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For Giselle Samson, competing for the crown on season 1 of “America’s Next Top Model” came at a high price. And recently appearing in Netflix’s “Reality Check” docuseries, which unveiled a host of ugly truths behind the early 2000s beauty battle, also didn’t pay off in the way she’d hoped.
“I did not get paid to participate in the documentary,” Samson, now 41, from Los Angeles, exclusively told The Post. “And it did not show the true nuance of who I was during ‘Top Model’ and who I am now.”
Samson says she filmed with the streaming platform for eight hours, detailing the body shaming, blindsiding and blackballing she experienced as a result of starring on supermodel Tyra Banks’ inaugural season — more stylishly known as a “cycle” — of the Y2K-era phenomenon.
The explosive three-part doc, out Monday, offers fans unprecedented insights into the trials and traumas show contestants, across 24 cycles, endured without sympathetic support from Banks, now 52, executive producer Ken Mok, and judging panelists photographer Nigel Barker, supermodel Janice Dickinson, runway coach J. “Miss J” Alexander and creative director Jay Manuel.
Voguish VIPs such as Kimora Lee, Twiggy, Nolé Marin and the late André Leon Talley also served as judges from time to time.
From fatphobia to feigning bulimia, from race-switching to racially-charged digs, and that infamous “We were all rooting for you!” tirade, wannabe models — many of whom were barely over age 18 upon signing up for what most believed to be a once-in-a-lifetime, televised shot at being “on top” — gave their all but were left with little to nothing once filming wrapped, says Samson.
“It’s triggering,” she groaned about not being paid for the piece.
Representatives for Netflix and production companies involved on the project did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for a comment.
The ANTM alum, now an actor and entrepreneur, claims that before appearing in the doc, reps for the streamer explained that the gig would be an unpaid opportunity for her to finally air out her grievances with the decades-old production.
Payment for her participation, according to what Samson alleges she was told, wasn’t possible — as it might be “misconstrued” as monies being exchanged for specific commentary, or “like we’re telling you what to say and it’s scripted,” she recalls.
The brunette agreed to share her story on camera for free — but couldn’t help but feel like it was the same story, all over again, leaving her once more “disappointed” by a production company.
“It triggers the past,” said Samson. “Being a participant of the inaugural cast of ‘Top Model,’ we got, I think, a $40 per diem.”
“In New York, that’ll get you a bagel and a coffee every other day,” she scoffed at the pittance they pocketed while filming in NYC in 2003.
After five weeks of undergoing extreme makeovers on ‘ANTM” — including an on-camera Brazilian bikini wax — rivaling against nine other sirens in intense modeling challenges and navigating the emotional circus of living with complete strangers in a confined space with cameras shoved in her face, Samson was eliminated from the competition.
Her cycle 1 co-star, Adrianne Curry, was crowned the first-ever ANTM winner when series aired in mid ’03.
But Curry, now 43, has since deemed her time on the reality show as “psychological warfare,” that left her without the haute fame and fortune she was promised.
Samson was, too, left with an empty wallet and shattered dreams.
“I came back to LA with no money,” she remembered. “And when I found out that I wouldn’t be paid for this documentary, I was a bit frustrated and upset.”
“It’s like, so once again, another ‘America’s Next Top Model’ situation is going to be built on our backs.”
Samson’s “back” — or more stingingly her backside — became the subject of ridicule among Banks and the other judges while shooting ANTM.
“They said I had a ‘wide ass.’ Hearing that as a young girl was very painful,” she insisted. “I was a teenager who’d been modeling and dancing my whole life, so I thought my body was amazing.”
“It was my bones. What did they want me to do, shave down my hip bones?,” Samson, the only Latina competitor featured on cycle 1, quipped. “We were being weighed on-camera, we weren’t being fed very well.”
“I ended up going through a whole bulimia and anorexia thing after the show.”
Following her exit, Samson also went through a nonstop whirlwind of rejections in the fashion and entertainment industries, owing to the “sad girl” storyline she claims ANTM producers pinned on her.
“I was so motherf—king confident that Tyra Banks told me, ‘If you don’t … humble yourself, Giselle, America will not like you,’” she alleged.
Reps for Banks were not available to provide The Post with a comment.
Samson took the warning under serious advisement.
“I thought, ‘Oh s—t. The best way to humble myself is to be self-deprecating,” she confessed of her juvenile processing. “But that became my entire narrative.”
“After the show, brands didn’t want to work with me. All the jobs I had lined up before the show fell through because the companies didn’t want someone who wasn’t confident representing them,” Samson sighed. “Plus, I was seen as a reality TV star, and at the time, nobody respected that.”
She tells The Post that it can be difficult to watch today’s reality television icons — from The Kardashians to The Real Housewives — be afforded A-list status, when she was virtually blacklisted for coming from the same humble beginnings.
“I wasn’t putting all my eggs in one basket with ‘Top Model,” said Samson. “I just didn’t know being in the world of reality was going to be to my detriment.”
Samson officially walked away from modeling in 2004. She’s since become a bicoastal musical theatre and TV advertisement actress, who recently launched charity jewelry line, Kiss The World.
And the bombshell is content to move forward in life, with confidence and grace, even if, she said, Banks and the former ANTM execs never take full, sincere accountability for hurting the show’s main attractions.
“Tyra should have just apologized,” Samson asserted, noting the lack of an earnest mea culpa in the Netflix doc. “Jay Manuel, Miss J, Nigel Barker and Ken Mok should have apologized also because they were a part of it.”
“But I don’t need an apology,” she emphasized. “And even if they did apologize, why would they wait until now?”
“And why would any of them say [sorry] if they don’t genuinely feel that way?”
