Netflix plans to “vigorously defend” the doc, arguing that it “fairly presented her perspective alongside those of every other participant”
Credit: Netflix
NEED TO KNOW
- Netflix filed a motion to dismiss Tyra Banks’ defamation lawsuit, citing her agreement granting editorial control to doc creators
- Banks claims Netflix’s Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model misrepresented her through selective editing
- Netflix is now defending the documentary’s portrayal, arguing that “the creators fairly presented her perspective”
Netflix has filed a motion to dismiss Tyra Banks’ defamation lawsuit against the streamer and its docuseries about America’s Next Top Model.
The former America’s Next Top Model host, 52, filed a lawsuit against the streaming service in June, in which she claimed that the portrayal of her reality show in Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model was defamatory and edited to support a false narrative.
According to court documents obtained by PEOPLE, Netflix filed a motion to dismiss the suit on Friday, Aug. 14, arguing that Banks’ complaints are “about ordinary editorial decisions.”
“After the interview, [Banks] signed an agreement granting the filmmakers the right to edit her interview footage, acknowledging she had ‘no right to review or approve’ the finished documentary, and releasing claims arising from it — including for defamation and false light,” Netflix’s motion reads.
“She now alleges the documentary…defames her — not because it says anything false about her, but because she wanted advance notice of what another interviewee would say, more of her interview included, and her perspective presented differently.”
Credit: Darren Gerrish/Getty
Netflix and EverWonder Studio have also filed an anti-SLAPP motion, a legal tool intended to dismiss lawsuits that are without merit.
A Netflix spokesperson told PEOPLE in a statement that they plan to “vigorously defend” the docuseries and those behind it.
“Directors Daniel Sivan and Mor Loushy are respected documentarians who thoroughly interviewed the people behind America’s Next Top Model,” the streamer’s statement reads. “Tyra Banks was given the opportunity to speak openly about her experience and the creators fairly presented her perspective alongside those of every other participant shown in this documentary. We stand behind Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model and will continue to vigorously defend it.”
Sources from the company also told PEOPLE that since the beginning of the docuseries’ production process, the creative team was candid about the importance of Banks’ perspective while also being clear that she would have no editorial control over the series.
PEOPLE has reached out to Banks’ attorney for comment.
In Banks’ lawsuit, which was obtained by PEOPLE in June, the model asked for a jury trial to determine the “appropriate” amount she should receive in damages after alleging that the docuseries manufactured drama and constructed narratives through selective editing and deliberate omission.
“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. “There are aspects of the show for which Ms. Banks takes accountability, and she wanted ANTM viewers to hear that from her directly.”
The lawsuit goes on to claim that just 16 minutes of her lengthy interview was used in the docuseries, and that the clips were “stripped of context and reassembled to support a false and defamatory narrative unrelated to what she actually expressed.”
“[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,” it alleges. “That narrative about Ms. Banks is a complete fabrication—one that Netflix streamed to a global audience of millions.”
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Banks was the host of America’s Next Top Model for 23 cycles, the first of which aired in 2003.
The Netflix documentary takes viewers through the history of the series, beginning with Banks first conceiving the idea with the help of Ken Mok, who co-executive-produced the show with her and also took part in the docuseries.
In the three-part project, Banks was asked to address head-on some of the more controversial moments from the show’s tenure, including cycle 2 contestant Shandi Sullivan’s alleged sexual assault, which took place during an episode where the models were in Italy, and male models came over to their house.
In the Netflix docuseries, she says she was blacked out at the time and accused the reality show’s production team of framing a shot of a male model getting into bed with her as a cheating scandal, rather than what she considered to be assault.
When asked about Sullivan in Reality Check, Banks claimed she had no involvement in production and the editing of storylines, even though Mok said that the contestants were all made aware that everything would be filmed — including “the good, the bad and everything in between.”
In the lawsuit, Banks claims that she was unaware that Sullivan classified what happened to her as sexual assault.
“The implication is devastating and deliberate: that Tyra Banks cannot even remember the story of the woman who was assaulted on her show,” the lawsuit says. “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.”
In response, Netflix alleged that “Banks cannot plausibly have been surprised that Sullivan was extremely drunk. The underlying ANTM episode itself makes this clear. And the Documentary never suggests Banks was on set or in a position to intervene, covered it up, or later forgot about it. It attributes the decision to scale back the original ANTM footage to executive producer Ken Mok and broadcast standards—not Banks.”
“A documentary expressly showing Banks remembering does not imply that she forgot,” it adds.
“Banks understands editorial discretion,” Netflix argues. “She created, hosted, and executive produced 24 seasons of ANTM, making the same kinds of editorial decisions she now attacks—what footage to include, what to omit, and how to present competing narratives.”
“The Documentary simply turned that editorial lens back on ANTM and Banks,” the motion adds. “Her disagreement with the resulting portrayal does not make it defamatory.”
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