Netflix has filed a motion to dismiss Tyra Banks’ lawsuit regarding her participation in Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, Us can report.
The streaming platform filed court documents on Friday, August 14, asking the court to throw out Banks’ defamation claims.
“Directors Daniel Sivan and Mor Loushy are respected documentarians who thoroughly interviewed the people behind America’s Next Top Model,“ a spokesperson for Netflix told Us in a Friday statement. “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.”
The rep added, “We stand behind Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model and will continue to vigorously defend it.”
Banks, 52, named Netflix in a lawsuit filed in June, where she claimed the streamer edited her Reality Check interviews to support a false narrative. (Banks participated in the documentary about the history, popularity and controversies surrounding ANTM.)
“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,” Banks’ filing read. “There are aspects of the show for which Ms. Banks takes accountability and she wanted ANTM viewers to hear that from her directly.”
The court docs further claimed, “Going into her interview, Ms. Banks did not limit the ANTM topics the interviewer could ask. During a three-and-a-half-hour interview, Ms. Banks answered questions about the show’s groundbreaking history, including criticism of decisions she would approach differently today.”
Banks addressed Netflix’s motion in a statement shared with Us.
“Tyra’s lawsuit raises a simple question: can viewers trust that a documentary presented as fact fairly represents what happened and what people actually said? Netflix’s response only underscores the issue,” Banks’ attorneys Tom Locke and Clare Locke said in a statement. “It points to the editing of reality television to defend the editing of this documentary. No one disputes that documentaries are edited. The question is whether those edits materially distorted the truth. This is not about Tyra being ‘dissatisfied’ with an edit, nor is it about wanting creative control. It is about whether viewers were given an accurate representation of her words and the facts.”
The Lockes continued, “Netflix has Tyra’s complete, unedited interview. If Netflix stands behind the accuracy of its documentary, it should release that interview in full and let viewers judge for themselves. Let the public compare what Tyra actually said with what Netflix chose to show. The facts are the facts and, here, the facts are recorded and being hidden by Netflix.”
Despite Banks’ alleged issues with her portrayal, the Reality Check production team had previously been candid about her inclusion.
“From the beginning, this documentary took an incredible amount of trust,” executive producer Vanessa Golembewski told Tudum in a February interview. “Tyra’s perspective was always important to the series, but it was just as important that her involvement was as an interview subject only. She afforded us the same level of trust as everyone else who participates in the documentary.”
Golembewski further claimed that Banks “never asked to have any creative input or control” prior to the doc’s premiere.
“She’s seeing the footage for the first time alongside the rest of the world,” the producer said, echoing former ANTM creative director Jay Manuel’s sentiments.
“Tyra ultimately chose to participate without creative control,” Manuel, 54, told the outlet. “To me, that speaks to growth.”
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