“America’s Subsequent Prime Mannequin” host Tyra Banks filed a defamation go well with in opposition to Netflix Saturday, alleging that the streamer’s “Actuality Examine: Inside America’s Subsequent Prime Mannequin” docuseries created a “false narrative” about her.
The docuseries, which was co-directed by Mor Loushy and Daniel Siva, featured interview footage of Banks discussing “Prime Mannequin,” the controversial actuality competitors sequence that aired from 2003-2018. (Banks served as creator, host, and government producer of “ANTM.”)
In accordance with a report from Deadline, Banks’ lawsuit was filed in California federal court docket. The previous supermodel is suing Netflix, 89 Blocks Holdings, EverWonder Studio, Netflix Music, and co-directors Loushy and Sivan for false gentle, defamation by implication, breach of contract, and false endorsement.
TVLine has reached out to the entire above events for remark.
The court docket paperwork declare that Banks gave the three-part “Actuality Examine” sequence an interview that lasted a complete of three-and-a-half hours. That was then edited right down to 16 minutes of footage and “stripped of context and reassembled to help a false and defamatory narrative unrelated to what she truly expressed.” The go well with states Banks took “accountability” for the present’s poisonous on-set setting however these moments “ended up on the chopping room flooring.”
The go well with continues: “Worse, the false narrative the producers constructed — by means of selective enhancing, deliberate omission, and surgical manipulation of steady footage — included that Ms. Banks knowingly allowed a contestant to be sexually assaulted on her present, exploited that contestant’s trauma for scores, after which couldn’t even keep in mind it when requested. That narrative about Ms. Banks is an entire fabrication — one which Netflix streamed to a worldwide viewers of thousands and thousands.”
That contestant, Season 2’s Shandi Sullivan, spoke on digicam about her alleged expertise of sexual assault that she says occurred whereas filming the second cycle of “ANTM.” The lawsuit alleges that this portion of the docuseries is an “egregious instance” of manipulated footage.
“One of many areas of curiosity about ‘ANTM’ during the last 20 years has been about a night throughout which Ms. Sullivan was intoxicated, had intercourse with a person in Milan, and shortly confessed her infidelity to her longtime boyfriend,” the lawsuit alleges. “On the Netflix sequence, Ms. Sullivan is proven describing the occasion as an assault — one thing Ms. Banks had by no means heard earlier than and was not informed throughout her interview [emphasis in document]. Having withheld that info, Ms. Loushy asks Ms. Banks: ‘You keep in mind the story with Shandi?’ The episode exhibits Ms. Banks look upward, say ‘um,’ after which the display screen cuts to black. The implication is devastating and deliberate: that Tyra Banks can not even keep in mind the story of the lady who was assaulted on her present.”
The go well with then alleges that the total footage of Banks was lower and edited, eradicating essential particulars and context from the precise interview.
“In Episode 1, earlier than the upward look, Ms. Banks nods — affirmatively, unmistakably— and instantly says, ‘I do keep in mind her story.’ By carving the nod out of the center of the sequence and chopping off Ms. Banks’ remark on the finish, the producers ensured that viewers would see solely the lie and never the reality,” reads the go well with.
In accordance with the report, because of alleged “lack of future enterprise alternatives, lack of enterprise earnings, different compounding losses,” “extreme reputational hurt,” and “vital psychological anguish,” Banks is requesting a jury trial to resolve “applicable” compensation for normal and particular damages.