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
Speaker 1: Network check your local TV provider schedule. Is Cycle eighteen,
Speaker 1: the British Invasion season of America's Next Top Model.
Speaker 2: It's raining so hard, this is really windy, It's so so.
Speaker 1: High up like I just We're on the deck of
Speaker 1: the Macaw Tower, eleven hundred foot building. A and TM
Speaker 1: Judge j Manuel just told the remaining five models of
Speaker 1: the season.
Speaker 3: The Macaw Tower is the home of the tallest bungee
Speaker 3: jump in the world.
Speaker 1: And that the top deck of this building, way out
Speaker 1: on the ledge seven hundred and sixty feet up, is
Speaker 1: the location for today's photo shoot.
Speaker 4: We turn up at this bloody tower and it is
Speaker 4: raining hard.
Speaker 1: Maybe even haling, who knows it was definitely hailing. That's
Speaker 1: Sophie Sumner, who you heard in the tape psyching herself
Speaker 1: up to go out on that ledge, knowing full well
Speaker 1: that one slippery wrong step combined with a horn its malfunction,
Speaker 1: could send her flying into the pavement seven hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty feet below. You met Sophie a few episodes ago.
Speaker 1: She's the British model who said signing the A and
Speaker 1: TM contract basically meant the show owned you. On her
Speaker 1: season she walked a light pink Bob Very twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: It was a season she went on to win, but
Speaker 1: on this day she was ready to walk off set
Speaker 1: and just go home.
Speaker 4: We're in a brand new continent that most of us
Speaker 4: have never been to and we go out on that
Speaker 4: stupid ledge or something.
Speaker 5: I am terrified of.
Speaker 1: Height Cycle eighteen pit models from the UK against models
Speaker 1: from the US, and Sophie wasn't new to this. She'd
Speaker 1: competed on Britain's Next Top Model before A and TM,
Speaker 1: But the photoshoot she did on that show looked like
Speaker 1: school picture Dad compared to this drake in simple, long
Speaker 1: black dresses with exaggerated shoulder pads and hairstyles that were
Speaker 1: straight out of the Capitol beauty salon. On Honger Games.
Speaker 1: The models worth for represent the strength and power of Macau,
Speaker 1: but at this moment they were looking anything but strong.
Speaker 4: I stepped out there and I have never to this
Speaker 4: day been that terrified on the side of a building,
Speaker 4: like slipping all over the place with rain coming down
Speaker 4: god knows how high up.
Speaker 1: Up to this point, Sophie had pretty much trusted the production.
Speaker 1: Sure some of the photoshoots were over the top, but
Speaker 1: she didn't think the show would ever put her in
Speaker 1: harm's way. Now standing on that slippery seven hundred foot ledge,
Speaker 1: she wasn't so sure. According to Sophie, under normal circumstances
Speaker 1: in these weather conditions. The skywalk they were posing on
Speaker 1: would be closed to the public.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's before the photo shoot or after,
Speaker 4: but it definitely had been closed to the public. It
Speaker 4: was definitely unsafe. It was not okay.
Speaker 5: Ken Mook was there.
Speaker 4: They were like, you know, we should really close it
Speaker 4: type thing, and I remember him or somehow I overheard
Speaker 4: something that he was like, no, we're doing.
Speaker 6: This no matter what.
Speaker 1: And so I also went out there.
Speaker 7: With the knowledge that this wasn't safe and we shouldn't
Speaker 7: be out there now.
Speaker 1: I have to say this legally, I can't confirm if
Speaker 1: Ken Max said that or not, but it is what
Speaker 1: Sophie remembers. Okay, if you'll hear that until we turn around,
Speaker 1: imagine being out on a ledge. You're terrified of heights.
Speaker 1: You think the situation isn't safe, and in your mind,
Speaker 1: the only thing keeping you from falling to your imminent
Speaker 1: death is the harness you're clinging to. And then you
Speaker 1: hear the photographer tell you to hold a pose.
Speaker 8: Sorry someone without holding it.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'll get the harness a little bit further
Speaker 1: away from my body. If you can stop holding the harness,
Speaker 1: you mean, the thing keeping her from falling off this
Speaker 1: slippery seven hundred and sixty foot leg. I was just shaking, crying.
Speaker 4: It's so awful, right because you actually have no choice.
Speaker 7: You're going home because you didn't see the photo shoot.
Speaker 9: I feel like we've got good shots.
Speaker 1: Sophie didn't know it then, but the shaking, the crying,
Speaker 1: the pure of terror and panic in her eyes was
Speaker 1: all by design. You see heights. What's her biggest fear?
Speaker 9: If someone had a particular fear, we would find out
Speaker 9: in the costings.
Speaker 1: That's Andrew Patterson, the creative producer for A and TM
Speaker 1: cycles fifteen through twenty. He and his team came up
Speaker 1: with every photoshoot the models did, including this one. He
Speaker 1: was the reason they were up there struggling to look
Speaker 1: strong and beautiful while being pelted with freezing rain. Andrew
Speaker 1: had designed this photo shoot to get this very reaction
Speaker 1: out of the models.
Speaker 9: You go through the casting falls and you'd be like, okay, well,
Speaker 9: this one's scared of heights, so maybe this cycle we
Speaker 9: should do a photo shoot which is one hundred stories
Speaker 9: in the air.
Speaker 1: He was there that day to see how his little
Speaker 1: experiment unfolded.
Speaker 9: It is pissing down with rain. It is so cold
Speaker 9: out there. I think there might have been slight icicles,
Speaker 9: like literally, like the girls are getting pelted by ice
Speaker 9: and they're in tears and they're crying, and you know,
Speaker 9: girls are going out there and they're slipping and they're falling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if the models wanted to blame anyone other than
Speaker 1: themselves were signing up for this. Andrew was the guy,
Speaker 1: but that didn't mean he didn't have a heart.
Speaker 9: I'm a nice guy, and you know, I'm trying to like,
Speaker 9: you know, warm them up, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 9: consoling them, like, oh sweetheart, it's okay, you can do this.
Speaker 9: Don't worry, don't worry, don't worry.
Speaker 1: But A and TM's executive producer Ken Mack wasn't having it.
Speaker 9: And I get a tap in the back of my
Speaker 9: shoulder from Ken Mock say, Andrew, stop it, stop it.
Speaker 9: We want to see these girls cry. This is going
Speaker 9: to make great television. Stop consoling them, play it out,
Speaker 9: let them be as it is.
Speaker 1: Maybe and a shoot. In the real world, it would
Speaker 1: be kind even expected for a creative producer to comfort
Speaker 1: the scared talent. But this wasn't the real world. This
Speaker 1: was reality TV. You want to beyond, Some want to
Speaker 1: beyond some. Welcome to the Curse of America's Next Top Model.
Speaker 1: I'm Bridget Armstrong. Even though reality TV is supposed to
Speaker 1: be real, we all know, at least these days, it's
Speaker 1: really about telling a story, and A and TM was
Speaker 1: no exception. The show presented itself as a look behind
Speaker 1: the curtain, a window into what it took to be
Speaker 1: a high fashion model. But America's Next Top Model was
Speaker 1: always a reality TV show first and a modeling competition second.
