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Netflix will explore the most controversial moments from groundbreaking reality competition America’s Next Top Model in its new documentary Reality Check.
The three-part docuseries from American Manhunt: Osama Bin Laden directors Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan pulls no punches as it examines the way America’s Next Top Model changed the fashion industry — for better and worse. While ANTM unquestionably opened up the fashion world to a more diverse talent base, there have been accusations that its reality format was exploitative at times.
The filmmakers have secured interviews from many of the key figures involved in the making of ANTM, from creator and original host Tyra Banks and producer Ken Mok to former judges J. Alexander and Nigel Barker.
Numerous ANTM contestants — including winners Dani Evans and Whitney Thompson — will look back at the legacy of the show too but the original breakout star will be missing. Season 1 winner Adrianne Curry announced in January 2026 that she’d rejected an offer to reflect on ANTM through “a woke lens,” calling the concept of the documentary “absurd.”
Keep scrolling for more about Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model and why Curry refused to take part.
Why Isn’t Adrianne Curry in Netflix’s ‘America’s Next Top Model’ Documentary?
Multiple media outlets announced in May 2025 that America’s Next Top Model host Tyra Banks agreed to be interviewed for Netflix’s critical look at the series. Her involvement seemingly paved the way for many of the judges and contestants to take part in Reality Check too, though there was one notable holdout.
America’s Next Top Model season 1 winner Adrianne Curry confirmed in January 2026 that she had no intention of taking part in Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.
“I am deeply grateful I won the first season of top model. I think people psychoanalyzing it over 20 years later with a woke lens is absurd,” she announced via X on January 26, 2026.
Curry argued that there was potential for any of the interviews to be manipulated to fit the filmmakers or Netflix’s agenda.
“I don’t trust people to not manipulate things I say for tv, so i decline everything,” she added. “Also, the public is cult-like and cruel, so the last thing I want is a bunch of eyeballs on me. I hope the other girls do not have their words twisted in their netflix show.”
The retired model described Reality Check as a possible “cover up fest” and expressed concern for any former ANTM contestants who agreed to be interviewed.
“I worry about the girls from my season who agreed to do it,” she warned.
What Has Adrianne Curry Said About ‘America’s Next Top Model’ in the Past?
Adrianne Curry has not been shy about criticizing America’s Next Top Model since her win in 2003. She claimed on the “Just B With Bethenny Frankel” podcast in June 2025 that she was the only winner of ANTM to be paid “zero dollars.”
“[I] was the only winner that won no money. Zero dollars. … There was no money in my win. I got a title,” she told host Bethenny Frankel.
Per Curry, America’s Next Top Model recruited contestants with the possibility of a Revlon campaign but never really followed through.
“[Tyra Banks] was telling us we’re gonna be this huge Revlon-like superstar, because I don’t think any of us would have fought as hard as we did for what the prize really was, which is the title,” Curry said. “So I always joke because people are like, ‘You still call yourself America’s Next Top Model?’ I’m like, ‘It’s the only f***ing thing I won.’ I’m gonna put it on my tombstone.”
Curry offered a different version of events to Entertainment Weekly in May 2023 when she said she was paid $15,000 to attend one Revlon corporate event.
“What I won was to go to Revlon corporate, sit in a back room, have a makeup artist put makeup on my face for a team of about seven people watching me. Who the f*** would fight as hard as we fought for that?” she complained.
Adrianne Curry and Tyra Banks in 2003. Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Banks announced during the America’s Next Top Model season 1 finale that the winner would receive “a contract with Revlon, a fashion spread in Marie Claire magazine and representation by top modeling agency Wilhelmina.” Curry confirmed she was given a contract with Wilhelmina, though that relationship allegedly soured when ANTM switched to rival modeling agency IMG in season 2.
“[The agents] wanted me to fail. They straight-up told me,” she alleged. “They were pissed off because Top Model made them a bunch of promises they didn’t keep because no agency wanted to be part of the show when it first came out.”
