“America’s Next Top Model” winner Eva Marcille said she “was gobsmacked” when she watched the new Netflix docuseries about the show, which she says she wasn’t invited to participate in.
“Amazingly horrifying for the stories. I have lived my experience. I have walked in my shoes. And though there is a level of relatability, one would assume someone having walked in the same shoes, I had no idea. Like absolutely no idea,” the Season 3 winner told “CBS Mornings” this week.
She recalls immediately reaching out to Jay Manuel, a former judge and creative director on the reality show to express her shock.
“I was in awe. I told Jay my mouth was wide open. To be a part of a club and not know what’s going on in the club is crazy,” Marcille said.
Marcille said she’s worked on 154 projects in the nearly two decades since her season aired, but “America’s Next Top Model” still stands out on her resume.
“No matter what project I’m doing, what I’m involved in, somehow ‘Top Model’ finds its way in my interviews,” she said. “Its absolutely a part of my life. But I didn’t understand why it was such a topic every time I interviewed with someone.”
In the series, Tyra Banks emphasized her goal of giving women of all shapes and backgrounds equal opportunities in modeling — a mission that resonated with Marcille.
Marcille said, “‘Being that I was the shortest girl on my season and the idea of a Black girl and this short in the modelling business, it’s unheard of. It won’t ever happen,'” adding that the show gave her the rare opportunity to prove she has the chops to succeed.
Though the models went through a two-and-a-half-month bootcamp, Marcille said it was still ultimately a TV show designed to entertain.
The docuseries exposes controversial behind-the-scenes moments, from eating disorders to models being made to wear Blackface. One contestant alleged that production filmed her sexual assault and then framed it as a cheating scandal for TV, while another alleged she felt pressured into posing as a crime victim for a photoshoot — an experience she found particularly traumatic because her mother had previously been shot in a violent attack.
“That environment could not exist without producers aiding and abetting what was going on,” Marcille claimed.
CBS News reached out to “America’s Next Top Model” show producers, including Banks, for comment on the allegations but has not received a response.
Reflecting on her time on the show, Marcille recalled the mix of hope and pressure contestants felt.
“At the time, we were kids trying to find our dreams realized and actualized by a woman that we believed could do that for us. And if she could see it in us, then the world would see it in us because the world sees it in her. It was just a TV show, to win a competition,” she said.
Despite everything, Marcille said she’ll be forever grateful to Banks for the opportunity.
“What I will say is I will never fail to thank Tyra. What Tyra set out to do in this business I will always say, especially for ‘Top Model.’ Initially, she set out to change the world, to change what the modelling industry looked like, sounded like, felt like and expected and she did that for me,” she added.
