America’s Next Top Model winner Sophie Sumner has hit out at the show for providing her with ‘zero aftercare’ and purposefully pushing contestants’ buttons to create better ratings.
Sophie first appeared on Britain’s Next Top Model when she was 18-years-old, coming as a runner-up, before being invited to compete on cycle 18 of the American version in 2012 – which she won.
And in the wake of the release of Netflix docuseries, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, addressing the show’s numerous and famous controversies, the presenter shared a TikTok detailing her own experience on the series.
The reality competition series has been at the heart of a number of controversies over the years, from its dangerous runway challenges and problematic photoshoots to disastrous makeovers and sexual harassment allegations.
While she emphasised that she was grateful for the show and found it enjoyable, Sophie reflected on the ‘intense psychological pressure’ that contestants were put under, saying she believed the show did little to support their wellbeing.
She criticised producers for not providing her with any aftercare after her win, saying she struggled to adjust after going through such an intense experience.
America’s Next Top Model winner Sophie Sumner has hit out at the show for providing her with ‘zero aftercare’ and purposefully pushing contestants’ buttons to create better ratings (seen last month)
While she emphasised that she was grateful for the show and found it enjoyable, Sophie reflected on the ‘intense psychological pressure’ that contestants were put under, saying she believed the show did little to support their wellbeing (seen on show)
While she accused host Tyra Banks and the show bosses of intentionally taking things to ‘the extreme’, after becoming obsessed with getting ratings, at the expense of the models.
Sophie said that while she believed that Tyra started the show with the intention of championing diversity in the industry, she became ‘lost’ in the constant battle for money and views instead.
She said: ‘I just think it got completely lost in kind of power and ratings and money and advertising. I think by my season 18 they were just doing absolutely insane things just to get the ratings because they realized it was dwindling.
‘And I think what makes me sad is at the time there were a few things that were going on that you as a human just know are kind of wrong or shouldn’t be said.’
‘I understand how some things really did reflect the modeling industry as it was,’ she added. ‘You know, they’d always dye our hair, they’d change our teeth, and I do believe that did happen in the real modeling world.
‘But again it just seems like Top Model took it to the extreme and Tyra and the producers didn’t do anything to stop it.’
She opined that the #MeToo movement was ‘the biggest thing’ to impact the industry, and candidly declared: ‘I think Tyra and the crew could have been part of a change, but they weren’t.
‘I think they just accelerated a lot of negativity and toxicity of the industry to get views.’
While she accused host Tyra Banks and the show bosses of intentionally taking things to ‘the extreme’, after becoming obsessed with getting ratings, at the expense of the models
In an interview with BBC Newsbeat, Sophie said she felt the show purposefully worked to push their buttons to the detriment of its duty of care, saying: ‘We didn’t have any help on the show. It was to get the drama. It was to get the ratings.’
She reiterated that she felt Tyra ‘got swept up in a machine’ and ‘getting ratings and making money probably became the overall goal’.
While she underlined her disappointment that the supermodel didn’t wield her influence to create positive change, the way that the #MeToo movement did.
‘Could she have been the person to make the change? Of course, but other people then did that instead.’
While she said Nigel Barker and Mr. Jay are ‘just really, really lovely people’ that she still sees around New York, Sophie said she has not spoken to Tyra since the series was broadcast.
Detailing her personal experience on America’s Next Top Model, Sophie explained that the psychological pressure began from the moment she agreed to join the show.
She recalled how they were flown to Los Angeles and then placed ‘on ice’ at a hotel in the lead up to the show, during which they were not allowed to speak to each other or the outside world, which she said caused them to ‘start to slowly go mental’.
‘We were locked in a hotel for a week, they didn’t tell us how long, we didn’t know what we were doing, we didn’t know if we were even on the show’, she said.
Detailing her personal experience on America’s Next Top Model, Sophie explained that the psychological pressure began from the moment she agreed to join the show (seen in 2013)
‘You start to kind of slowly go a bit mental there, because you don’t talk to anyone, you don’t have your phone, we just had the TV and the windows didn’t open in the hotel room. And then suddenly you’re on America’s Next Top Model.’
Sophie said that she benefitted from having previously been on the British version, having already seen firsthand that being on a reality show often didn’t translate into instant fame and fortune, but that others did not.
