Highlights
- Tyra Banks sues Netflix for defamation over editing of her ANTM docuseries interview
- Only 16 minutes of a 3.5-hour interview aired; Banks alleges key context was removed
- Suit claims Netflix falsely implied Banks dismissed a contestant’s sexual assault
Tyra Banks has filed a defamation lawsuit against Netflix, and the allegations are as explosive as any elimination night the supermodel ever presided over.
Banks sued Netflix on Saturday (June 13, 2026), claiming her testimony was manipulated for the streamer’s recent America’s Next Top Model docuseries. She is suing Netflix, 89 Blocks Holdings, EverWonder Studio, Netflix Music, and co-directors Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan on counts of false light, defamation by implication, breach of contract, and false endorsement.
The civil lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and a jury trial.
At the center of the complaint is a staggering disparity between what Banks gave the production and what actually aired.
The lawsuit alleges Banks’ interview was “stripped of context and reassembled to support a false and defamatory narrative unrelated to what she actually expressed.”
“Tyra Banks participated in the Netflix documentary series America’s Next Top Model (ANTM) because she believed viewers deserved a candid conversation about the show’s legacy — its successes and its shortcomings,” the lawsuit states. She wanted viewers to hear directly from her about the show’s complicated history, including aspects she was personally willing to own.
Banks’ lawyers claim she gave the docuseries a “three-and-a-half-hour” interview, only to have it cut down to “about 16 minutes.” What remained, per the suit, was “reassembled to support a false and defamatory narrative unrelated to what she actually expressed,” with the “accountability Ms. Banks took” for some of the show’s shortcomings left on the cutting room floor.
The most damaging allegation centers on a pivotal moment involving former contestant Shandi Sullivan.
One of the primary areas of dispute involves an evening during which Sullivan was intoxicated, had intercourse with a man in Milan, and quickly confessed her infidelity to her longtime boyfriend. On the Netflix series, Sullivan is shown describing the event as an assault, something Banks alleges she had never heard before and was not told during her interview. Having withheld that information, co-director Loushy asks Banks, “You remember the story with Shandi?” The episode then shows Banks glance upward, say “um,” and the screen cuts to black.
The lawsuit describes the implication as “devastating and deliberate: that Tyra Banks cannot even remember the story of the woman who was assaulted on her show.”
Banks argues the complete, unedited footage tells an entirely different story.
“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 states.
The lawsuit further alleges: “Worse, the false narrative the producers constructed — through selective editing, deliberate omission, and surgical manipulation of continuous footage — included that Ms. 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 about Ms. Banks is a complete fabrication — one that Netflix streamed to a global audience of millions.”
Banks also takes issue with how she was treated in the lead-up to the premiere.
Banks says she did not receive access to the completed docuseries until Feb. 15, 2026, just one day before it premiered on Netflix. By that point, she alleges trailers, promotional materials, and press outreach were already underway.
She additionally alleges Netflix used her image on the cover art without authorization, creating the false impression that she endorsed the release.
The docuseries chronicles both the show’s historic successes and its controversies, including an early contestant claiming she was sexually assaulted on camera, another undergoing cosmetic surgery to remain in the competition, and a challenge that required contestants to wear blackface.
Banks is seeking “damages, including loss of future business opportunities, loss of business income, other compounding losses as will be shown at trial.”
Netflix has not yet issued a public response to the lawsuit.
