America’s Next Top Model cycle 6 winner Dani Evans has made a stunning reveal about alleged correspondence she had with Tyra Banks nearly 15 years after the contestant won the title in 2006.
Amid the intensification of the ongoing ANTM reckoning following Monday’s release of Netflix’s Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model docuseries, Evans claimed in the three-episode project that she had a chilling phone call with Banks that ultimately left her frustrated over the producer-host’s alleged handling of her narrative on the reality competition.
Throughout Reality Check, Evans — who competed on and eventually won ANTM under her full name, Danielle — expressed disdain over her experience on the show, particularly after the judges pressured her to get a medical procedure during filming that closed a gap in her teeth. She then said that she actually spoke with Banks about her perspective on the phone, over a decade after she earned the show’s top prize.
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“She told me that, ‘I knew that there were certain doors that you couldn’t even get into because you did Top Model. And I did nothing about it,'” Evans alleged through tears. “She said to me, ‘I always rode the fence with you.’ That’s when I said, ‘Respectfully, Tyra, you have no f—ing idea how painful it has been for me. You have no f—ing idea.'”
Evans also alleged in the docuseries that she wasn’t treated fairly by the modeling agency she signed with as part of the ANTM prize package, despite other models she lived with at the time — including future supermodel Chanel Iman — booking consistent jobs. Evans said (as many ANTM contestants have over the years) she felt there was a stigma associated with contestants from the show, with fashion clients refusing to book certain models because they were already well-known from reality TV.
“For you to admit to me, all these years, 15 years later, I know the hell you’ve been going through, I know you couldn’t even walk through the threshold of certain doors…” Evans said of her alleged phone call with Banks. “To have her, a Black woman, say to me over the phone that I knew you were struggling and I did nothing about it? What? You don’t have to support me, you don’t even have to like me, but don’t see me and my suffering and just walk past me. That’s so f—ed up.”
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She finished, telling the camera that, “They built a whole empire, a multi-million dollar brand known as America’s Next Top Model off the backs of every girl’s dream that did that show, and it never became realized.”
A representative for Banks has not responded to Entertainment Weekly‘s multiple requests for comment on the Reality Check docuseries — including Evans’ remarks above.
However, Banks sat for a Reality Check interview, during which she addressed the controversy surrounding Evans’ dental procedure.
“I’ve actually apologized for the issue with Dani and what happened. That was between a rock and a hard place for me,” Banks, 52, said in the docuseries. “There were agents that would tell me she will not work with those teeth, it’s just not going to happen,” she explained. “That’s what they told me. I could’ve just been quiet and let them handle it. Hindsight is 20/20 for all of us. It just so happens that a lot of the things that are 20/20 for me happened in front of the world.”
Evans is then shown reacting to Banks’ apology, saying, “Bull f—ing s—. Me getting my gap closed is not opening any doors for me. You knew what you were doing for the show. You were making it good for TV, at my expense.”
Reality Check additionally highlights many ANTM controversies, ranging from photo shoots that saw models wearing dark makeup to portray women of different races on cycles 4 and 13, an allegation of sexual harassment on cycle 4, and the firing of creative director Jay Manuel.
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Banks also revealed in the show that she’s bringing America’s Next Top Model back for another cycle, eight years after cycle 24 ended in 2018 on the show’s third network home, VH1 (though the show was never formally canceled). She previously told EW in an interview in 2018 that she wanted to end the show on cycle 25, and considered doing it as another all-star cycle.
Later, EW conducted a 20th anniversary oral history on ANTM with 14 past contestants speaking out on various shocking moments from the show, including the switching-races shoots, Saleisha Stowers’ heavily criticized cycle 9 victory, models posing with tarantulas on cycle 3, and cycle 4 star Kahlen Rondot’s reaction to participating in a shoot inside a grave shortly after learning that a close personal friend had died.
“Even now, it brings stuff up. It was scarring,” Rondot told EW at the time.
Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model is now streaming on Netflix.