She candidly explained: ‘I had come second in Britain’s Next Top Model and I thought it was going to change my life.
‘I thought that I was going to get an agency straight away and I didn’t. I went up to London and no agency would sign me, and I ended up working as a cocktail waitress in London.
‘And people would recognize me and they were like, “Oh my God, are you that girl from Top Model? And I was like oh my God, I felt like I’d kind of failed.’
She went on: ‘I feel like a lot of girls were sold the dream that America’s Next Top Model would make you whatever the definition of success was, famous, rich, a big model, but I kind of knew that it didn’t.’
While she said the competitive environment pitting them against each other, coupled with being in a house with no contact with the outside world meant that ‘we all went insane’.
While Sophie clarified that she enjoyed her experience, she said that looking back she ‘probably got an easy ride’ compared to others.
She said: ‘I was also very aware that a lot of the other girls were really, A) psychologically going through it and B) there was a lot of talk on our season about race, there was a lot of girls feeling discriminated against.’
And despite enjoying her time on the show, she admitted struggling a lot afterwards because there was ‘zero aftercare’, recalling how she struggled to cope after weeks of being filmed constantly and having her appearance picked apart.
She described the moment after she won: ‘I was such a mess because I was like “What just happened for the past two months of my life? I haven’t even been able to go to the toilet alone and now I’m just like it’s finished and I’m just alone and no one’s talking.”
‘And then within about eight hours I was on a plane home and then I was home and there was like zero aftercare.
‘I was a 21 year old girl who just went through something so intense and there was no help. In a competition that’s all about how you look and your body shape and your size and all that jazz.
‘And so I was really down afterwards for quite a long time. I just did not know what to do, what to do with myself, how to get myself out of that like mode of being constantly filmed. I remember that being super tricky.’
Sophie also shared another video talking through the differences between the American and British versions of the show, having been a rare contestant that appeared in both.
She stated that Britain’s Next Top Model ‘definitely cared about the girls more’, calling it ‘a lot lighter’ while America’s Next Top Model was much bigger and more psychologically intense, describing it as ‘on steroids’.
She also pointed to the stark difference the two shows had in prioritizing the girls’ welfare when it came to production staff, with America allocating one person to take care of the contestants, while Britain had six.
She said: ‘Overall, Britain’s Next Top Model was a lot fluffier, a lot lighter. It felt kind of lower stakes and then America’s Next Top Model felt intense, bigger, like we had to get things done and on schedule. It was just so much more intense.
‘The maddest thing that I still can’t get my head around is that it’s the same amount of people roughly right in Britain’s Next Top Model, and we always had two people looking after us.
‘They looked after us and they would rotate every three days, so there was three different sets of two people that would be there for our well-being, kind of like big brothers and big sisters that were there for you.
‘On America’s Next Top Model we had one. Which is wild, because she was stressed, she was with us the whole time, she had way too many girls to look after.
‘So the production on America’s Next Top Model had hundreds of people, like so many cameramen and people behind the scenes, but just one person wrangling the girls? Whereas on Britain’s Next Top Model, it was way smaller production and budget, but six people rotating looking after the girls.’
Sophie also explained how the girls on the British show would chat and hang with the crew and judges, whereas on ANTM the focus was about getting everything on film.
‘On Britain’s Next Top Model you could talk to the crew, we would hang out with them, have Thai food with them,’ Sophie recalled.
‘But America’s Next Top Model – no talking to the crew whatsoever. I would speak to them so much, they actually called a meeting where they were like, “You can’t talk to Sophie”.
‘We also spoke a lot to the judges on Britain’s. But on America’s they were very much like “Don’t talk to anyone when the cameras aren’t rolling”.
‘And on Britain’s Next Top Model, they put the cameras down. America’s Next Top Model, the cameras were always rolling. So it was psychologically more intense.’
She described how they would often be sat waiting on the bus outside the location for a photoshoot for four or five hours, which she said weighed heavily on their psyche, before being told they had just a few hours to do the entire shoot.
She concluded: ‘So I think America’s Next Top Model felt a lot more high stakes, a lot more stressful’ and added: ‘I think I would say that Britain’s Next Top Mode definitely cared about the girls more than America’s.’
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