Speaker 1: It prioritized drama and good characters over the best models,
Speaker 1: and featured unrealistic and even dangerous photoshoots that no model
Speaker 1: would ever do in the real industry, like dangling Sophie
Speaker 1: off the side of a seven hundred foot building just
Speaker 1: so we could see her freak out. They did that
Speaker 1: to make great reality TV. So on this episode, we're
Speaker 1: going to take a look at how the show achieved
Speaker 1: that and what the cost was to the model. By
Speaker 1: the time we get to the macau Tower photoshoot on
Speaker 1: cycle eighteen, A and TM had already built a reputation
Speaker 1: for wacky and extreme photoshoots, challenges, and runways. These are
Speaker 1: the stunts that made A and TM iconic, and each
Speaker 1: season they had to top the last. There are so
Speaker 1: many outrageous photoshoots in A and TM history that I've
Speaker 1: decided to make them into a little game. I'm calling it,
Speaker 1: Did that really happened? My team and I came up
Speaker 1: with the most ridiculous fictional runways and photoshoots we could
Speaker 1: think of. I want you to guess which are the
Speaker 1: ones we made up in which actually happened on A
Speaker 1: and TM. Consider it a test of your top model knowledge. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's start. Is it A the models pose inside a
Speaker 1: meat locker lying on an ice block with nothing but
Speaker 1: a bikini on. Or B the models are submerged in
Speaker 1: a freezing cold pool for over forty five minutes, wearing
Speaker 1: nothing but a thin gown. If you guess B, you
Speaker 1: are correct. On cycle seven, the models have to pose
Speaker 1: in water so cold one of the contestants, Carrie d English,
Speaker 1: almost got hypothermia. Carry you're from Fargo.
Speaker 10: Come on, this is real, real modeling, guys.
Speaker 11: Being cold as there's a point where my body just
Speaker 11: literally takes over, Like I feel like my skin and
Speaker 11: everything that's just like pins and needles go. When the
Speaker 11: camera got on me, you know, I try to just
Speaker 11: take those shivers away and not let her show my face.
Speaker 8: She was so cold knit, she was kind of convulsive.
Speaker 3: As a model, you need to tell people when you've
Speaker 3: passed your limit. It wasn't just that she was cold.
Speaker 3: It wasn't just that her teeth were chattering. She had
Speaker 3: reached the moment of hypo.
Speaker 1: Fermil Yep, you heard that right after Tyra encouraged Carrie
Speaker 1: D to stick it out because she's some fargo. Jay
Speaker 1: Manuel blamed Carrie D for not saying she was literally
Speaker 1: freezing sooner. Okay, that one was a little too easy.
Speaker 1: Let's try another one, which is a real A and
Speaker 1: TM photo shoot. Is it A the models are harnessed
Speaker 1: to the wing of a low flying plane and full
Speaker 1: lamb with aviator jackets and six inch chos. Or B
Speaker 1: the models have to strut down a moving conveyor belt
Speaker 1: in front of an audience while wearing full length gowns
Speaker 1: and six inch chos. The answer is B. On cycle fifteen,
Speaker 1: the models had to walk a conveyor belt in the
Speaker 1: second Street tunnel in La I've never felt more embarrassed
Speaker 1: at one time in my life.
Speaker 7: I'd rather have natural labor again than do this.
Speaker 2: I didn't come in here having a very good walk
Speaker 2: in the first place, and I guess I started to
Speaker 2: overthink it when come.
Speaker 8: They are built when you go backwards, kind of bumpy,
Speaker 8: so like I got on there and my shoes just
Speaker 8: fulled right off.
Speaker 7: But I still was smiling though.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I'm still fears.
Speaker 2: I'm still feared.
Speaker 1: When you heard the audience go whoa, That was their
Speaker 1: reaction to one of the models actually tripping and falling
Speaker 1: off the runway. Okay, let's change the rules a little
Speaker 1: bit and play two truths and a lie. I'll give
Speaker 1: you three scenarios, two of which actually happened on A
Speaker 1: and T M. The other was made up. Option A
Speaker 1: the models do a photo shoot in Canada drenched in
Speaker 1: maple syrup while wearing maple league. B the models do
Speaker 1: a photo shoot in Japan in a tank of coyfish
Speaker 1: while wearing Ramen noodles.
Speaker 5: Or C.
Speaker 1: The models do a photoshoot in Greece posing on top
Speaker 1: of a giant bowl of Greek salad, wearing nothing but
Speaker 1: a bikini. Now, remember two of these really happened on
Speaker 1: A and TM. If you guessed A and C, you
Speaker 1: are correct. Andrew told me the maple syrup photoshoot was
Speaker 1: a last minute idea. The girls were supposed to do
Speaker 1: a photo shoot for former A and TM judge and
Speaker 1: supermodel Twiggy's clothing brand. At the time, Twiggy was living
Speaker 1: in Canada, but when she canceled the day before the shoot,
Speaker 1: Andrew and his team had to come up with something quick.
Speaker 9: We started at six am, like, we're going to have
Speaker 9: the girls in hair and makeup. I'll go, okay, what's
Speaker 9: this country famous for? Maple syrup? Okay, all right, all right, okay,
Speaker 9: maple leaves a maple syrup, and so we were like okay.
Speaker 9: So literally from then we went outside and we grabbed
Speaker 9: all these maple leaves and we had all these bikinis
Speaker 9: and I started sewing maple leaves onto bikinis.
Speaker 1: And the Greek salad photos. She well, that was Tyra's idea.
Speaker 9: They're like, we're going to Greece and next cycle. I
Speaker 9: was like, okay, that's pretty cool, and so we contacted
Speaker 9: the tourism bureau and Greece and you know, typically that's
Speaker 9: what would happen, is that one of the executives would
Speaker 9: do deals with the tourism bureau of each country or
Speaker 9: an airline to bring us all out there. In the
Speaker 9: meeting with Tyra, I'm like, what do you think of Greece? Tira,
Speaker 9: tell me the first thing that comes to your mind,
Speaker 9: and she goes the Greek salad. And I was like,
Speaker 9: oh my god, you don't think Greek mythology, you don't
Speaker 9: think Medusa, you don't think all of these other beautiful things.
Speaker 9: You think of a Greek salad. And she goes, Yep,
Speaker 9: I want to throw the girls into a ball of
Speaker 9: Greek salad. Andrew I was like, okay, well let me
Speaker 9: let me talk to the group Jews and Bureer, just
Speaker 9: see if I can win them over with this gride
Speaker 9: r D. But it was it was very top model,
Speaker 9: you know what I mean? To thre the girls into
Speaker 9: a ball of Greek salad? Which was that first photo
Speaker 9: shoot in.
Speaker 1: Creet Okay, last question for extra credit, choose all that apply.
