Much like when “America’s Next Top Model” was on air, social media has not stopped buzzing about Netflix’s new docuseries “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model” since its premiere. As social media timelines fill up with think pieces, reactions, and calls for Tyra Banks to take accountability, “ANTM” alums have spoken out about the revived controversy.
Among those is “ANTM” season 3 winner, Eva Marcille. During a recent appearance on CBS Mornings, the model-turned-actress broke her silence about the discourse surrounding the show that birthed her stardom.
“They did not ask me to be on it. It was very surprising,” Marcille shared. “When I first found out there was a documentary, I was amazed. I remember reaching out to Jay Manuel, like, ‘is this the same Top Model that we did, because how don’t I know about this?’”
“After I watched it, I was gobsmacked. I was in awe. I told Jay my mouth was wide open. To be a part of a club and not know what’s going on in the club is crazy. [I was] amazingly horrified for the stories. I’ve lived my experience. I’ve walked in my shoes. And while there’s a level of relatability, I assumed other contestants had similar experiences. I had no idea,” she continued.
Since winning the show in 2004, Marcille notes how questions about Tyra and the show always seem to come up in conversations. And for the last 21 years, she explains she “didn’t understand why it was such a topic.” However, over the years, the once-beloved show has come to be seen as problematic as viewers rewatched scenes, igniting new conversations about “ANTM.” So much so that in a resurfaced clip from a 2024 interview with AP News, the model is heard defending the show.
“At the time, I bona fide believed no one was trying to be insensitive. They were actually trying to be inclusive and funny at the same time,” Marcille said at the time, responding to the show’s criticism. “Tyra Banks set out to do one thing, which was to show beauty in a different light. We forget that Tyra is not Jesus; she is a woman, and to err is to be human. Every intention she had was pure.”
Fast forward two years, and the ANTM alum voiced her appreciation for Banks while also calling out the producer’s role in creating the show’s toxic environment.
“That environment could not exist without producers aiding and abetting what was going on,” she shared. “What I will say is, I will never fail to thank Tyra. What Tyra set out to do in this business, especially for “Top Model” initially, she set out to change the world, to change what the modeling industry looked like, sounded like, felt like, and expected.”
“At the time, we were kids trying to find our dreams realized and actualized by a woman that we believed could do that for us, and if she could see it in us, and the world would see it in us, because the world sees it in her,” she added.
In terms of the social media calls for Banks to take accountability and apologize for the reported sexual assault and toxicity the show promoted, the “All The Queens Men” star responded:
“[Tyra Banks] apologized a million times, but an apology to the person that you wronged is only as good as they can appreciate it. And so for the young girls that were sexually assaulted, the young girls that now have eating disorders or look at themselves and never feel beautiful, that little girl in them that will always live in the woman that is them, there is no sorry.”
