Tyra Banks sues Netflix for alleged defamation over ‘America’s Next Top Model’ documentary
Model, actress and TV host Tyra Banks attends the FanDuel Party Powered by Spotify 2026 on Feb. 6, 2026, in San Francisco. (Photo by Jeff Schear/Getty Images for Spotify)
Model, actress and TV host Tyra Banks has sued Netflix for alleged defamation for airing a documentary earlier this year on her America’s Next Top Model reality TV show that she said contains a “false narrative” suggesting that a young woman on the program was sexually assaulted without consequence.
Banks alleged in her lawsuit filed in a California federal court that Netflix presented Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model as a “documentary series” and not as a manufactured drama. She participated in the filming by giving a three-and-a-half hour interview, but Banks said only 16 minutes of that was seen in the documentary.
And the show’s producers used only “what could be stripped of context and reassembled to support a false and defamatory narrative unrelated to what she actually expressed,” according to coverage on Law360.
An America’s Next Top Model contestant named Shandi Sullivan, who appeared on the second season, said she was sexually assaulted during the show’s production in Milan after becoming intoxicated. When the Netflix documentary interviewer presented Banks with a question about the incident, she is shown hesitating and glancing up as the screen fades to black. The full footage of the interview, according to the suit, shows Banks immediately saying she did remember the incident.
Mor Loushy and Daniell Sivan—the directors and executive producers—EverWonder Studio and Netflix Music are among the defendants named in the suit.
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