Tyra Banks Goes to War With Netflix, Demands Unseen Footage From ‘America’s Next Top Model’ Doc in Defamation Lawsuit

Tyra Banks wants Netflix to hand over unseen footage from this year’s bombshell docuseries about America’s Next Top Model. But the streamer is pushing back against the former talk show host’s demands. 

Tyra Banks sues Netflix 

In June 2026, Banks filed a defamation suit in federal court in Los Angeles against Netflix, EverWonder Studio, and directors Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan over the Reality Check: Insider America’s Next Top Model docuseries.

In her filing, Banks claims she sat for more than three hours of interviews for the show, which explores the more controversial aspects of the popular competition series. But she says her comments were edited down to just 16 minutes. “The accountability [she] took ended up on the cutting room floor. It was there, but viewers were never given the opportunity to see it,” her lawyers wrote. 

Now, the supermodel is also trying to force Netflix to share raw footage of interviews with judge J. Alexander and creative director Jay Manuel. Her argument is that the footage might help bolster her case that her interviews were selectively edited to make her look bad. Banks has also requested internal communications about herself, all draft scripts and story notes, deposition testimony of filmmakers, editors, and others involved in producing or reviewing the documentary, and internal viewership data. 

Netflix – which has asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed – is refusing to hand over the video and other information, TMZ reports, arguing that her request is simply too broad. 

Banks says ‘America’s Next Top Model’ documentary used ‘selective editing’ 

In her lawsuit, Banks specifically takes issue with the way that the sexual assault of season 2 contestant Shandi Sullivan by a male model in Milan was presented in the documentary. Her lawyers say the Reality Check producers used  “selective editing, deliberate omission, and surgical manipulation of continuous footage” to suggest that Banks “knowingly allowed a contestant to be sexually assaulted on her show, exploited that contestant’s trauma for ratings, and then could not even remember it when asked.” That narrative is “a complete fabrication,” they say, arguing that Banks had never been told that Sullivan saw the incident in Milan as an assault. 

In their response to Banks’ lawsuit, Netflix’s lawyers say Banks knew what she was getting into when she agreed to participate in the documentary. 

“After the interview, [Banks] signed an agreement granting the filmmakers the right to edit her interview footage, acknowledging she had ‘no right to review or approve’ the finished documentary, and releasing claims arising from it — including for defamation and false light,” Netflix’s lawyers wrote in their motion to dismiss (via People).

“She now alleges the documentary…defames her — not because it says anything false about her, but because she wanted advance notice of what another interviewee would say, more of her interview included, and her perspective presented differently,” they added. 

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