Speaker 1: Which of these runways did a and TM feature that
Speaker 1: actually caused the models bodily harm? Is it a a
Speaker 1: floating runway where the models had to walk a rickety
Speaker 1: runway that was floating in a pool while wearing six
Speaker 1: inch heels Is it B a pendulum runway where the
Speaker 1: models had to walk a runway while dodging a pendulum
Speaker 1: swinging back and forth. Is it C a runway where
Speaker 1: the models were placed inside a plastic bubble and told
Speaker 1: to walk a twelve inch wide runway that was floating
Speaker 1: over water. Or is it D a runway where the
Speaker 1: contestants had to walk down the side of a building
Speaker 1: in a harness that, my friends, was a trick question.
Speaker 1: The answer is all for congratulations to our winners. As
Speaker 1: a prize, you get to continue listening to this episode,
Speaker 1: and you know what, I'm such a benevolent host.
Speaker 6: Some of the.
Speaker 1: Losers and these runways didn't just happen to be dangerous.
Speaker 1: Freelance reporter Kate Taylor wrote an excellent piece all about
Speaker 1: Top Model for Business Insider. She's a consulting producer for
Speaker 1: this podcast. She told me she talked to an A
Speaker 1: and TM crew member who told her the floating runway
Speaker 1: was rickety on purpose.
Speaker 12: I spoke with a producer actually who for the floating runways,
Speaker 12: said that they had people go in and loosen the
Speaker 12: runway even more to make it less safe because they're like, well,
Speaker 12: it's going to be more interesting if someone falls. So
Speaker 12: that was something that throughout the process seemed to be
Speaker 12: you want to make good television, and at times aimes,
Speaker 12: the good television came at the expense of the well
Speaker 12: being of contestants.
Speaker 1: Eugena Washington, who competed on that season cycle seven, was
Speaker 1: one of the ones who fell on the runway.
Speaker 13: As soon as I stepped on it with one foot,
Speaker 13: I split.
Speaker 10: I kept going after I fell off, I just keept going.
Speaker 1: I'm freaking bleeding. Eugena still has the scar from that
Speaker 1: to this day. Here she is talking with consulting producer
Speaker 1: Oliver Twigs on his YouTube channel.
Speaker 13: I don't know if you can see this scar, but
Speaker 13: this scar right.
Speaker 1: This this Eugena sit up to show Oliver a nasty
Speaker 1: scar on her knee.
Speaker 14: Yes, with my real life body.
Speaker 10: Okay, okay, because you're on this runway that's floating. And
Speaker 10: so they put on ful corsets, pulled them as tired
Speaker 10: as they could possibly pull them, so I could not breathe.
Speaker 10: And then I had six inch stiletto hills, like needle
Speaker 10: stiletto hills, So I'm walking on my fucking tippy toes.
Speaker 10: And then the shoes are a size too big, and
Speaker 10: they said go out there.
Speaker 15: And poles it bit.
Speaker 7: You better smiles in front.
Speaker 10: Of all these lights in the dark under these conditions.
Speaker 10: So as a human being, you're like this, I can
Speaker 10: die because first I can't breathe, I can't walk. And
Speaker 10: then the runways going like this on top of water,
Speaker 10: and they're talking about get to the end and take
Speaker 10: a good picture.
Speaker 1: And the pendulum runway A and TM found mixer Jose
Speaker 1: Torres was there that day and he remembers how it
Speaker 1: all went.
Speaker 16: Down that pendulum runway. The entire crew was on pins
Speaker 16: and needles waiting for somebody, you know, and we don't
Speaker 16: want somebody to get knocked off, but we're like it
Speaker 16: was funny but not funny. And then the one girl
Speaker 16: who got hit. I'm trying to remember who that was.
Speaker 16: I can't remember.
Speaker 1: Her name was Alexandra.
Speaker 16: Oh yeah, she was so nice, but yeah, man, she
Speaker 16: got hit. And it like you could just play like
Speaker 16: that cartoon sound or somebody sort of like about to
Speaker 16: teeter off the side and fall off, and you could
Speaker 16: just hear like the bongo sound or whatever the wh
Speaker 16: whoa whoa woa end off she went and crashed into
Speaker 16: some lights and she cut up her knee and we're like,
Speaker 16: oh God, no.
Speaker 1: All of this, all of these wild photoshoots and challenges
Speaker 1: happened before the cycle eighteen Makal Tower photo shoot you
Speaker 1: heard at the top of this episode, and by the
Speaker 1: time that aired, A and TM was past its heyday
Speaker 1: and struggling to draw an audience as large as previous seasons.
Speaker 1: A modeling competition where ten to fourteen girls battle it
Speaker 1: out to see who's the best, was no longer cutting it.
Speaker 1: Creative producer Andrew Patterson again was.
Speaker 17: Very adamant that after cycle thirteen, she never wanted to
Speaker 17: do a normal top model again, so she started with
Speaker 17: short girls and then she went into high fashion and
Speaker 17: then it progressed from there.
Speaker 9: So when I started, there was always a theme.
Speaker 1: There was the All Star season, the college season, the
Speaker 1: British Invasion, and the seasons where they included guys. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't just the season themes that had to up
Speaker 1: the ante. It was the challenges, the photoshoots and the
Speaker 1: runways themselves, which was not an easy task. By the
Speaker 1: time Andrew started in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 9: We were just trying to do things that hadn't been
Speaker 9: done before, especially when I joined, they had already done
Speaker 9: two hundred and fifty photo shoots on camera before, so
Speaker 9: trying to come up with creative that they had never
Speaker 9: been seen was not easy. I'd sit there and I'd
Speaker 9: pitch things to Tire and she'd be like, oh no, honey,
Speaker 9: we did that Citle two, Episode eight. I was like,
Speaker 9: damn it, okay, And for each photo shoot I had
Speaker 9: to come up with fifteen different options. When you look
Speaker 9: at that, that's one hundred to one hundred and eighty
Speaker 9: different options per cycle.
Speaker 1: So would you say that you guys were sort of
Speaker 1: encouraged to do these things that could cross some that
Speaker 1: will say accident, so mis apps and far ofsome trip ups.
Speaker 1: Were you encouraged to do that?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 9: We were encouraged to make things spicy, make things like
Speaker 9: they'd never been seen before. We thought it made good TV.
Speaker 9: And a lot of this came down to wanting the
Speaker 9: audience to go, wow, did you see this? Like, oh
Speaker 9: my god, can you believe that they did this? Can
Speaker 9: you believe that they did that? So we had to
Speaker 9: come up with these elements of fear or these different
Speaker 9: elements to see if the girls could have it or
Speaker 9: be able to do the photo shoot, or go underwater
Speaker 9: and hold their breath and be able to strike a pose,
Speaker 9: or you know, can they smile while they have a
Speaker 9: silkworm on them? Or are they able to hold it
Speaker 9: together when they're you know, two hundred stories in the
Speaker 9: air being thrown off the side of the building in
Speaker 9: Pelking Rain.
Speaker 1: Working models sometimes have to pose in a scary situation
Speaker 1: or with a wild animal. Cindy Crawford posed Knew with
Speaker 1: a Boa constrictor in the nineties. One time, Kate Upton
Speaker 1: polls in a bikini in Antarctica while standing on an iceberg.
