Tyra Banks is set to make her return to America’s Next Top Model, but there’s one major moment the model mogul has to address before returning to host the long-running modeling reality series.
In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Banks got real about that infamous “we were all rooting for you” moment between herself and cycle four contestant Tiffany Richardson.
The blow up occurred during an elimination ceremony with Richardson in the bottom two. “It was such an emotional, visceral moment for me. I had so much love for this girl,” Banks told BuzzFeed News. The mogul didn’t go into detail about what set her off, but did say that she and the America’s Next Top Model team had invested “so much into her” and discussed things with her in private.
Richardson, who spoke to BuzzFeed News for a piece in January, dove into her side of things and also shared that she felt judges often critiqued contestants in a way meant to humiliate them. “Every time I did something wrong, I’d shut down a little bit more, and it just got to the point where I was over it. I felt like we were just there to be humiliated. It was like, ‘What the fuck [else] could we do to them?'”
Banks says that what contestants face on the show is nothing compared to what they will face in the modeling industry. “The things I have heard — it makes you insecure about things that you weren’t even insecure about.”
With Banks set to head back to the franchise that started the fashion competition craze, we’re sure that there will be many more memorable moments in the upcoming season.