We Can't Ignore Tyra Banks' Shady Behavior Any Longer

After dominating the fashion world and strutting down runways all around the globe, supermodel Tyra Banks set her sights on conquering the small screen with her revolutionary TV series, "America's Next Top Model." The reality competition famously featured a group of young models as they battled it out to become the last contestant standing, dealing with one unhinged moment and wild photo shoot after another. The groundbreaking hit ran for 24 cycles from 2003 to 2018, and in recent years, Banks has found herself at the center of fierce discourse surrounding the series.

"ANTM" experienced a major resurgence in 2020, during which Banks, the producers, and the judges all became the target of intense public scrutiny. Since Banks was the face of the series and served as its host, judge, and executive producer, she naturally received the most vitriol, and her ill-conceived appearance in the 2025 Netflix docuseries "Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model" did not help her case. Since then, fans have accused Banks of going too far on "ANTM" numerous times. The TV personality has been called out for her shady behavior and flippant attitude toward the many scandals and controversies that have plagued the series, a legacy which persists due to a lack of accountability from those involved.

Undeniably, the most unforgettable moment in "America's Next Top Model" history was during Season 4, when fan-favorite contestant Tiffany Richardson was eliminated and Tyra Banks became completely unhinged, screaming at the model during her exit. Banks felt as though Richardson stopped taking the competition seriously and gave up, and she went on a rant that left the world stunned. "Tiffany, I'm extremely disappointed in you. This is a joke to you ... This is serious to these girls, and it should be serious to you," Banks said when chiding Richardson's attitude (via YouTube). When the two began to talk over one another during the elimination, Banks became visibly irritated and her anger only intensified when Richardson attempted to defend herself. What ensued was one of reality TV's most jaw-dropping tirades and an endlessly meme-able confrontation. 

"I have never in my life yelled at a girl like this! When my mother yells like this, it's because she loves me! I was rooting for you! We were all rooting for you!" She infamously screamed at the model. Richardson opened up about the shocking showdown in 2017, revealing it was far worse than the cameras showed. "'Why are you yelling at me, because I'm grown as f***,'" she recalled thinking during an interview with  Buzzfeed. "It was just, like, bull****. It was so over-the-top for no reason." She later said Banks "needed them ratings to go up or something" when discussing the host's motives for the meltdown. 

Tyra Banks and "America's Next Top Model" always courted controversy with their off-the-wall photoshoots. During cycle 10, for instance, the contestants were tasked with posing as homeless people. As if that wasn't bad enough, the models worked alongside real homeless women for the controversial shoot, who essentially became fashion accessories and props. Coincidentally, future cycle 11 contestant Isis King was living at an LGBTQ community center when she was chosen to participate in the insensitive photo-op.

The shoot idea stemmed from an episode of Banks' talk show, "The Tyra Banks Show," in which she pretended to be homeless for a day, which also unsurprisingly did not go over well with viewers at the time. Although Banks and the show may have had good intentions since they partnered with the homeless support group Reciprocity Foundation for the photo shoot, the execution was severely lacking and felt downright inappropriate.

In the Netflix docuseries "Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model," judge and photographer Nigel Barker commented on the show's more salacious moments and shoots that should have never made it to air. "There were some ideas that were wrong and were not good to have and were silly," Barker said (via Grazia). "For some reason, no one really seemed to see it." Creative director Jay Manuel mirrored Barker's sentiments: "Sometimes creative would come up, where you're just like 'Oof, wow. Okay. Well, we've got to work with this now.'" 

Shandi Sullivan is one of the reality show's most recognizable contestants, as the former Walgreens employee stunningly transformed and found her confidence during cycle 2. However, she found herself at the center of a shocking cheating scandal, an incident that remains just as upsetting now as it was in 2004. After a heavy night of drinking, Sullivan ended up becoming intimate with a male model and tearfully confessed her infidelity to her boyfriend (which of course had to be filmed).

In 2005, Sullivan was invited to Tyra Banks' talk show and was humiliatingly forced to relive the notorious moment in front of millions despite her obvious discomfort. In "Reality Check," Sullivan claimed she had blacked out and was assaulted, and she had wondered why nobody intervened. "I think after getting out of the hot tub and whatever happened after that. I think they should've f***ing, like alright, this has gone too far, we've got to, like, pull her out of this," she said (via FandomWire).

When questioned about the harrowing ordeal in "Reality Check," Banks refused to take accountability and comment on Sullivan's experience. "I do remember her story. It's a little difficult for me to talk about production because that's not my territory," she stated, per People. "I'm not head of story. That's Ken Mok, but I did become a master editor. It's important for people to know that we didn't put everything on TV." 

