Tyra Banks sues Netflix claiming her America's Next Top Model interview was edited to defame her

Tyra Banks filed a defamation lawsuit against Netflix on June 13, 2026, accusing the streaming giant of surgically editing her three-and-a-half-hour interview down to approximately 16 minutes to construct a false narrative suggesting she knowingly concealed a sexual assault that occurred during the filming of America's Next Top Model.

The lawsuit, filed in California and obtained by multiple outlets including Variety, TMZ and People, names Netflix, production companies 89 Blocks Holdings and EverWonder Studio, Netflix Music and co-directors Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan as defendants. Banks is suing for false light, defamation by implication, breach of contract and false endorsement.

The lawsuit centres on Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model, a Netflix docuseries that premiered on February 16, 2026, examining the legacy and controversies of the reality television franchise Banks created and hosted for 24 cycles. Banks says she agreed to participate in the project because she believed viewers deserved a candid conversation about the show's history, including its shortcomings, and that she gave a 3.5-hour interview covering ANTM's groundbreaking history alongside criticism of decisions she would approach differently today.

What aired, according to the lawsuit, bore little resemblance to what she said. The suit accuses producers of reassembling 16 minutes of footage from a 3.5-hour session through selective editing, deliberate omission and what the lawsuit describes as surgical manipulation of continuous footage, in order to support a false and defamatory narrative unrelated to what Banks actually expressed.

The central allegation concerns former ANTM contestant Shandi Sullivan, who appeared in Cycle 2 of the show in 2004. An episode that aired during filming in Milan depicted Sullivan being filmed in bed with a male model after a night of heavy drinking. The show treated the incident as an infidelity story, with Sullivan filmed crying the next morning, calling her boyfriend to confess and contacting the model to ask if he had any sexually transmitted diseases.

In the Netflix docuseries, Sullivan described the encounter as a sexual assault, saying she was drunk and had blacked out, and that producers should have intervened. When Banks was asked about Sullivan in her interview for the docuseries, she was not told that Sullivan had since described the incident as sexual assault. Banks said in her filmed interview, responding to the question about Sullivan, that she remembered the story. The lawsuit claims producers cut the moment in which Banks nodded affirmatively and said she remembered the story, leaving only footage that created the false impression Banks could not recall the incident.

"The implication is devastating and deliberate: that Tyra Banks cannot even remember the story of the woman who was assaulted on her show," the lawsuit states. "But that was false. The full footage of Ms. Banks' interview reveals two things that the producers cut out and did not show viewers in Episode 1: before the upward glance, Ms. Banks nods, affirmatively, unmistakably, and immediately says, 'I do remember her story.' By carving the nod out of the middle of the sequence and cutting off Ms. Banks' comment at the end, the producers ensured that viewers would see only the lie and not the truth."

The lawsuit additionally claims Banks did not receive access to the completed docuseries until February 15, 2026, one day before it premiered. By that point, trailers, promotional materials and press outreach were already in circulation.

Banks is seeking a jury trial to determine damages. Netflix has not issued a public response to the lawsuit.

Tyra Banks, 52, is the founder of ANTM and one of the most commercially successful models in American history. Her net worth is estimated at approximately $90 million, built through modelling, television production, her Tyra Beauty cosmetics brand and multiple other ventures. ANTM ran on UPN and then The CW from 2003 to 2018 and was revived briefly in 2016 and 2017. It remains one of the most watched reality television franchises in American broadcasting history.