strikes me
Speaker 1: as this is Tyra's payback, right. So Tyra said on
Speaker 1: this documentary that when she originally did antm SO back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two, this was like her payback
Speaker 1: to all of the agencies or fashion industry gatekeepers who
Speaker 1: body shamed her, who closed doors in her face, who
Speaker 1: didn't pay her as much, who basically she felt marginalized.
Speaker 1: Story right, this was her payback by having a show.
Speaker 1: They have a magazine, but she has an entire TV
Speaker 1: show like everybody seeing her. And so I thought about
Speaker 1: that in the sense of like, yes, your goal, right
Speaker 1: is to elevate people in modeling who otherwise wouldn't get
Speaker 1: an opportunity, right, or to show diverse beauty. That might
Speaker 1: have been a goal. But if your number one goal
Speaker 1: is payback, all you need to be is successful. You
Speaker 1: need to continue to be successful because the payback is
Speaker 1: your success, and you'll go through You'll take great measures
Speaker 1: to do that. And we've seen like the exploiting of
Speaker 1: a woman, the manipulation all of this stuff to continue
Speaker 1: to be successful and be on top, because that's your
Speaker 1: payback to me. Season twenty five is almost the payback
Speaker 1: to like all the people who've been calling her out.
Speaker 1: We know she's not account you know, she doesn't really
Speaker 1: actually feel accountable, at least that's not how she presents herself,
Speaker 1: so she's not like deeply sincerely sorry, right, So to me,
Speaker 1: season twenty five is almost like a payback to show
Speaker 1: y'all that like, see, I can do this, like I
Speaker 1: can I can be a good mentor I can do
Speaker 1: the actual thing I set out to do, as opposed
Speaker 1: to like, oh, I'm coming back because I still see
Speaker 1: a purpose for me in this, or I still want
Speaker 1: to help young women. I think you just want to
Speaker 1: come back to prop a point, just like creating A
Speaker 1: and TM with the proper point.
Speaker 2: Who Yeah, I think that's a really smart take, And
Speaker 2: I hope that that's not what it looks like. I
Speaker 2: hope that they reckon with the first version of A
Speaker 2: and TM at the beginning of the reboot. In some way,
Speaker 2: I feel like they have to, so I'm curious to
Speaker 2: stay with that looks like.
Speaker 1: But I don't know if it's going to work. This time, right,
Speaker 1: because not only do we have our podcast and this
Speaker 1: Netflix docuy series which is not that kind to Tyra,
Speaker 1: there's the E docu series from Blast and I Sentiment
Speaker 1: from our production company that's coming out in March that
Speaker 1: really does not do Tyra any favors that one. I
Speaker 1: think for people who or even the models themselves who
Speaker 1: feel like the Netflix doc didn't really focus enough on
Speaker 1: the models where they are what happened to them, this
Speaker 1: doc really does it, and it really sort of like
Speaker 1: brings up all of these things that you can directly
Speaker 1: tie back to Tyra, right.
Speaker 2: Uh huh. We got an early screener of the E
Speaker 2: doc that's airing in a few weeks, and you hear
Speaker 2: more from the models, and it I think brings up
Speaker 2: different points about Tyra and her involvement in the show
Speaker 2: that we didn't hear in this dock. It brings up,
Speaker 2: i think, harder points about the psyche bells, the contracts,
Speaker 2: lack of payments, the manipulation. I think it really features
Speaker 2: that side of this even more than the Netflix doc did.
Speaker 2: So I'm looking forward to seeing what people think of
Speaker 2: that and if that changes the way this reboot is
Speaker 2: going to go And if.
Speaker 1: You think about it, it's just been a constant reckoning
Speaker 1: for A and TM since our show premiere in September,
Speaker 1: right then the Netflix doc drops in February, and now
Speaker 1: this E doc on March eleven is dropping. So it's
Speaker 1: just like Tyra can't escape it. Like at every point
Speaker 1: where she's like whoo okay, the talk has died down,
Speaker 1: it's like another thing comes out that's like, ah, tying
Speaker 1: not so fast. So I just don't know if this
Speaker 1: like season twenty five reboot is gonna do what she
Speaker 1: thinks it's about to do, because people have been primed
Speaker 1: to like criticize anything Tyr's about to do, because like
Speaker 1: you've literally probably just listened to like twenty four hours
Speaker 1: of Tyra criticism. But yeah, I'm interested to see what
Speaker 1: people's reaction is to this E doc because I think
Speaker 1: there are some things that I mean, it's literally called
Speaker 1: dirty rotten scandals, Like, there are some things in that
Speaker 1: that are truly shocking, truly disturbing that happened on the
Speaker 1: A and TM set, that happened to these young women.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I'm not gonna spoil it.
