If you grew up in the early 2000s, America’s Next Top Model wasn’t just a TV show; it was a cultural event. We learned how to “smize,” we watched Tyra Banks scream about “rooting for you,” and we collectively gasped at every high-concept makeover. But as the new Netflix three-part docuseries, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, reveals, what we were actually witnessing was was actually a lot of bullying and toxic behaviour.
As someone who was glued to the screen during the original airing of the first few seasons of the show, watching this retrospective feels a very strange and confronting.
Access All Areas, But No One’s Taking the Blame
Everyone from Tyra Banks herself to Jay Manuel, Miss J Alexander, and executive producer Ken Mok have sat down for the cameras. It is impressive access. Yet, despite three hours of footage, the documentary feels oddly light.
The ongoing message of the show is “It was a different time.” Banks frequently leans on the “times were different” trope, appearing more like a savvy corporate crisis manager than a mentor seeking genuine atonement.
Beyond the “Makeover” Meltdowns
While we all remember the tears over short hair, Reality Check digs into far darker territory that many of us missed (or chose to ignore) during the original run:
Weaponised Trauma: Contestant Dionne was asked to pose with a bullet wound in her head, despite producers knowing her mother had been a victim of gun violence.
The “Gap” Pressure: Dani was famously pressured to close the gap in her teeth, a move that feels particularly gross in 2026’s “embrace your flaws” culture.
The Shandi Incident: Perhaps the most disturbing segment involves Shandi’s trip to Milan. The docuseries revisits the night she had sex with a local man while “blacked out” from alcohol. The show filmed it all, didn’t intervene, and then aired the episode under the title “The Girl Who Cheated.”
Hearing Shandi describe the aftermath, where she was only allowed to call her boyfriend if the cameras were rolling, is heartbreaking. It shifts the show from “guilty pleasure” to something far more sinister and if anything also shines a light on modern reality television shows that may or not be airing on your TV this week.
A Reckoning or a Nostalgia Trip?
Reality Check is a fascinating, if overlong, look at a juggernaut that defined a decade and many localised spin-offs. It’s wonderful to see the former contestants looking healthier and clearer-eyed today, but the documentary itself feels a bit like the show it critiques, flashy and edited for maximum drama.
Reality Check: America’s Next Top Model is currently streaming on Netflix.
