Episode 37: Why Did We Think "America’s Next Top Model" Was Normal?

Send us Fan MailWe start with a little life catch-up — how the year is shaping up, where we’re headed, and how two very different Valentine’s Days somehow both ended peacefully (flowers in a custom vase vs. horror movies and shawarma).Then we get into Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model — the documentary that forced us to rewatch a cultural moment we once accepted as normal… and now find deeply disturbing. From body shaming and humiliating photo shoots to exploitation disguised as “tough love,” we unpack the moments that hit hardest, including the Burger King comment, the smoking and dead fish shoots, Ebony’s sexuality being outed on camera, Keenyah being labeled “gluttony,” and the contestant forced into a gun-themed shoot after her mother was paralyzed by gun violence.We talk about Miss Jay’s heartbreaking stroke and recovery, the shocking revelation that Tyra never visited her in the hospital, Shandi’s filmed breakdown in Milan, and the infamous Tyra-Tiffany meltdown — all through the lens of adulthood, power, and accountability.This isn’t about canceling our childhood. It’s about reckoning with what we normalized — and why so many women were taught that pain was the price of success.