Speaker 1: But those kinds of photoshoots are rare. Andrew work as
Speaker 1: a fashion photographer in the real world before joining A
Speaker 1: and TM. He told me professional photoshoots are almost always
Speaker 1: the opposite of what we thought on top.
Speaker 9: Model, coming from the real world of advertising. I've shot
Speaker 9: campaigns for Louis Vuitton, I've shot campaigns for Chanel, Hugo Boss.
Speaker 9: That's not how we do it. Top model is not
Speaker 9: how we do it in the real world. And model's
Speaker 9: pictures are very intimate. It's between them and the photographer.
Speaker 9: It's when you have a connection with a photographer and
Speaker 9: you really connect with them that you actually get beautiful images,
Speaker 9: and not a lot of that goes on on Top Model.
Speaker 9: There's intimate moments where you get you know, these beautiful
Speaker 9: you know, big eyes and you get your reactions. Those
Speaker 9: moments wouldn't work, you know, on America's Egg Top Model
Speaker 9: because they just changed the channel and it'd be very boring,
Speaker 9: you know, crazy, wacky, quirky, unusual photoshoots. Was to keep
Speaker 9: the audience, and that was to keep ratings. That was
Speaker 9: to keep you know, people wanting to watch the next
Speaker 9: episode or you know, tuning into the next cycle. I
Speaker 9: mean a lot of this stuff might not be realistic,
Speaker 9: but it certainly added to the story in which we
Speaker 9: were creating, and it added to the competitive element of
Speaker 9: a competition reality show.
Speaker 1: On cycle one, they did do semi realistic photoshoots and
Speaker 1: the result most bands consider Cycle two to be the
Speaker 1: real start of America's next Top Model. I don't think
Speaker 1: A and TM would have lasted very long if it
Speaker 1: would have remained realistic. A TM took the premise of
Speaker 1: modeling and made it entertaining, and there's nothing wrong about
Speaker 1: that project. Runway takes the art of designing clothes and
Speaker 1: makes it competitive by presenting themed and timed challenges. The
Speaker 1: issue with A and TM is that models you use
Speaker 1: their faces and bodies to convey their talent, and that
Speaker 1: means putting their bodies on the line, which seems even
Speaker 1: more insidious when you consider they signed a contract that
Speaker 1: says if they get hurt while carrying out these production
Speaker 1: fever dreams, A and TM wouldn't owe them anything, not
Speaker 1: even medical care once they left the show if they
Speaker 1: got a long term injury. Many of the models signed
Speaker 1: up to do these outrageous things because they thought it
Speaker 1: would help them in the real modeling world, but as
Speaker 1: we said over and over, for most of them, it didn't.
Speaker 1: It actually made them a joke in the fashion industry.
Speaker 1: After the break, we'll take a look at the casting
Speaker 1: process and how from the very beginning A ANDTM was
Speaker 1: thinking about the story, not the best models. There's a
Speaker 1: process for creating the characters and personalities we love and
Speaker 1: hate on reality TV. It starts in casting.
Speaker 18: The unscripted world. You're dealing with everyday people and they
Speaker 18: are not actors.
Speaker 1: That's Raphael Doorball. He was a casting producer for America's
Speaker 1: Next Top Model Cycles twenty one through twenty four. Those
Speaker 1: were the seasons that included guys and girls. Thousands of
Speaker 1: wanna be contestants sent in audition tapes and showed up
Speaker 1: to castings. Raphael was a part of the team who
Speaker 1: looked for people who would pop on screen.
Speaker 18: Some people are already amplified, they're pre turned. They come
Speaker 18: in the door swinging, you know, and we're just steering them.
Speaker 1: Like Brittany Brower from Cycle four. Brittany looked a lot
Speaker 1: like a young Janis Dickinson, something that probably made her
Speaker 1: stand out. Here's what she said happened during her casting process.
Speaker 19: I got called in a room probably with maybe like
Speaker 19: twenty to thirty other women.
Speaker 7: They had to stand in a big circle and go
Speaker 7: around the room and say who we were and a
Speaker 7: little bit about ourselves. And everyone was just kind of
Speaker 7: going around the circle, and you know.
Speaker 4: Like, Hi, I'm Diana, I'm from you know, the North Carolina.
Speaker 1: I like pink flowers.
Speaker 19: And then she gets around to me and I'm like, hello,
Speaker 19: I'm Riddy Alena Brower. I'm from Tallahassee, Florida. I'm twenty
Speaker 19: two years old. Go signoles, and I am so happy
Speaker 19: to be here. Michelle like stopped everybody.
Speaker 1: Michelle Mopp, the head casting director, and I.
Speaker 19: Had a green abercromy skirt on, and she goes, you
Speaker 19: see green skirt here, you see green skirts, call me
Speaker 19: green skirt.
Speaker 1: She's like, you guys, see green skirt here. She's like,
Speaker 1: that's the kind.
Speaker 7: Of energy we need from all of you.
Speaker 1: But not everyone comes in pre turned like Brittany. It
Speaker 1: was rare fail's job as a casting producer to identify
Speaker 1: that spark in a contestant.
Speaker 18: We are taking their personality and basically amplifying it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes potential contestants need the casting producers to put that
Speaker 1: battery in their back.
Speaker 18: So we're in the semi final stage and we're figuring out, okay,
Speaker 18: he's going to make casting. This one guy, it came
Speaker 18: out to where the producers were and he said, I
Speaker 18: can't do this.
Speaker 5: I can't do this, and he's freaking out. I was like,
Speaker 5: what's the matter, what's it going on?
Speaker 18: He's like, I can't say this one and this one's
Speaker 18: a bit and she just wants phony and blah blah blah,
Speaker 18: and he had so much to say.
Speaker 1: The guy wanted out. He didn't think he could handle
Speaker 1: all the different personalities. But instead of seeing a quitter,
Speaker 1: Raphael saw the makings of great TV.
Speaker 18: I was like, oh god, you have strong feelings, okay,
Speaker 18: so oh right, well why are you telling me? And
Speaker 18: he's like, I just have events. I can't I don't
Speaker 18: even want to be out there with them. I don't
Speaker 18: want to and he's getting all agitated, and I was like, well,
Speaker 18: I don't think you should be telling me this. Why
Speaker 18: don't you go say that to the face. It seems
Speaker 18: like you you know, you gotta a lot to.
Speaker 5: Tell them, so tell them. So he did.
Speaker 18: He went out there and he had stuff to say,
Speaker 18: and he made the cast. So casting producers, we literally
Speaker 18: are creating people.
Speaker 1: Sarn Brown was still in high school when she was
Speaker 1: on cycle eleven of Top Model, and she looked like
Speaker 1: it on our season. She had this big, infectious smile
Speaker 1: that betrayed her age. She turned eighteen a month before
Speaker 1: she auditioned. She told me she was one of the
Speaker 1: ones who needed guidance, and that guidance started during the
Speaker 1: psyche bow.
Speaker 8: The psychologist proceders, so basically give us our character, which
Speaker 8: I didn't know at the time, but he started it
Speaker 8: off by saying like, wow, looked over all of your
Speaker 8: stuff and I can see that you're a very confident person.
