Photo: Monty Brinton/CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
Time doesn’t heal all wounds, and sometimes it just makes them worse. Tiffany Richardson is still understandably upset about her time on America’s Next Top Model, especially after the release of the Netflix docuseries Reality Check, which looks back on the show’s controversies and impact. In a now-deleted Instagram post, Richardson, who was on the receiving end of one of Tyra Banks’s most memed and discussed moments, called Banks a “bully” and claimed she was “lying” in the docuseries. “You know how you treated me the whole time off and on camera, YOU WAS A BULLY!!!” Richardson wrote. “You treated me like shit and said the nastiest things about me and my son.”
In one of the most infamous moments on America’s Next Top Model, Banks screamed at Richardson for seemingly not taking the competition seriously. “I have never in my life yelled at a girl like this. When my mother yelled at me like this, it’s because she loves me,” Banks yelled in the 2005 episode. “I was rooting for you. We were all rooting for you.”
In the series, Banks claims to have been emotionally invested in Richardson’s success and took it personally when she felt Richardson wasn’t taking the show seriously. Richardson auditioned in cycle three, but after an ensuing fight, she did not make the final 14; she was allowed to return the following season after taking anger-management classes. “I went too far. You know, I lost it,” Banks explains in Reality Check. “It was probably bigger than her. It was family, friends, society, Black girls, all the challenges that we have. So many people saying that we’re not good enough. I think all that was in that moment.”
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