Despite winning cycle 10 of America’s Next Top Model in 2008, Whitney Thompson did not have a positive experience on the show.
In an interview with People published on Friday, February 13, Thompson, 38, explained that being a plus-size model on the hit competition show was difficult, noting she wasn’t even given clothes in her size.
“I just pretended like it didn’t bother me, but, and I’m sure most of the girls would do this, I would cry in the shower every day because the shower is the only place that the cameramen couldn’t come, so that was your safe place to release and be like, ‘Why are they doing this to me?’ ” she recalled. “I knew that they were trying to poke me and get something out of me, so I just played it cool, like, ‘That’s fine. We’ll just duct tape my dress. No worries.’”
In the upcoming documentary Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model — which drops on Netflix February 16 — Thompson shares more insight into how she was treated while filming the reality show.
“I would go to set, and they would have nothing that would fit me,” she revealed in the documentary, according to People. “They would have to cut open the back and clamp it. It just makes you feel like s**t to not be the right size. It was just demeaning.”
Thompson also shared in the documentary that when a model spoke up, she faced consequences.
“But there was a model named Toccara who was on previously, and she went to set, they didn’t have clothes that fit her, and she kind of, you know, let them know how she felt about that. And she got cut that week,” Thompson remarked, per People. “They could easily have gotten clothes that were my size, but that was a choice that they made, and I dealt with that as well as I could because if they see weakness, you’re gone.”
According to Netflix, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model features interviews with the show’s creator and host Tyra Banks, producer Ken Mok, former judges Jay Manuel, J. Alexander (aka Miss J), and Nigel Barker. In addition to Thompson, past contestants Giselle Samson, Shannon Stewart, Shandi Sullivan, Dani Evans, and Keenyah Hill also appear in the doc.
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