Tyra Banks Sues Netflix for Defamation in ‘America’s Next Top Model’ Documentary

The model and TV personality is suing Netflix over its docuseries on "America's Next Top Model," alleging defamatory editing and a fabricated narrative about her conduct on the show.

Tyra Banks has filed a lawsuit against Netflix following the release of "Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model," a three-part docuseries that dropped earlier this year.

The complaint, filed on Saturday, June 13, alleges that her portrayal in the series was defamatory and deliberately edited to support a false narrative. According to documents obtained by People, Banks is requesting a jury trial to determine the appropriate amount she should receive in damages.

"Tyra Banks participated in the Netflix documentary series America's Next Top Model ('ANTM') 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 for the documentary, the complaint claims, Banks placed no restrictions on the ANTM topics she was willing to discuss.

During the three-and-a-half-hour sit-down, she answered questions spanning the show's significant history, including criticisms of decisions she would otherwise handle differently today. The lawsuit takes particular issue with how the finished series was framed.

"The Netflix series 'Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model' was sold to viewers as a 'documentary series,'" it reads. "Netflix called it 'the definitive, must-watch chronicle of America's Next Top Model.' The genre matters. Viewers of a documentary do not expect manufactured drama or constructed narratives. They expect facts."

Banks claims that only 16 minutes of her lengthy interview made it into the docuseries, and that the selected clips were "stripped of context and reassembled to support a false and defamatory narrative unrelated to what she actually expressed."

Crucially, she says the moments in which she took accountability for some of ANTM's most controversial episodes were cut entirely.The lawsuit goes further, alleging:

"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 [Shandi Sullivan] to be sexually assaulted on her show, exploited that contestant's trauma for ratings, and then could not even remember it when asked. That narrative about Ms. Banks is a complete fabrication — one that Netflix streamed to a global audience of millions."

Among the other misrepresentations cited is a moment involving Miss J Alexander, who, when asked whether Banks had visited him following his 2022 stroke, responded, "No, not yet. She just sent me a text, she wants to come to visit me. But no, not yet."

Banks alleges that producers never informed her this segment would be included. Had she known, the lawsuit contends, she "would have explained that she had been living in Australia for 2½ years" — and that despite the distance, she remained in contact with Alexander through to Christmas last year.

In response to what she describes as a "false and defamatory" portrayal, Banks is seeking damages covering loss of future business opportunities, loss of business income, and other compounding losses.

Having also endured "significant mental anguish," she is asking a jury to determine fair compensation.

"Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model" was conceived against a backdrop of growing scrutiny around the original series.

"America's Next Top Model" — which ran for 24 seasons between 2003 and 2018 — faced accusations in recent years of body shaming, promoting unhealthy lifestyle choices among contestants, and conducting a challenge in which contestants were made to portray races and ethnicities outside of their own, widely condemned as blackface.