Tyra Banks is suing Netflix over that America's Next Top Model docuseries

Alleging “surgical manipulation” on the part of producers, the suit apparently zooms in on a moment when Banks is asked about former contestant Shandi Sullivan, who appears extensively in Reality Check, detailing her experiences on the show’s second season back in 2004. In the series, Sullivan is depicted as drinking too much and cheating on her boyfriend; in reality, she says she was too intoxicated to consent to the encounter—a situation the show’s cameras captured, but which producers declined to intervene in. For Banks’ part, her suit says she was unaware that Sullivan had since described the experience as sexual assault when it was brought up in the interview, sans context. “Having withheld that information,” the suit continues, “Ms. Loushy asks Ms. Banks: ‘You remember the story with Shandi?’ The episode shows Ms. Banks glance upward, say ‘um,’ and then the screen cuts to black. The implication is devastating and deliberate: that Tyra Banks cannot even remember the story of the woman who was assaulted on her show.” The suit states that the full footage shows Banks nodding and saying, “I do remember her story.” 

Banks is seeking a jury trial, as well as punitive damages against the docuseries’ producers.