Speaker 1: One of the things I like about the e doc
Speaker 1: is that you know, we had at the end of
Speaker 1: the Netflix documentary just sort of like a where are
Speaker 1: they now? Just sort of quick where are they now?
Speaker 2: It felt flat to me, like it felt tacked on
Speaker 2: at the end. It felt like an abrupt ending with
Speaker 2: the actual what we're really talking about here, which is
Speaker 2: the contestants and how the show negatively impacted their lives.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean the e doc the one coming out
Speaker 1: March eleven, that one does a really good job of
Speaker 1: sort of showing us the contestants' lives now. I think
Speaker 1: that's actually one of my favorite parts, because yeah, the
Speaker 1: Netflix socket sort of felt flat even I think if
Speaker 1: we had to taken that approach, sort of hearing that
Speaker 1: like yeah, I'm a mom, I'm a you know, yeah
Speaker 1: I have this business and whatever, it doesn't hit the
Speaker 1: same as like seeing the model with like our their
Speaker 1: teenage son, where you're like, oh my gosh, how do
Speaker 1: you have a teenager? Or seeing them work with young
Speaker 1: aspiring models, like seeing them in their element. Because I
Speaker 1: think ultimately we can't lose sight of the fact that
Speaker 1: in this story these models were affected in negative ways.
Speaker 1: But I think it's good to know that, like they
Speaker 1: still made a life for themselves and they still found
Speaker 1: a path. It may not have been modeling, but they
Speaker 1: found paths to do things that are fulfilling. And I
Speaker 1: think that the E. Dokey series just really does a
Speaker 1: great job of like driving that home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited for people to see it. We've also
Speaker 2: gotten a lot of questions, which is, are you doing
Speaker 2: another season of curself? Are you going to do another
Speaker 2: podcast series like A and TM? And the truth is,
Speaker 2: bridget you and I are scheming on something right now.
Speaker 1: Scheme, scheme, plot plot. We are working on a season
Speaker 1: two of course, I'm very excited about it. We can't
Speaker 1: quite tell you what it is, but just know there
Speaker 1: are some similar themes, yeah, and some new themes that
Speaker 1: we're going to explore with this particular thing we're taken on.
Speaker 1: So like, yeah, super excited.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So stay tuned, stay subscribed to Curse Off, and
Speaker 2: later this year in the summer, we show up season two.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for talking this out with me. Like,
Speaker 1: I've been talking to people about this doc and you know,
Speaker 1: it's been really cool because I'm like, yes, no, everybody
Speaker 1: is look sess like me. But like there's so many
Speaker 1: things that people just found out with the doc, right,
Speaker 1: so like I'm like, yeah, yes, yeah, yes, Sarah did that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that. Yeah, I know she said that because
Speaker 1: I'm like been thinking about it for the whole past year.
Speaker 1: So it's great to talk to you who've also been
Speaker 1: thinking about these things, so we could just like get
Speaker 1: it on the nitty gritty of like did you see
Speaker 1: how Tyra held her eyebrow up when ex well I'll
Speaker 1: season twenty four, Yeah like that. So yeah, this has
Speaker 1: been great. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, thanks Bridget.
Speaker 1: And that's all for this very special bonus episode. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to the Curse of America's Next Top Model.
Speaker 1: The Curse of America's Next Top Model is a production
Speaker 1: of Glass Podcast, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in
Speaker 1: partnership with iHeart Podcast. 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 le Board, also produced by
Speaker 1: Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Associate producers are Kristin mel
Speaker 1: Carey and Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry
Speaker 1: and Jessica Crincheck. Audio editing and mixing on this episode
Speaker 1: by Matt del Vecchio. The Curse of America's Next Top
Speaker 1: Model theme was composed by Oliver Bains. Music library provided
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