The Biggest Stain on America’s Next Top Model’s Legacy Is Its Failure To Take Accountability

Two specials exposing the ugliest parts of NEW YORK, NY – SEPTEMBER 09:(L-R) Nigel Barker, J. Alexander and Jay Manuel attend the Pamella Roland fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014 at The Studio at Lincoln Center on September 9, 2013 in New York City.(Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014)

In Cycle 1, contestant Ebony Haithe, 24 at the time, was bullied by unskilled White hairstylists who described her hair as “tough,” laughing at her texture and shaving bald spots throughout her buzzcut. To add insult to injury, Ebony, now 47, recalls a phone call from Tyra after the makeover went awry, in which the model-producer told her, “The judges have been talking to me, and they have been saying that you have been showing up ashy every day.” Ebony was targeted from the start of the season until her elimination in episode four. Fellow contestants Elyse complained about “grease all over [the apartment] because of her new moisturizing regime,” and Giselle asked her to “thoroughly clean your hands” so as not to leave the doorknobs slippery. Jay Manuel said Ebony looked “old,” Alice Spivak called her “aggressive,” and guest judge Kimora Lee Simmons described the stunning and quite jovial Harlem native as “much too harsh.” Producers and judges don’t even acknowledge, much less apologize for, the racist, colorist language or the “angry Black woman” edit they gave Ebony 20-plus years ago.

Tyra, Ken, and the judges weren’t on set when 21-year-old Shandi Sullivan “blacked out” and had drunk, nonconsensual sex in Milan with a moped driver. They were, however, all made aware that producers filmed it and that the footage would air on Cycle 2. My eyes watered as the former contestant cried, retelling the fragmented bits she could recall. “All I remember is him on top of me… No one did anything to stop it,” she says, reliving the trauma 22 years later. “I didn’t even feel sex happening; I just knew it was happening.” 

I was certain that someone other than Shandi would be teary, that we’d hear a judge’s shaky voicesrc="https://media.essence.com/vxcjywbwpa/uploads/2026/03/GettyImages-3125677-scaled.jpg" alt="The Biggest Stain on America’s Next Top Model’s Legacy Is Its Failure To Take Accountability" width="400" height="562" />HOLLYWOOD – MARCH 23:A poster of Supermodel Tyra Banks on display at UPN’S “America’s Next Top Model” finale party held at the Key Club, March 23, 2004 in Hollywood, California.(Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

The abuse doesn’t stop there. Keenyah Hill (Cycle 4) was given a “glutton” edit, and Nigel Barker told her, “You have to be in control,” after a handsy male model made unwanted advances, moaning in her ear and caressing her thighs. Nigel doubles down in Reality Check, saying that sexual harassment happens in the fashion industry, and victims have to be able to stand up for themselves. Joanie Dodds (Cycle 6) underwent four teeth extractions in one sitting and wasn’t allowed to consult anyone, not even her mom, before the surgery. Also in Cycle 6, Tyra gave ANTM winner Danielle Evans an indirect ultimatum to close the gap in her teeth or go home, only to phone her years later and reveal that she knew the winner couldn’t break into the industry because of the show’s stigma… and that she did nothing about it. Producers knew that Dionne Walters’s (Cycle 8) mom was shot and paralyzed, yet they had her pose as a gunshot victim in a crime shoot challenge. 

In Dirty Rotten Scandals, Angelea Preston (Cycles 14 and 17) says that Michelle Mock casted her for ANTM: All Stars, knowing she’d done sex work as a means of survival. When Angela won the season, however, her offer was rescinded because of it. 

When questioned about it all, producers and judges of the hit 2000s show justify and excuse the pain they inflicted more than they apologize for it. Janice goes as far as to rewrite history and paint herself as a victim, forced, by Tyra, to play the villain. 

The biggest stain on America’s Next Top Model’s legacy is not the show’s problematic edits or offensive photo shoot challenges that predate our current, evolved ethics. It’s that Tyra Banks, Ken Mok, Janice Dickinson, Jay Manuel, J. Alexander, and Nigel Barker were given an opportunity to take accountability and apologize, without excuse, to the contestants whose ambitions were exploited—and they completely squandered it. 

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