'Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model' Review: A Reflection of its Time That Hasn’t Aged Well
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
By Romey Norton - February 20, 2026
“Reality TV is a bitch”. Netflix’s three-part documentary series Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model arrives with immaculate timing and a slightly raised eyebrow. Premiering globally on February 16, 2026, it revisits a reality-TV institution that once dominated early-2000s pop culture, before becoming a shorthand for excess, cruelty, and chaotic entertainment. This series is nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake and jumping on the exposing reality TV bandwagon (Jerry Springer, Fights Camera, Action! And Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser), but audiences still love it.
For anyone who somehow missed the phenomenon the first time around, America’s Next Top Model began as a glossy competition promising to transform unknown young women into fashion stars. Available in 180 countries, week by week, contestants were photographed, critiqued, and eliminated under the watchful eye of judges who wielded both industry clout and theatrical sharpness. But as Reality Check quickly makes clear, the show’s appeal was never just about fashion. It thrived on confrontation, humiliation, and emotional volatility.
Across its three episodes, the documentary peels back the layers of both what audiences saw and what they didn’t. Like all good documentaries there's ample blend of archival footage with candid interviews from former contestants, judges, and producers - and most importantly Tyra Banks herself. Many of these voices are speaking on record in this way for the first time, and their reflections add weight to moments that once played as throwaway TV drama. Scenes that were edited for shock or humour now read very differently when contextualised by those who lived through them.
Watching a lot of the clips and analysing them, with the people discussing how they felt during that time, is nothing short of awful. You’ll cringe, feel ashamed and then hopeful the industry and TV isn’t as bad as this anymore. There is one story which is heart-breaking, about a girl who engaged in sexual activity, extremely intoxicated, and they made her out to be a cheater, and filmed her calling and telling her boyfriend. This feels exploitative and crossing serious lines. The only excuse they have is “we didn’t show everything” and “it made for good TV”.
Contestants describe the psychological toll of being isolated, critiqued, and reshaped for entertainment, often while very young. Producers discuss the pressures of delivering “good television” in an era before robust conversations about mental health or duty of care. Tyra Banks takes us through her life as a model, why she created this TV series and why she’s speaking up now.
Everyone's interviews feel fresh, not scripted, and as if they’re giving their honest opinions. Many both defend the show, but realise how different TV was back then to now and how Next Top Model was not good to its contestants. A lot do defend Tyra, saying that did try to help them and change the industry, whilst others say she wasn’t supportive and just like the rest of the modelling industry, at the time.
The series ties up nicely by letting the model contestants and the three hosts alongside Tyra discuss what’s happened to them since the show and what they’re doing with their lives. No surprise, the majority left the industry and have roles from owning an animal sanctuary to rebuilding your life after a stroke. Everyone seemed to have moved on, and whilst they wouldn’t change a thing, they recognise how toxic this series was/is.
Ultimately, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model is about reality TV, who has power, who doesn’t, and how easily it can be abused when cameras are rolling. It’s an absorbing, thoughtfully assembled documentary that understands its subject’s cultural impact without excusing its damage. For long-time fans, it’s a sobering rewatch of something once consumed uncritically. For newcomers, it’s a revealing case study in how far reality television has gone, and how far it might still be willing to go for our attention. The show asks whether the entertainment value justified the emotional cost, and whether the industry has truly learned anything since.
'Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model' is available to watch on Netflix
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