“High Mannequin” alum says Tyra Banks often argued with producer throughout tense eliminations (unique)

Between contestant Ren Vokes' notable conflict with competitor Alasia Ballard and a (actually) hair-raising picture shoot that noticed the fashions shading each other from the sidelines, America's Next Top Model cycle 14 was probably the most dramatic within the actuality competitors's historical past. Now, contestant Alexandra Underwood tells Leisure Weekly that she witnessed a couple of off-camera moments of pressure between producer-host Tyra Banks and government producer Ken Mok.

"I bear in mind once we'd tape eliminations, there was plenty of back-and-forth between Tyra and Ken Mok," Underwood recollects to EW in a brand new interview, 16 years after she first competed on ANTM in 2010.

Underwood says that "they argued lots" throughout panel deliberations, which she additionally alleges included "predetermined" eliminations — a sentiment echoed by former inventive director Jay Manuel within the new Reality Check docuseries, wherein he alleged that manufacturing would purposely choose dangerous images for fashions they wished to remove.

Underwood tells EW that Mok and Banks "argued lots," as a result of, in her estimation, "it didn't seem to be they had been on the identical web page of how they wished issues to be proven" within the remaining edit.

When EW presses Underwood, who tied with Angelea Preston for third place on cycle 14, for instance, she says she will't bear in mind, and suggests {that a} non-disclosure settlement is perhaps holding her again.

"I don't even know what I'm nonetheless allowed to speak about anymore," she admits.

'ANTM' star reacts to Whoopi Goldberg's apology for laughing at runway fall (exclusive) 'ANTM' winner reveals 'f—ed up' phone call with Tyra Banks 15 years after show

Get your day by day dose of leisure information, celeb updates, and what to look at with our EW Dispatch e-newsletter.

Regardless of working with members of manufacturing she feels positively about — together with the late producer David St. John, who died in 2025 — Underwood tells EW, "I bear in mind the second I spotted this wasn't what I signed up for," earlier than recalling what she says occurred on the set of the aforementioned shoot that tasked fashions with posing in robes made from human hair.

"When certainly one of our opponents is up there modeling, they wished us to jeer and put them down," she alleges. When EW seen the episode, the fashions are proven breaking off into groups led by hairstylists Weaven Steven and Derek J — the latter of whom is later proven telling fashions to "yell," "holler," and "scream" on the different contestants as they pose, which they’re ultimately proven doing.

"You possibly can truly see in my picture, after I'm up there, I'm holding again tears, I'm crying," recollects Underwood. "In my picture that they selected [to show at panel], I'm crying, as a result of I used to be like, this isn't what I signed up for. To me, being imply to one another was not imagined to be a part of it. It was very low."

Underwood's EW interview comes after many contestants and judges — together with present alums interviewed for Reality Check — have alleged problematic experiences throughout manufacturing.

Of the situations — lots of which had been additionally lined in EW's twentieth anniversary oral historical past on the present in 2023 — fashions within the three-part docuseries discuss two separate shoots that tasked contestants with portraying ladies of various races by means of the usage of darkish make-up.

"I saved saying, 'You guys are placing me in blackface,'" cycle 13 star Jennifer An informed EW on the time, additionally alleging that the present's group pinned her hair "so they might 'fro my hair out" to finish her evolution into a lady with African heritage. "They positively didn't present any of that footage."

In an announcement to EW in 2023, a then-spokesperson for Banks mentioned that the intention of the shoot was to fight an trade the place "lighter pores and skin and straight hair had been pervasive magnificence requirements," which "perpetuated deep insecurities inside ladies." The spokesperson maintains that such shoots had been "meant to be a second celebrating and spotlighting underrepresented ideologies of magnificence — textured hair and darker pores and skin — on a world scale."

Representatives for Banks and Mok haven’t responded to EW's repeated extra requests for remark in latest weeks. EW has additionally reached out to a consultant for Derek J for remark.

Shut