Speaker 8: Now looking back, I was like, oh, he was giving
Speaker 8: me my character or like what they wanted to portray
Speaker 8: me at.
Speaker 13: And he also went with like, but I can see
Speaker 13: here also very reserved. In this situation.
Speaker 8: You want to make sure that you lean more to
Speaker 8: that confidence side, that you lead more into this. I
Speaker 8: thought that, like, oh, well, he's telling me about myself
Speaker 8: and affirming who I am and how was how kind?
Speaker 13: But yeah, no, and he was giving me my character.
Speaker 8: Then that was followed up by the producer who then
Speaker 8: reiterated that was like, I know you like to read,
Speaker 8: and I know you're an introvert, but in this situation
Speaker 8: we needed to be very, very extroverted.
Speaker 1: Sharan told me she struggled with self esteem when she
Speaker 1: was younger. Her mom instilled a sense of confidence in her,
Speaker 1: taught her how to say positive affirmations. Maybe that's what
Speaker 1: producers picked up on, a sense of outward confidence that
Speaker 1: was still developing on the inside. Rafael told me it
Speaker 1: was their job to really get to know potential castmates
Speaker 1: beyond what they presented on the surface.
Speaker 18: You can tell they've never had a day of therapy
Speaker 18: in their life because they want to suddenly tell me everything.
Speaker 5: We learn a lot about people in a very short
Speaker 5: period of time.
Speaker 1: It was a producer's job to make contestants feel comfortable
Speaker 1: enough to talk openly.
Speaker 18: You're building a relationship or rapport with these people. So yeah,
Speaker 18: a big part of being a casting producer is building
Speaker 18: trusts for sure.
Speaker 1: Tarn says she was an open book during her casting process.
Speaker 1: Once the producers had an idea of who she was,
Speaker 1: or at least who they wanted her to be on
Speaker 1: the show, they started coaching her on what to do
Speaker 1: and say. They came up with something that made her
Speaker 1: stand out in her audition where she met Tyra and
Speaker 1: the Jays.
Speaker 8: Our first meeting with the judges, they were asked me, Okay,
Speaker 8: so what are you gonna do? And I was like,
Speaker 8: I just gonna go and leave me and say you know,
Speaker 8: and they're like, no, you gotta come up with something.
Speaker 8: I was like, Okay, was like, we wanted this to
Speaker 8: be memorable. So that's where the whole like Lucky abdwere
Speaker 8: came from because that was kind of like we talked
Speaker 8: about that together.
Speaker 1: The competition has started and I'm ready for it.
Speaker 8: And when the competition is on, I got my game
Speaker 8: face on and I'm like, Hella, confidence.
Speaker 1: Are you convinced you've already won?
Speaker 13: I know it, Tira, Oh tell me why?
Speaker 12: Because I am America's next time model.
Speaker 1: You guys just don't know it yet. And what is
Speaker 1: that in your hand? I'm lucky underwa.
Speaker 8: The thing we've done so far, I've had them.
Speaker 1: I always look it, she says. When producers were going
Speaker 1: over her semi finals plan with her, she mentioned that
Speaker 1: she had a pair of underwear that said America's next
Speaker 1: top Model across the butt. The producers loved them and
Speaker 1: told her she should use that in front of the
Speaker 1: judging panel, and the little stunt worked. Sharon made it
Speaker 1: into the house, but once she was in the house,
Speaker 1: producers told her she still needed to present her confident facade.
Speaker 13: The camera makes you look smaller, so we need you
Speaker 13: to be figger with all of your actions. If there's
Speaker 13: anything going on, make sure you're the first one there.
Speaker 8: Tyra loved your like. They would keep telling me that
Speaker 8: Tyra loved your confidence. Tyra loves your confidence. Love and
Speaker 8: so just camping it up, and they did it in
Speaker 8: a way where you felt like you were getting a
Speaker 8: private meeting with producers at the time, realizing that I
Speaker 8: was being pushed or manipulated a coach that away, I
Speaker 8: just thought that it was like a big sister trying
Speaker 8: to put me on a game of how to you know,
Speaker 8: how to show up.
Speaker 1: Creating characters in reality TV isn't specific to A and TM.
Speaker 1: Audiences need characters to know who to identify with, who
Speaker 1: to root for, and who to root agains. Often the
Speaker 1: characters play into archetypes or stereotypes we already know that
Speaker 1: makes them memorable. Professor Amanda Kline teaches about reality television
Speaker 1: at East Carolina University. She says, creating character is what
Speaker 1: makes the story stick. This is sort of a fundamental
Speaker 1: human need.
Speaker 15: The way people make sense of the world is through categories,
Speaker 15: putting things into places that help them make sense. Why
Speaker 15: it's important on reality TV is they need to establish
Speaker 15: character and story right away, and so to do that,
Speaker 15: they need people to appear as certain character types.
Speaker 1: You've heard me refer to former contestants as the girl
Speaker 1: next door, the wild child, or the villain. This association
Speaker 1: on A and TM was by design. Here's A and
Speaker 1: TM casting producer Raphael dr ball. Again, this is.
Speaker 18: Certain formula that you that's a comfort, that's the reason
Speaker 18: why you tune in and get excited to watch. And
Speaker 18: I think the most exciting thing about Top Model was
Speaker 18: you always obviously had a different cast that was very
Speaker 18: different from the last, but you also kind of always
Speaker 18: got that same formula as well. So you know, you
Speaker 18: always got like the country girl guy, you know, who's
Speaker 18: in the middle of nowhere, who has no modeling experience whatsoever.
Speaker 18: Then you got like the hot jock that was thrown
Speaker 18: in there, who's super confident and whatever.
Speaker 5: And maybe the beauty queen.
Speaker 18: You know, you got the girl who's like did every
Speaker 18: pageant and you fil them all together and like like,
Speaker 18: how is this going to work? You know, that's what
Speaker 18: makes it interesting to watch and fun, and that's what
Speaker 18: we looked for.
Speaker 1: Remember Brittany from cycle four, the one Michelle Mott called
Speaker 1: Green Skirt Well on her season, she was loud, she
Speaker 1: liked to have fun, and she liked to drink, sometimes
Speaker 1: to the detriment of her competition performance. There was a
Speaker 1: challenge where the models had to interact with representatives from
Speaker 1: Cover Girl at a party. In the episode, Brittany seemed
Speaker 1: more interested in getting drunk than actually impressing the people
Speaker 1: from Cover Girl, or at least that's how the producers
Speaker 1: made it look. They were developing a character. Brittany was
Speaker 1: the party girl. There's people from magazines.
Speaker 18: I want to try one of those things El magazines
Speaker 18: comes holid in.
Speaker 1: Oh that's a drink I had. Then there was another
Speaker 1: time when the models went out and Brittany got wasted.
Speaker 1: She was dancing on the table. But Brittany wasn't the
Speaker 1: only one who got drunk that day. UV Gomez told
Speaker 1: me she did too, And.
Speaker 14: We were all at this cute little restaurant and I
Speaker 14: drank too much and didn't eat at all, and I was.
