ANTM winner says she refused Netflix documentary appearance, questions ‘woke’ lens on the series

Adrianne Curry won the first season of ‘America’s Next Top Model’ in 2003

America’s Next Top Model season one winner Adrianne Curry has declared that she ‘does not trust’ reality TV and declined to appear on Netflix’s upcoming docuseries analyzing the show.

On Monday, Netflix released the trailer for the three-part documentary, Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model, featuring the most controversial moments in the competition show’s history. ANTM host Tyra Banks was featured in the trailer confessing that she “went too far” while on the show.

Hours after the trailer dropped, Curry expressed her concerns about the new Netflix series. She stated that she isn’t interested in working on reality TV again, which is why she declined appearing in the documentary.

“I am deeply grateful I won the first season of top model. I think people psychoanalyzing it over 20 years later with a woke lens is absurd,” Curry wrote on X about the new docuseries.

“I don't trust people to not manipulate things I say for TV, so I decline everything. Also, the public is cult-like and cruel, so the last thing I want is a bunch of eyeballs on me. I hope the other girls do not have their words twisted in their Netflix show.”

Adrianne Curry calls public ‘cult-like and cruel’ as she declined being on new Netflix show about ‘America’s Next Top Model’ (Getty Images)

‘ANTM’ winner says she hopes girls ‘do not have their words twisted’ in new Netflix series (@adriannecurry / X)

Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model, set to release February 16 on Netflix, “will unpack the inner workings of the show, which became a viral juggernaut with a global audience of over 100 million people at its peak,” according to the streamer.

Along with Banks, former ANTM judges J. Alexander, Jay Manuel, and Nigel Barker, and former executive producer Ken Mok appear in the new series. Also featured are interviews with ANTM winners and contestants, including Whitney Thompson, Giselle Samson, Shannon Stewart, Shandi Sullivan, Dani Evans, and Keenyah Hill.

“It was very, very intense,” Banks said in the trailer about ANTM. “But you guys were demanding it. So we kept pushing it, more and more and more.”

During its 24-year run, ANTM aimed to help aspiring models launch their careers in an elimination-style competition. Curry was the first-ever winner of the competition series in 2003.

ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

Since her win, Curry has spoken out about how ANTM has affected her, claiming that the makeover Banks gave her damaged her hair permanently. In an Instagram video shared in November, she claimed to her followers that she was “partially bald” in two spots.

Tyra Banks says she ‘went too far’ in ‘America’s Next Top Model’ in new reality series (Netflix)

“The reason is, when I was on Top Model, Tyra Banks told them to put a weave in my hair,” she claimed. “Now, the Black stylists that were putting it in pulled her aside. I heard them tell her, ‘This white chick’s hair is too fragile for this.’”

Curry claimed Banks was insistent on putting the hair into the former model’s head and told the stylist to “just do it.”

She then claimed that her scalp is “permanently damaged” from that weave.

The Independent contacted Banks’s representatives for comment at the time the video was released.