Model and television personality Tyra Banks has filed a defamation lawsuit against Netflix and the directors of its docuseries ‘Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model,’ alleging that the producers manipulated her interview footage to construct a false narrative.

Background of the Lawsuit

Banks claims that she was interviewed for 3 ½ hours, during which she took responsibility for some of the show’s controversial decisions. However, the interviews were edited down to 16 minutes and manipulated ‘to support a false and defamatory narrative unrelated to what she actually expressed,’ the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit contends that the producers of the Netflix docuseries used ‘selective editing, deliberate omission, and surgical manipulation of continuous footage’ to formulate a narrative that Banks allowed a contestant to be sexually assaulted on the show, used the contestant’s trauma to drum up ratings, and then couldn’t remember it when asked during the interviews.

Banks’ lawyers wrote that she wasn’t permitted to review the docuseries until a day before its February 16 release. According to the lawsuit, she had not been contacted for fact-checking after her interviews and was not given an opportunity to respond to accusations from other participants.

Aftermath of the Docuseries Release

Since the docuseries’ release, public reaction has been ‘swift, harsh, and directed squarely at Ms. Banks’ — even her ice cream shop in Sydney, Australia, has been subject to review bombing on Google, the lawsuit read.

Banks is seeking damages in her lawsuit against Netflix, the directors Daniel Sivan and Mor Loushy, and EverWonder Studio. She’s also seeking an injunction barring the use of her image in connection with the docuseries’ soundtrack, released as an album.

Original reporting: 40/29 / KHBS (NW Arkansas) — read the source article.