Speaker 1: Like, ooh, I'm not feeling good.
Speaker 14: And I think the producers saw that, and they pulled
Speaker 14: me to the side and they like snuffed me out
Speaker 14: because they already had the drunk girl. There couldn't be two,
Speaker 14: so they completely edited all of that out. I even
Speaker 14: think I might have gotten sick, but they were like
Speaker 14: protecting me, like guarded the bathroom, told me to turn
Speaker 14: my mic off. They just didn't want to film any
Speaker 14: of that because they had Brittany.
Speaker 1: Producers liked their characters to be neat. It helps the
Speaker 1: audience follow the storyline. We weren't watching A and TM
Speaker 1: because we wanted to see complicated characters wrestling with their
Speaker 1: inner natures. If we wanted that, we could have turned
Speaker 1: to HBO. I asked Brittany if that drunk party girl
Speaker 1: character followed her after the show, if it hurt her
Speaker 1: chances in the industry, and she said it didn't really
Speaker 1: affect her, But Sharon wasn't so lucky. In addition to
Speaker 1: meeting country girls, jocks, and party girls, A and TM
Speaker 1: needed villains. The characters we laugh act, not with the
Speaker 1: ones we love to hate. Sharan had been told to
Speaker 1: play up her confidence, but on screen it came across
Speaker 1: as annoying. Remember I told you Sharon's mom taught her
Speaker 1: to say affirmations. Sharon always wanted to be on A
Speaker 1: and TM, so at home, her mother would tell her
Speaker 1: you are America's next top model. My mom taught me
Speaker 1: a version of this, naming it and claiming it. Producers
Speaker 1: thought it would be a good idea to have Sharon
Speaker 1: repeat that mantra once she got into the house. It's
Speaker 1: one thing to have your mom tell you you're going
Speaker 1: to be America's next top Model. Baby, it's another thing
Speaker 1: to keep repeating it to everyone you meet. On the
Speaker 1: first episode of a show where everyone also thinks they're
Speaker 1: going to be America's next top model.
Speaker 12: I believe I am america Start top Model.
Speaker 1: I won't get this. I want this so bad, so.
Speaker 12: Let me start my introducing Myself's my name is Sharon,
Speaker 12: I am as next top Model.
Speaker 13: I really, my.
Speaker 12: Name is Sharon, and I am America's next top model.
Speaker 18: Oh christ and this stuff that I can I ask
Speaker 18: you the m because you have it all in the bags.
Speaker 8: Yes, very confident with myself, but I don't want anybody
Speaker 8: to read it as like being cocky or arrogant.
Speaker 1: But kaki and arrogant was exactly how she came off.
Speaker 1: Sharan gave the producers what they wanted, but the character
Speaker 1: they'd created for her wasn't likable.
Speaker 11: Oh Searon, she's always wild and over the top and
Speaker 11: get crazy.
Speaker 2: I find that kind of propulsive and most girls.
Speaker 1: Producers were setting Sharan up to be the season's first villain.
Speaker 1: They already laid the foundation of her being cocky and annoying.
Speaker 1: They drove it home by making her a bully. You
Speaker 1: already know reality TV producers often stir the pot to
Speaker 1: get drama going between cast members. Cycle eleven, the cycle
Speaker 1: Sharan was on, featured A and TM's first openly trans contestant.
Speaker 1: Her name is Isis. We're going to talk about the
Speaker 1: way A and TM handled gender identity later on in
Speaker 1: this season. For now, we're going to focus on the
Speaker 1: storyline between Isis and Sharon. And I'll say this, the
Speaker 1: situation we saw on the show did not make Sharan
Speaker 1: look good. Cycle eleven premiered in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: The way society talks about gender identity and trans people
Speaker 1: today still isn't great, but two thousand and eight might
Speaker 1: as well have been the stone age. On the first episode,
Speaker 1: when it was revealed that Isis is trans, some of
Speaker 1: the girls in the house were uncomfortable. Some of them
Speaker 1: were downright mean. A group of girls were portrayed as
Speaker 1: bullying Isis, and Sharon was in that group. The first
Speaker 1: photoshoot of the season was a voting shoot. Remember it
Speaker 1: was two thousand and eight. When it was their turn,
Speaker 1: each model had to look sexy at the ballot booth
Speaker 1: with the wind machine blowing in their face. Peek A
Speaker 1: and TM a group of models were staged in Isis's
Speaker 1: shoot behind the booth as if they were spying on her.
Speaker 1: Sharon was in that group of models and Jessa heads up,
Speaker 1: this isn't nice to hear.
Speaker 3: So obviously you have the street that is see true.
Speaker 3: You got the cameras, so you have no privacy and
Speaker 3: you guys are still spying on her. Remember you're in
Speaker 3: the shot.
Speaker 8: That's the funniest thing that's in my head, like trying
Speaker 8: to be said, reality.
Speaker 1: Is she's a man. That was Sharon who said reality
Speaker 1: is she's a man and a cut In confessional, Sharon
Speaker 1: and the other models made jokes about Isis. They caught
Speaker 1: her sweaty and said she looked Harry, but in the
Speaker 1: scene it's unclear who's saying what. Either way, it made
Speaker 1: Searan look like the ring leader. She came across as
Speaker 1: a mean bully. But according to Sharon, what we saw
Speaker 1: on the show isn't the full picture.
Speaker 13: Ices was doing her photo shoot and we were behind
Speaker 13: the photo booths.
Speaker 20: First of all, we were placed there, and so they
Speaker 20: hands picked all of ironically the black and brown girls
Speaker 20: to go on her photo shoot, and they placed us
Speaker 20: behind her.
Speaker 1: Word she was shooting, there was one white model.
Speaker 8: They did that to make that scene as if she
Speaker 8: was being taunted and bullied during her shoot.
Speaker 1: Sharon says they were standing there for a long time
Speaker 1: and they started to crack your mama jokes on each other,
Speaker 1: including isis. It was immature, for sure, but Charon swears
Speaker 1: they weren't just picking on isis.
Speaker 20: When you cut out one portion of it and only
Speaker 20: show another portion.
Speaker 8: Of it, it looks like something that is not. And
Speaker 8: now the whole world thinks that all of those girls,
Speaker 8: black and brown girls that were back there our caddy,
Speaker 8: our gossiping, our taunted, when it was actually the opposite.
Speaker 1: It didn't just make them look like bullies. It made
Speaker 1: them look like bigots, because that's the plot line A
Speaker 1: and TM wanted. Later in that same episode, we see
Speaker 1: Sharon's confessional and she appears to be ranting about isis isis.
Speaker 8: Is over the time, America's next top model is not
Speaker 8: going to be a drag queen.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, it's not That's the line we all remember.
Speaker 1: Sharan By she told me that behind the scenes, producers
Speaker 1: asked her a question and told her to repeat it
Speaker 1: back to them.
Speaker 8: I was asked, what do you think about a drag
Speaker 8: queen being America's next top model.
Speaker 13: But when you're asked a question in a way, you're
Speaker 13: told you have to repeat the question back.
