Kelly Cutrone didn’t tiptoe around the Netflix documentary: “She got done dirty on that f*cking documentary,” Cutrone said, publicly defending Tyra Banks and blasting a fellow former colleague after Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model reopened old wounds.
Cutrone, a longtime fashion PR figure tied to the show’s era, said she had declined multiple invitations to participate in the project and called the series’ portrayal of Banks unfair. She turned her fire on Jay Manuel — the show’s former creative director — accusing him of taking part in a narrative that, in her view, miscast Banks after years of backing him. “That chick f*cking fed you, took care of you, raised you, and this is how you say thank you? F*ck off!” Cutrone said.
The documentary pushed a number of former judges and contestants back into the conversation around America's Next Top Model’s 24-season run. Manuel, who worked alongside Banks for 18 cycles before departing in 2012, is among those critics showcased in the film; in it he acknowledged that some eliminations were shaped by storytelling needs as much as by performance. Manuel told viewers, “Sometimes, not always, it was not her best shot,” a line the documentary uses while he also discussed a fractured relationship with Banks.
The program did more than replay behind-the-scenes friction. It put a long-ago confrontation under a fresh lens: Cycle 4 contestant Tiffany Richardson revisited a 2005 argument with Banks and accused her of bullying, saying the edit made their clash look different from how it unfolded. The series includes an on-camera moment in which Banks admits, “I went too far. You know, I lost it.” Another former panelist, Miss J. Alexander, disclosed in the documentary that he suffered a stroke in 2022 that left him paralyzed from the waist down — a personal update that punctuates how far removed the show’s early seasons now feel from the present.
Cutrone’s defense of Banks is the clearest public rejoinder since the documentary’s release. It lands as part of a larger, messy record: judges who left in 2012, a 2020 memoir by Manuel titled The Wig, The b**chs & The Meltdown that Cutrone referenced, and a string of former contestants revisiting controversial moments across the show’s long run. Cutrone framed her comments as loyalty and context — she said Banks was painted unfairly — while Manuel and Richardson offered recollections that reinforced long-standing criticism of production choices and on-air treatment.
That friction is the story’s operative tension. Cutrone insists the documentary did Banks a disservice and criticizes former colleagues for sitting for interviews that, in her view, rewrote past loyalties. Manuel and Richardson, by contrast, gave accounts that the documentary presents as corroboration of structural problems on set: selective editing, narrative-driven eliminations and moments that, to some participants, crossed a line.
The debate has a practical next act. Banks teased plans earlier this year to bring America's Next Top Model back for Cycle 25 — the first new season since 2018 — and the Netflix mini-series has already changed the terms of that conversation. Whatever form a revival might take, the documentary and the ensuing public arguments will shape expectations: some former allies like Cutrone are trying to blunt the backlash, while others who appear in the film insist the archive supports their critiques.
One question the current dispute implicitly raises is whether legal action figures into any of this. The verified record available here does not include any claim that Banks has filed or faces a lawsuit tied to the documentary. For now, the more immediate uncertainty is creative: will Banks follow through on a Cycle 25 revival, and if she does, can she carry a legacy that the documentary has forced back into the open?