Tyra Banks often pushed the boundaries on both "ANTM" and her talk show, and for an episode of the latter series, she donned a padded, 350-pound prosthetic fat suit to understand the harsh realities of being obese. Despite her efforts to seek empathy for those who were overweight, many critics and viewers felt that the episode was sensationalized and that Banks was tone deaf with the social experiment, as she only experienced part of a day in the suit and could return to her normal body.

The 2005 episode saw Banks going on multiple blind dates, riding the bus, and going out shopping while wearing the suit, and she expressed how the public's reaction hurt her feelings. "The people that were staring and laughing in my face — that shocked me the most," Banks said to the audience (via ABC News). "As soon as I entered the store — when I went shopping — I immediately heard snickers. Immediately! I just was appalled and ... hurt!"

Many people at the time, and retrospectively, have pointed out how problematic the entire social experiment was and questioned Banks' reason for wearing the fat suit at all. "Good intentions or not, it's inherently insensitive," wrote Maegan Carberry of the Chicago Tribune. "Who is the fat suit for, really? It's not like so-called fat women don't know they are mocked and scorned because of their size. They live it every day."  

Part of the reason "America's Next Top Model" became the global hit it did was because of the colorful judges and crew members Tyra Banks assembled to join her. Creative director Jay Manuel, runway coach Miss J. Alexander, and photographer-judge Nigel Barker became beloved faces in the series. When they were fired during its revamping in 2012, Banks wasn't overly supportive. "We've reached a point where we feel that the show just needs a new boost," she told Access Hollywood (via Page Six). "There's a lot of people who go into that decision."

She has since fallen out with Alexander and Manuel. What's more, Banks reportedly didn't visit the runway diva when he had a stroke in 2022 and was in a five-week coma. Although Alexander did say Banks reached out via a text message, both Manuel and Barker went to the hospital to support their friend. Manuel has also spoken out about the businesswoman side of Banks and her cold treatment toward him over the years. Prior to Manuel's firing in 2012, he had attempted to leave the show ahead of cycle 9 and was given an icy reception from the former model after he emailed her his gratitude for the longtime gig. "I am disappointed," Banks had simply responded. "Tyra chose not to speak with me at all while the cameras were off. When they were on, she'd speak to me," Manuel revealed in "Reality Check," per People.  

Cycle 5's Kim Stolz was an openly gay contestant who was given some pretty controversial advice from Tyra Banks during her time on the show. The model had described her look as "masculine" to the judges and declared, "I want to be out. I'm gay, and I'm really proud of it" (via Metro). Instead of encouraging Stolz to embrace her true self, Banks wasn't supportive of the model's gay pride and seemingly told her to scale back how open she was about her sexuality. "I think there's a certain thing of being proud," Banks said to Stolz during panel. "Like, I'm Black and proud. But I'm not walking down the red carpet like, 'I'm Black, I'm Black." 

Jay Manuel later discussed how unfair it was for Banks to discourage Stolz when she claimed to be an ally of the LGBTQ+ community. "I was in the room, and I was sitting right next to [Tyra]. I remember feeling a little uncomfortable with the statement. I could see Tyra trying to draw the parallel and what she was trying to illustrate, and I was confused by it," Manuel told Variety in 2020. "These girls are coached to speak their truth and tell Tyra who they are, and then Tyra said that, so it seemed a bit unfair," he added. In an essay written for MTV, Stolz applauded the show's progressiveness but acknowledged that "there were moments when those issues were clearly exploited for entertainment value" (via Distractify).

For the sixth cycle of "America's Next Top Model," Tyra Banks decided to play dentist. She encouraged contestant Joanie Dodds to have her teeth pulled and veneers put in place, and then she pushed for Danielle Evans to close her gap. When Evans balked at having the procedure done because she felt the gap made her special, Banks harshly confronted the model and mocked her tooth gap, asking, "Do you really think you can have a CoverGirl contract with a gap in your mouth?" (via Grazia U.K.). Banks later said the look wasn't marketable and ultimately forced Evans to close the gap or be eliminated from the competition altogether; the model had the procedure done and ended up winning her cycle. 

"I've actually apologized for the issue with Dani and what happened. That was between a rock and a hard place for me," Banks said in "Reality Check," per Entertainment Weekly. "There were agents that would tell me, 'She will not work with those teeth, it's just not going to happen.'" Evans subsequently pushed back against Banks' apology in the docuseries and pointed out the host's hypocrisy, as just a few seasons later, she told cycle 15's Chelsey Hershley to undergo a procedure to widen her gap. "Bull f***ing s***. Me getting my gap closed is not opening any doors for me. You knew what you were doing for the show. You were making it good for TV, at my expense." The worst part is that these are hardly the most shocking makeovers in "America's Next Top Model" history.

