Former America’s Next Top Model Eva Marcille is weighing in after the reality series was explored in a new bombshell Netflix documentary.
“I watched it and after I watched it, I was gobsmacked,” Marcille, 41, said during the Thursday, February 19, episode of CBS Mornings. “I was in awe … My mouth was wide open. To be a part of a club, and not know what’s going on in the club is crazy.”
Marcille — who appeared on America’s Next Top Model under her maiden name, Eva Pigford — said she was not asked to be a part of the docuseries, titled Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.
“They did not ask me to be on it,” she said. “It was very surprising.”
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Though she didn’t appear on camera, Marcille is mentioned by Tyra Banks in the docuseries while discussing contestants who transformed the industry.
“Being that I was the shortest girl on my season, and the idea of a Black girl and this short in the modeling business, it’s unheard of. It will never happen,” Marcille said on Thursday.
While recalling her thoughts after watching the docuseries, Marcille said it was “amazingly horrifying” to hear the stories.
“I’ve lived my experience. I’ve walked in my shoes. And though there is a level of relatability one would assume, someone having walked in the same shoes, I had no idea. Absolutely no idea. I have been asked about Tyra for 21 years,” she explained. “No matter what project I’m doing, what I’m involved in, somehow Top Model finds its way in my interview.”
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She continued, “But I didn’t understand why it was such a topic every time I interviewed with someone. I’ve done 154 projects since Top Model. It’s been 21 years.”
What stood out to Marcille while watching the docuseries was “how young” all the contestants were.
“Looking at young me, the hopefulness in my eyes and seeing that in all the other contestants. What stood out was everything I didn’t know before me,” Marcille said, explaining whether it was “just a show” to her. “It was a competition. This was a competition. This was an opportunity for me to win $100,000 and to show the world that even though I’m shorter, even though I’m not your average looking model, I have the goods. I have the chops, I have been vouched by Tyra, I’ve been put through the rigors. I mean, we did a two and a half month boot camp.”
But the reality now is different. “It was a television show, I learned later, with a competition in it. But it was absolutely a TV show,” she said.
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Marcille went on to claim that the producers and judges “absolutely” played a role in creating the tense environment.
“That environment could not exist without producers aiding and embedding what was going on,” Marcille said. “I’ve done reality now on every level. Housewives, I mean — I don’t know what is going on in someone’s life unless the producers tell me. It’s a part of how this thing works.”
While reflecting on Banks’ impact, Marcille added, “At the time, we were kids trying to find our dreams realized and actualized by a woman that we believed could do that for us. And if she could see it in us, then the world could see it in us because the world sees it in her. So it was just a TV show to win a competition.”
Despite the shocking revelations in docuseries — including runner-up Shandi Sullivan’s claims about being sexually assaulted — Marcille acknowledged that her career is “thanks to Top Model.”
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“What I will say is I will never fail to thank Tyra,” she said. “What Tyra set out to do in this business, I will always say — and especially for Top Model, initially — she set out to change the world, to change what the modeling industry looked like, sound[ed] like, felt like and expected. And she did that for me.”
Marcille went on to address whether Banks — who is facing criticism after the docuseries’ release — owes “people more” than what she said so far.
“I saw the show. She apologized a million times,” Marcille said. “But an apology to the person that you wronged is only as good as they could appreciate it. And so for the young girls who were sexually assaulted … for the young girls that now have eating disorders or look at themselves and never feel beautiful — that little girl in them that will always live in the woman that is them — there is no sorry, I think, that’s big enough to truly feel and heal that kind of hurt.”
Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model is out now on Netflix.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