In response to Curry’s accusations, then-current Wilhelmina Vice President Ray Lata told Entertainment Weekly in 2023, “Twenty years ago, Wilhelmina had different owners and staff. Wilhelmina is now a public company. It seems unlikely there would be sufficient motivation to harm Tyra and not try to maximize a model’s earning potential.”
Curry also claimed that she still bears the physical effects of a disastrous makeover challenge from ANTM in 2002. In an October 2025 Instagram video, Curry blamed a botched hair weave on the show for leaving her “partially bald.”
“I wanted to discuss why I’m partially bald right here. The reason is, when I was on Top Model, Tyra Banks told them to put a weave in my hair. The Black stylists that were putting it in pulled her aside, and I heard them tell her, like, ‘This white chick’s hair is too fragile for this,’ and [Banks was], like, ‘Oh, no, no, just do it,’” she alleged.
Curry went on, “I had an oozing wound from the braids. Half my hair had been ripped out here. The little bit of hair that grows here, that’s it.”
The model alleged that ANTM’s hairstylists “didn’t even take the weave out” when filming wrapped so she “had to go to a Black salon in Illinois” to get the procedure reversed. Curry said that she was left with “horrific, moist scabs all over [her] head.”
“[The hair has] never grown, this entire area. It’s permanently damaged from that weave. It was so painful,” she recalled. “I was crawling out of my skin every second. All my friends were like, ‘Are you bald there?’ I think most of those makeovers were done just to torture us, honestly.”
Banks did not respond to Us Weekly’s request for comment at the time.
Despite her complaints, Curry told Entertainment Weekly in 2023 that she had no hard feelings toward Banks for the way her ANTM experience turned out.
“Tyra Banks learned to look out for Tyra Banks. She’s a product of her environment, and I don’t blame her,” Curry said. “For her to be as successful as she is, bravo. She didn’t owe me s***. I know there are a lot of bitter contestants. I’m not at all. I’m glad that happened: the good, the bad, the ugly, because it really molded my life.”
Who Is Interviewed in Netflix’s ‘America’s Next Top Model’ Documentary?
The most intriguing interview participant on Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model is Tyra Banks, who created the competition series and served as host for 23 of its 24 seasons. (Rita Ora came on board for season 23 but only lasted for a single cycle before Banks was brought back.)
“I haven’t really said much but now it’s time,” Banks slyly says in the trailer.
The supermodel insists in Netflix’s documentary that America’s Next Top Model was her way to “fight against the fashion industry” though she admits that the atmosphere on ANTM could be “very, very intense.”
“But, you guys [viewers] were demanding it, so and so we kept pushing more and more and more,” Banks explains in the show.
Former America’s Next Top Model creative director Jay Manuel and judges Nigel Barker and J. Alexander have given interviews for Reality Check, too. The trio will address the behind-the-scenes conflicts that led to them all being fired from ANTM in 2012. (A rebrand of the show for cycle 19 saw Banks joined by fashion blogger Bryanboy, model Rob Evans and designer Kelly Cutrone as judges, plus photographer Johnny Wujek as new creative director.)
Jay Manuel and Nigel Barker on “America’s Next Top Model.” Courtesy Ryan Goble / The CW; Courtesy Everett Collection
“I realized Tyra would do anything for the success of her show,” Manuel alleges in the teaser.
Barker admits in the Reality Check trailer that he felt “betrayed” by his highly-publicized firing, whereas Manuel likened the divisive ANTM cycle 19 refresh to being “slapped across the face.”
Reality Check will include testimonials from numerous ANTM contestants and winners, including Whitney Thompson (season 10 winner), Dani Evans (season 6 winner), Giselle Samson (season 1 contestant), Shandi Sullivan (season 2 contestant), Keenyah Hill (season 4 contestant) and Shannon Stewart (season 1 runner-up).
Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model premieres all three episodes on Netflix Monday, February 16.
