America’s Next Top Model alum Yaya DaCosta has responded after Tyra Banks addressed popular criticisms of her reality competition series.
In a video shared via Instagram on Saturday, March 15, DaCosta, 42, directly responded to a speech delivered by Banks, 51, at the ESSENCE Black Women in Hollywood Awards late last month, where she responded to criticisms of the reality competition series. (DaCosta was a contestant on the series in 2004 and the runner-up in Cycle 3.)
“I feel compelled to speak,” the ANTM alum said in her video, adding, “The story that I had been telling for so long is a story of trauma,” with regards to her experience on the show.
DaCosta’s video included clips from the series that have prompted backlash, including Banks telling a contestant she needed to “fix” a gap in her teeth, as well as footage from the controversial “race-swapping” challenge which unfortunately saw some contestants model in Blackface.
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DaCosta acknowledged other public criticisms of the series, such as its “manipulative editing and weaponization of girls’ weaknesses” and “catalyzing body dysmorphia to eating disorders.” She also revealed that her “most shocking” experiences on the show “did not even air,” but noted that she had gained “tools” on the series that later helped in her career, such as learning to “regulate my nervous system.”
According to DaCosta, this caused “real trauma” for ANTM alums. “It wasn’t by accident,” she explained. “It was by design. The goal was entertainment over real-world modeling preparation, and especially over mental health.”
On February 27, Banks accepted the first-ever Luminary Spotlight honor at the ESSENCE Black Women in Hollywood Awards. In her speech, she addressed the show’s early push for diversity on screen amid reports of a toxic on set environment. (America’s Next Top Model premiered in May 2003.)
“You guys have no idea how hard we fought to bring the diversity to that television show at a time when it didn’t exist,” Banks said in her speech. “To show different beauties at a time when the world was like, ‘What? You casting that? And what? Was it that?’ A time when people in the fashion industry were telling me, ‘You putting the girls from the hood on your show?’ I was like, ‘Why can the girl from the trailer park become a supermodel but the girl that’s chillin’ in the park in the hood can’t?’ And we fought and we struggled and we made it happen.”
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She continued: “Did we get it right? Hell no. I said some dumb s—, but I refuse to have my legacy be about some stuff linked together on the Internet when there were 24 cycles of changing the world. We all evolve. We all get better together. And I am so excited that I, and so many of us, have opened that door for others to follow.”
DaCosta was at the awards show, but shared in her video that she was absent when Banks gave her speech. However, she ran into Banks later in the evening, and the two had “a beautiful conversation,” where they had some “small talk” and “reminisced.”
“I was so excited in this moment to walk over to her, to reach for her hands and to greet her with warmth, with gratitude, with love,” she shared. “Something that I would not have been capable of. The couple of places we’ve been in in the past we did not speak. Probably both pretended not to see each other.”
According to DaCosta, “When I saw her, I was genuinely excited, and I walked over and we had a beautiful conversation.” She added, “No, there was no explicit apology, but you could see in that [speech] she’s sick of people every once in a while bringing up these controversial clips from the show.” DaCosta continued, “I just took her into an embrace. Y’all, I held that woman and when it was time for the hug to be over, I held some more. And I took a deep breath because I wanted her to feel what it feels like to be fully forgiven, appreciated and loved.”