Speaker 1: That's pretty standard in these reality TV confessionals. If so,
Speaker 1: producers can cut their questions and the contestants' answers will
Speaker 1: still make sense. Sharon says she didn't voluntarily call Isis
Speaker 1: a drag queen. She was asked do you think America's
Speaker 1: next top model will be a drag queen? And then
Speaker 1: asked to repeat her answer in a neutral and sassy way.
Speaker 1: She says the producers chose her sassy response. Sharan told
Speaker 1: me that if she was asked to do this today,
Speaker 1: she would say no, She'd tell them Isis is a woman,
Speaker 1: not a drag queen. But this was filmed twenty years
Speaker 1: ago when Sharan was still in high school. She didn't
Speaker 1: have the understanding she has now.
Speaker 13: If I have the knowledge to correct them and correct
Speaker 13: how I referred to her in that moment, then I
Speaker 13: would have. But I did it. I was a young girl.
Speaker 8: I ain't know no better, and I was also kind
Speaker 8: of prompted to answer the question in such a way.
Speaker 1: This scene of Sharon bullying Isis put the nail in
Speaker 1: her coffin. She was already annoying and arrogant. Now she
Speaker 1: was being mean, and to top it all off, she
Speaker 1: bombed when it was her time in front of the camera.
Speaker 3: Hey Sean, it's looking a little convoluted.
Speaker 5: And in a way, it's not pretty.
Speaker 1: On that episode, during the elimination, when Tyra announced the
Speaker 1: girls who would go to the next round, Isis was
Speaker 1: called out second, which is pretty high praise. Sharon, however,
Speaker 1: was sent home packing. It was the same day as
Speaker 1: the high school graduation she'd missed to be on a
Speaker 1: and TM. Sharon was devastated, but she cheered herself up
Speaker 1: even though she went home early. She'd beaten out thousands
Speaker 1: of girls and made it on her favorite show. The
Speaker 1: real depression didn't kick in until weeks later, when she
Speaker 1: saw her ended on television.
Speaker 13: My family threw a watch party, and so we all
Speaker 13: got together, I like my uncle's house, and everybody was
Speaker 13: so excited, and we made a big event and a
Speaker 13: big party out of it. And I was excited to because
Speaker 13: never did across my mind that things would be, you know,
Speaker 13: edited in such a way.
Speaker 8: I didn't know that I was eliminated early on, and
Speaker 8: I know that my family and stuff didn't know that,
Speaker 8: so that was maybe a little nervous about that.
Speaker 13: But as everything started airing, initially they would shelby and
Speaker 13: we'd be like, yeah, that's.
Speaker 8: And then as they kept going on, sargiest, silent, silent,
Speaker 8: and I could feel the energy in the room.
Speaker 13: My heart dropped.
Speaker 1: Sharan found out with the rest of the world and
Speaker 1: a room filled with her family and friends that she
Speaker 1: was Cycle eleven's first villain.
Speaker 8: And it was a very kind of like ten situation
Speaker 8: since in the air, and it.
Speaker 13: Was very confusing. You're questioning reality or you're questioning what happened,
Speaker 13: and you're questioning your truth and what you knew also happened.
Speaker 13: And it was heartbreaking because it wasn't a true reflection
Speaker 13: of who I was.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter to A and TM producers who Charon
Speaker 1: really was, because Charon was a character in a story.
Speaker 1: It was a story of an over confident bully who
Speaker 1: gets what's coming to her when she flops in the
Speaker 1: first photo shoot and is eliminated. It was a tidy
Speaker 1: character arc that started the season off.
Speaker 5: With a bang.
Speaker 1: We have no way of knowing if Sharon was sent
Speaker 1: home that week because she actually had the worst photo,
Speaker 1: or if she was sent home because that made the
Speaker 1: best story. And that's because a lot of what we
Speaker 1: saw on A and TM was an illusion.
Speaker 16: I've heard producers talk where they were like, Yeah, this
Speaker 16: girl's boring, she's terrible TV. What do we want to do?
Speaker 16: Photo shoot? You know, every thing is still on the
Speaker 16: up and up. Maybe their photo that's chosen is not the.
Speaker 5: Best photo, is not their best photo.
Speaker 1: After the break, you'll hear how the producers created the
Speaker 1: version of reality we saw on the show. Reality competition
Speaker 1: shows are not always there. That was certainly true on
Speaker 1: A and TM. What made the show entertaining wasn't just
Speaker 1: the photo shoots. It was the drama, the personalities the
Speaker 1: models brought to the set. But the best models didn't
Speaker 1: always make the best reality TV. So producers had a
Speaker 1: way of getting rid of contestants who weren't entertaining enough.
Speaker 1: Here's hown mixer Jose Taurus.
Speaker 16: I've heard producers talk where they were like, Yeah, this
Speaker 16: girl's boring, she's terrible TV. What do we want to do?
Speaker 1: Photo shoot?
Speaker 16: You know, everything is still on the up and up.
Speaker 16: Maybe their photo that's chosen is not the best photo
Speaker 16: is not their best photo.
Speaker 1: That's why so many of y'all's fades were getting sent home.
Speaker 1: Early producers had the right to use creative license in
Speaker 1: tailor and competition how they fawt fit, meaning the most
Speaker 1: talented model didn't always win. Oftentimes the person with the
Speaker 1: best story or best TV personality did. When someone wasn't
Speaker 1: delivering what the producers needed to make good TV, or
Speaker 1: when the producers were done with their storyline, they would
Speaker 1: pick a model's worst photo and say it was their best.
Speaker 1: I asked ANTM creative producer Andrew Patterson about this. Was
Speaker 1: it always the best person winning? And was it always
Speaker 1: the worst person being sent home?
Speaker 5: Hena, Hena.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm not saying every elimination was predetermined for the plot.
Speaker 1: Producers couldn't manipulate everything. You still had to be a
Speaker 1: talent in order to progress in the competition. It's just
Speaker 1: that the talented models who also had interesting personalities or
Speaker 1: the best stories were usually the ones who made it
Speaker 1: to the finale. And when it was time to get
Speaker 1: rid of a lackluster contestant, producers had other ways of
Speaker 1: tipping the scales. I asked casting producer Raphael d'Orval how
Speaker 1: that worked. He didn't want to give me an example
Speaker 1: from A and Tom, so he used RuPaul's drag Race
Speaker 1: to explain.
Speaker 18: Let's say you're a contestant on Roopuol's drug Race, right
Speaker 18: and let's say, for what are reason you're not rising
Speaker 18: to the occasion on the show, and you're just not
Speaker 18: stepping up as an interesting personality on the show right now,
Speaker 18: if you're just falling flat and producers are freaking out,
Speaker 18: They're like, oh God, we gotta got.
Speaker 5: Read this person. They're bringing the whole show down now
Speaker 5: we know about this person.
Speaker 18: So when you're vetting these people who listen, let's just say,
Speaker 18: and there's always a season, whether it's somebody who doesn't
Speaker 18: know how to sew.