Arguably, one of the biggest scandals in all of "America's Next Top Model" history was when Tyra Banks and the show's producers had the models switch races for a now infamous photo shoot. The contestants first posed as different ethnicities during the fourth cycle in 2005 for a "Got Milk?" shoot and once again for cycle thirteen in 2009. Although the shoots seemed uneventful at the time, the episodes sparked stunned reactions from the masses 20 years later and were condemned. "I didn't think it was controversial," Banks confessed in "Reality Check," per Parade. "I was in my own little bubble, in my own little head, thinking this was my way of showing the world that brown and black is beautiful ... But then we put it out there, and the world was like, 'Are you crazy? Have you lost your mind?'" 

Despite the public blowback, the competition series bizarrely decided to try its luck again and try a similar-themed shoot for cycle 13 in Hawaii. "I looked around and I'm like, 'Guys, but I'm in blackface right now.' And they were like, 'Yeah, yeah, it's fine,'" contestant Jennifer An told Entertainment Weekly. "I think Tyra came over and she was talking about how beautiful it was that we were trying to meld these cultures in the shoot, and I just remember feeling super uncomfortable about it." Tyra was one of the first Black supermodels, so one would think she would treat racial matters with more sensitivity.

Tyra Banks hated complainers and expected the contestants on the competition series to blindly go along with all the chaos and craziness she threw at them during the show's 24 cycles. CariDee English from Season 7 of "America's Next Top Model" ended up catching hypothermia and was given medical attention when she was tasked with posing in a freezing pool in Spain for a photo shoot. The model tried her best to ignore her body's warning signs for hours on end — all to get the perfect picture.

During the judging panel, Banks sent English mixed messages regarding her performance: She emphasized that the models needed to be tough but then critiqued her for not speaking up, calling English "high maintenance" (via TV Guide). English later opened up about her disappointment in the host's unsympathetic reaction to the scary health emergency. "That was very confusing. I knew they were going to harp on me for that. I thought the 'high maintenance' comment in panel really sucked a lot," she told TV Guide. "I was like, 'What? That's not how I am at all!' That was really frustrating." English acknowledged that the show could have easily made the water warmer for the models. "But it was kept cold for the 'reality' part of it," English said. She subsequently pointed out that Banks herself never would have done the shoot, saying, "She's a supermodel, so she doesn't have to get into that cold water." 

In the time since the last episode of the reality competition series aired, Tyra Banks has seemingly taken a deny, deny, deny approach to the many questionable and controversial offenses that have since surrounded the show. The former runway model has often come off dismissive of both former contestants and viewers' complaints, and she tried to pass the buck when she was interviewed for Netflix's "Reality Check." When questioned about Shandi Sullivan's alleged assault, Banks feigned remembering what went on and claimed she was not involved with production, though she was an executive producer on the show. 

Likewise, when the series experienced a cultural resurgence during 2020 and people took a closer look at the most problematic moments in "America's Next Top Model," Banks seemed disingenuous when she commented on all the public uproar. "Been seeing the posts about the insensitivity of some past ANTM moments and I agree with you. Looking back, those were some really off choices," she simply said in a since-deleted X post (via Deadline). Past contestants have urged Banks to take more accountability for her role in the show's many missteps and shortcomings, including cycle 7's Eugenia Washington, who did not mince words when it came to her feelings about the host. "The fact that she never apologized for the damage she caused so many people and we're all supposed to be afraid. It's really fun to watch her flop. That's all," she said in a TikTok video, per The Blast. 

There were many explosive revelations exposed in the Netflix docuseries "Reality Check," and Tyra Banks did not come out looking too great, as she seemed insincere when faced with the show's many scandals and controversies. In fact, Banks admitted to overstepping when it came to some of the production choices on the show, declaring in the show's official trailer, "I knew I went too far. It was very, very intense, but you guys were demanding it, so we kept pushing it, more and more and more."

As a result of her blasé attitude and lack of sympathy, Banks has been the recipient of online vitriol and has been accused of exploiting the contestants solely for the entertainment factor. Many previous fans of the show were also outraged that Banks would try to place the blame on them. "She blames the viewers for the show's egregious behavior of putting those young girls in harms way. Shameful," an X user wrote. Instead of providing a heartfelt apology for her role, Banks used "Reality Check" as a way to tease a potential 25th season of the show, further proving that she is only out to capitalize on the publicity and that she may not learned as much from the entire ordeal as she would like people to think.