Former America’s Next Top Model contestant Alexandra Underwood is commenting on the reality TV show’s controversial 2010 “pendulum” challenge that left her with cuts and bruises.
“In the midst of it, I was mortified,” Underwood told Entertainment Weekly in an interview published on Saturday, February 21. “It was inappropriate for the show to put me in that position. I was on ANTM, not American Gladiator.”
During 2010’s cycle 14, contestants were asked to navigate swinging pendulums while walking the full length of a makeshift runway. Underwood slipped and fell off the stage after she was hit by one of the swinging pendulums during the competition. The model says she “cut [her] knees up” during the fall.
The View cohost Whoopi Goldberg offered Underwood an apology on air after Netflix released its scathing new docuseries Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, which included a clip of Goldberg laughing at the model after she took a tumble on national television.
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“Here’s something I want to do, because in this documentary there’s a clip from our show, where I had showed the ladies this thing. Now, this was, to me, one of the funniest things I had ever seen in my life,” Goldberg said at the time, adding that she “wanted to apologize, because there’s a person who got knocked off there, and her name is Alexandra Underwood from cycle 14.”
She continued, “I’m sorry I laughed at this. I couldn’t help it, it was funny as hell. But, I am telling you it’s one of the funniest things, If I had to point to something, it is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.”
Underwood told Entertainment Weekly she doesn’t believe Goldberg owed her an apology.
“I don’t feel like she needed to apologize,” the model told the outlet. “I remember laughing at Whoopi laughing at me. Her reaction gave me permission to laugh at it, too. She gave me permission to laugh and find it funny, because to me, it wasn’t.”
The infamous on-camera moment was the second time the model had fallen during the same day of competition — she also fell while walking down a flight of stairs.
“I was in that ridiculously tight dress in those super high heels, going down stairs,” she recalled. “I was already shaken up going into the runway with the pendulum, so I was completely already shaken up and worried about getting axed.”
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Many former contestants and America’s Next Top Model winners have spoken out in the wake of Netflix’s documentary, which highlighted the show’s most controversial moments during its 25 cycles.
“Welp the documentary is out and now you know more of my story…after all of the years the Top Model girls and what we went through were never forgotten,” ANTM cycle 2 finalist Shandi Sullivan wrote via Facebook on February 16. “At the age of 43, I continue to struggle with it; always smiling. That’s why I took this opportunity. Knowing that Tyra [Banks] didn’t have control over my narrative, that the director and producers here had my back…that’s why I did it. I did it for me. Because I mattered and I still do! The love I have felt today has been immense. Thank you to everyone that heard me.”