Speaker 1: He's referring to sewing challenges. Drag Race is also a
Speaker 1: competition reality show. Contestants are expected to perform, dance, sing, act,
Speaker 1: and occasionally sew their own costumes. Every contestant has their strengths,
Speaker 1: but inevitably there's always some queen on the show who
Speaker 1: doesn't even know how to thread a needle.
Speaker 18: So if you're going on the show and you don't
Speaker 18: know how to sew, it's going to be very difficult
Speaker 18: for you if there's a challenge that you have to
Speaker 18: sew not one, not two, but three different outfits, which
Speaker 18: has happened on the show. So let's just say the
Speaker 18: powers that bio like, Ooh, this girl's rough. She's killing us.
Speaker 18: This is not going to work. So I'm trying to
Speaker 18: get rid of Brittany. I guess our next challenge has
Speaker 18: to be a sewing challenge. Maybe we're on episode four,
Speaker 18: and maybe the big sewing challenge wasn't supposed to happen
Speaker 18: until episode six, was switching up the game, and now
Speaker 18: we're making the sewing challenge episode four, So there's always
Speaker 18: ways to kind of do what you need to do.
Speaker 1: For whatever reason, Rafael didn't want to spill the t
Speaker 1: on A and TM. Maybe he's a Tyra Banks loyalist.
Speaker 1: Maybe he's still under his NBA. But in case you're
Speaker 1: having trouble deciphering his drag Race riddle, Rafael is saying
Speaker 1: A and TM had a way of producing the results
Speaker 1: they wanted in the competition. Producers designed the photo shoots
Speaker 1: and runways. They also knew the contestants' weaknesses. So if
Speaker 1: there was a boring model who took decent pictures but
Speaker 1: had a horrible runway walk. Surprise, surprise, that runway date
Speaker 1: plan for week eight is happening today. The boring model
Speaker 1: would trip over her heels and get sent home promptly
Speaker 1: by the judges, and they didn't even have to select
Speaker 1: her worst photo to get rid of her. I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to make the producers sound like evil masterminds who
Speaker 1: wanted to torture and sabotage them models. They were doing
Speaker 1: their jobs, creating a show that was entertaining and memorable.
Speaker 1: I've said it before and I'll say it again. Watching
Speaker 1: twelve perfectly nice and talented models compete in intimate photoshoots
Speaker 1: and realistic runways would have been boring. It was fun
Speaker 1: to watch Brittany drink and dance on tables. It's riveting
Speaker 1: to see a bunch of scared models hanging off the
Speaker 1: side of a seven hundred foot building. It was satisfying
Speaker 1: to see Sharon get eliminated first. Before the contestants, it
Speaker 1: was a different story. They knew the show would be edited. However,
Speaker 1: most of them thought they would get a fair shake
Speaker 1: in the competition, but A and TM used them like
Speaker 1: pieces on a chessboard. There were heroes and villains, and
Speaker 1: the producers moved them around or knocked them off the
Speaker 1: board to fit the story they wanted to tell. Here's
Speaker 1: sound mixer Jose Torres.
Speaker 16: Top model. Honestly, a lot of those were just like
Speaker 16: cogs in the machine. You know, they got looked at
Speaker 16: as there were a commodity, there were a product. They
Speaker 16: were brought on to be part of a TV show.
Speaker 16: If they had a good experience, great, and if they didn't,
Speaker 16: that's a shame, you know, it's too bad. That was
Speaker 16: the mentality.
Speaker 1: Being a contestant on A and TM meant you might
Speaker 1: get dangled off the side of a building, thrown in
Speaker 1: a pool of water, or on top of a Greek salad.
Speaker 1: You might be made to look like a drunk or
Speaker 1: a villain. But it was supposed to all be worth
Speaker 1: it because even if you didn't win, you got a portfolio.
Speaker 1: Aspiring models often paid thousands of dollars to get professional
Speaker 1: photos they could send out to agents. Your portfolio could
Speaker 1: jump start your career. Here's Tyra talking to the contestants
Speaker 1: about the power of a good portfolio.
Speaker 21: I booked twenty five fashion shows in Paris off of one, two,
Speaker 21: three photo, So you have four seen how.
Speaker 8: A leg up?
Speaker 1: Okay, Tyra Poppins. But the point is, the promise of
Speaker 1: the portfolio is why a lot of these women allowed
Speaker 1: themselves to be dangled off the side of a building
Speaker 1: or covered in live bees, because if they could look
Speaker 1: fierce while they did it, that photo could be their
Speaker 1: golden ticket. But after they were eliminated, a lot of
Speaker 1: contestants found out their A and TM portfolio was a
Speaker 1: glorified coffee table book. They were a joke to modeling agencies.
Speaker 1: Here's Kenya Hill from cycle four.
Speaker 6: I already knew by the time it ended like this
Speaker 6: is a TV show, but I was expecting the modeling
Speaker 6: industry to embrace me with open arms because this is
Speaker 6: America's Next Top Model.
Speaker 1: After the show, Kenya moved to New York, ready to
Speaker 1: take on the industry A and TM photos in hand.
Speaker 1: But like a lot of the models I've spoken to,
Speaker 1: she was in for it rude awakening.
Speaker 6: I couldn't even used my portfolio from America's Next Top
Speaker 6: Model in my actual portfolio because the pictures from the
Speaker 6: show were so over the top, so overly edited, overly styled,
Speaker 6: overly made up, it was for TV. Real modeling portfolios
Speaker 6: didn't look like how our pictures looked. The retouching was insane.
Speaker 6: That is not how photos actually look in magazines.
Speaker 1: Kenya eventually became a working model, but she had to
Speaker 1: build her career herself. These days, she coaches new models
Speaker 1: who are trying to break into the industry. She says
Speaker 1: this her mission to give them more than A and
Speaker 1: TM gave her. Before Kenya was cast on ANTM, she'd
Speaker 1: been a fan, and she fully bought into the premise.
Speaker 1: She thought A and TM was really a competition to
Speaker 1: find and make the best model. As a teenager, I
Speaker 1: did too, I think we all did. But once Kenya
Speaker 1: left Top Model and launched her career, she realized the
Speaker 1: show wasn't it all like the real modeling industry.
Speaker 6: The average person watching the show would be, oh, yep,
Speaker 6: that's a photo.
Speaker 21: Shoot, that's the modeling industry, and so I think like
Speaker 21: the entire country took that as Yep, this is real.
Speaker 21: This is the modeling industry through and through, and it's
Speaker 21: just not true.
Speaker 6: It's just not the case. So much of it was
Speaker 6: just TV. It was pure entertainment.
Speaker 1: And something America found very entertaining were racist stereotypes and
Speaker 1: A and TM was among the best to ever do it.
Speaker 1: That's what we'll get into on the next episode. Thanks
Speaker 1: 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 jo 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 Denning. Associate producers are Alisha Key, Kristin Melcurrie,
Speaker 1: and Curry Richmond. Consulting producers are Oliver TwixT and Kate Taylor.
Speaker 1: Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Kriincheck. 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 podcast or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Also check out the Glass podcast Instagram
Speaker 1: at Glass Podcasts for Curse of America's Next Top Model,
Speaker 1: behind the scenes content and more.