Tyra Banks, a model and the creator of the reality TV show “America’s Next Top Model,” is suing Netflix.
In a 65-page lawsuit filed on Saturday, Banks’ attorneys accused the streaming service of falsely portraying her in the three-part docuseries, “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.”
The three-part documentary was released in February. It charted the meteoric rise of the long-running modeling reality show from its early days to its immense cultural impact. It included an interview with Banks and her onetime collaborators, like creative director Jay Manuel and runway coach J. Alexander, and featured at least 10 contestants.
Banks’ attorneys filed a lawsuit against Netflix, the producers of the show Everwonder Studio, and directors Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan. They said the docuseries cut out parts of her interview in which they said she took responsibility for some of the show’s controversies.
“Of the hours of answers Ms. Banks provided, the producers used only about sixteen minutes,” her team wrote in the lawsuit. “The producers used what could be stripped of context and reassembled to support a false and defamatory narrative unrelated to what she actually expressed.”
The team said that Banks gave the documentary producers a three-and-a-half-hour interview and did not limit the interviewer’s questions.
“The accountability Ms. Banks took ended up on the cutting room floor. It was there, but viewers were never given the opportunity to see it,” they added.
Her attorneys said that the producers created a false narrative through “selective editing, deliberate omission, and surgical manipulation of continuous footage.”
One of the major complaints listed in the lawsuit was that the producers interviewed season two contestant Shandi Sullivan, who told them she had viewed an incident that happened on set as sexual assault.
Banks said the producers did not disclose Sullivan’s account to her before the interview, and they selectively edited her responses to make it appear that she was not willing to take accountability for the incident.
The lawsuit said that before taking legal action, the team had asked Netflix for unedited footage of Banks’ interview, but Netflix denied the request. It added that Netflix did not give Banks the opportunity to respond to any allegations from other participants.
In the lawsuit, Banks’ team sought damages and the removal of her face from the album cover of a 26-track soundtrack for the documentary.
Netflix, which has not yet filed a response to the lawsuit, declined to comment.
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