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Nearly four months after Netflix released an explosive documentary chronicling the legacy and controversies of “America’s Next Top Model,” the show’s creator, Tyra Banks, is suing the streaming giant for false light, defamation by implication, breach of contract and false endorsement.
According to the lawsuit filed on June 13 and obtained by Fox News Digital, Banks — who participated in “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model” — accused Netflix and the documentary producers of deliberately editing her 3.5-hour interview down to 16 minutes to create the false impression that she knowingly concealed what a former contestant has since characterized as a sexual assault that occurred during the filming of “ANTM.”
“Tyra Banks participated in the Netflix documentary series ‘America’s Next Top Model’ because she believed viewers deserved a candid conversation about the show’s legacy—its successes and its shortcomings,” the lawsuit states. “There are aspects of the show for which Ms. Banks takes accountability and she wanted ‘ANTM’ viewers to hear that from her directly.”
“Going into her interview, Ms. Banks did not limit the ‘ANTM’ topics the interviewer could ask,” the lawsuit continues. “During a three-and-a-half-hour interview, Ms. Banks answered questions about the show’s groundbreaking history, including criticism of decisions she would approach differently today.”
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Tyra Banks poses on the red carpet at the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2024 Issue Release and 60th Anniversary Celebration at the Hard Rock Hotel in New York City on May 16, 2024. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit)
Banks says the Netflix series was sold to her as a “documentary series” that would chronicle “ANTM,” but says footage was “stripped of context and reassembled to support a false and defamatory narrative unrelated to what she actually expressed.”
“Worse, the false narrative the producers constructed—through selective editing, deliberate omission, and surgical manipulation of continuous footage—included that Ms. Banks knowingly allowed a contestant to be sexually assaulted on her show, exploited that contestant’s trauma for ratings, and then could not even remember it when asked,” the suit stated. “That narrative about Ms. Banks is a complete fabrication—one that Netflix streamed to a global audience of millions.”
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The suit highlights one “egregious example of the producers’ manipulation to create a false narrative,” involving former contestant Shandi Sullivan.
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“One of the areas of interest about ‘ANTM’ over the last twenty years has been about an evening during which Ms. Sullivan was intoxicated, had intercourse with a man in Milan, and quickly confessed her infidelity to her longtime boyfriend,” the suit reads. “On the Netflix Series, Ms. Sullivan is shown describing the event as an assault—something Ms. Banks had never heard before and was not told during her interview. Having withheld that information, Ms. Loushy asks Ms. Banks: ‘You remember the story with Shandi?’ The episode shows Ms. Banks glance upward, say ‘um,’ and then the screen cuts to black. The implication is devastating and deliberate: that Tyra Banks cannot even remember the story of the woman who was assaulted on her show.”
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Banks’ lawyers claim the “implication is false.”
“Ms. Banks remembers Ms. Sullivan well. She stood out as a remarkable young woman and talented aspiring model. Ms. Banks also remembers the encounter in Milan as a matter of regret over infidelity. As far as she knew at the time, that was how everyone involved understood it—not as a sexual assault. Before it aired, no one involved in making or clearing the episode—not the producers, the network executives that oversaw the show, or the network’s standards-and-practices reviewers—told her that anyone regarded it as a sexual assault.”
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“Second, Ms. Banks goes on to say: ‘I do remember her story.’ That response was cut off from the end.”
Banks, who is requesting a jury trial, is asking for an “appropriate” amount of punitive damages.