Tyra Banks is finally saying “America’s Next Top Model’s” quiet part out loud. After years of internet think pieces, viral clips, and heated debates about what America’s Next Top Model really put its contestants through, the supermodel and media mogul is stepping back into the conversation.
In the trailer for Netflix’s upcoming three-part docuseries, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, Tyra Banks admits what many viewers have been arguing for years: some lines were crossed.
“I knew I went too far,” she says plainly in the preview. It’s a rare moment of reflection from a woman who once stood at the center of one of television’s most influential reality shows.
Set to premiere on February 16, the docuseries revisits the long-running competition that aired from 2006 to 2018 and helped define a generation of reality TV. For over a decade, ANTM promised a glamorous gateway into the fashion industry. What it delivered, according to many former contestants, was something far more complicated.
The trailer pulls no punches. Alumni from across the show’s many cycles recount experiences that grew increasingly extreme as the series gained popularity. Waist measurements taken on camera. Teeth filed down during makeovers. Emotional breakdowns framed as entertainment. One former contestant recalls a photoshoot where a male model grabbed her legs without consent, a moment that went largely unchallenged at the time. Former judge Nigel Barker appears in the clip, acknowledging that the incident was wrong, even if it went unchecked in the moment.
Tyra Banks, who created and hosted the show, says she stayed quiet after ANTM ended, despite mounting criticism online. Now, she frames the series as both a personal reckoning and a broader look at how reality television operated during that era. She describes wanting to push back against an unforgiving fashion industry, while also admitting that the intensity became too much.
Also featured in the docuseries are familiar faces from the judging panel, including Jay Manuel and J. Alexander, whose presence signals that this won’t be a surface-level revisit. Netflix bills the project as a deep dive into the show’s complicated legacy, asking how far entertainment can go before it becomes harmful.
For Black audiences especially, the conversation hits close to home. America’s Next Top Model was groundbreaking in many ways. It showcased diverse contestants, celebrated different forms of beauty, and positioned a Black woman as the authority in a largely white fashion world.
That’s what makes this reckoning so layered. The same platform that opened doors also left scars. The same woman who inspired millions is now confronting the impact of the machine she helped build as old clips resurface and former contestants speak more freely.
