Whitney Thompson Exposes The ‘ANTM’ Reality That Cameras Never Showed

Whitney Thompson is pulling back the curtain on her time contained in the “America’s Next Top Model” house, and the image she paints isn’t glamorous. Ahead of Netflix’s upcoming documentary “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model,” the trailblazing winner is revisiting the emotional toll, body scrutiny, and behind-the-scenes moments that defined her historic win and nearly broke her along the way in which.

As the primary plus-size winner of “America’s Next Top Model,” Thompson made history when she won Cycle 10 in 2008. But behind the milestone moment, she says the experience often felt stacked against her.

Thompson, who was just 20 years old and a size 6 when she entered the competition, revealed that something as basic as wardrobe became a source of humiliation and frustration. She told PEOPLE that not having proper clothes for plus-size contestants “felt intentional,” leaving her feeling singled out reasonably than supported.

With cameras rolling nearly nonstop, Thompson said privacy was almost nonexistent, apart from one place. “I just pretended prefer it didn’t hassle me, but, and I’m sure a lot of the girls would do that, I might cry within the shower each day,” she admitted. “Since the shower is the one place that the cameramen couldn’t come, in order that was your protected place to release and be like, “Why are they doing this to me?”’

Despite the emotional toll, Thompson said she made a conscious alternative not to present producers what they were pushing for, telling the outlet, “I knew that they were attempting to poke me and get something out of me, so I just played it cool, like, ‘That is tremendous. We’ll just duct tape my dress. No worries.”’

While the challenges were tough, Thompson said the judging process itself was even harder to endure. She didn’t mince words when describing the experience, calling it a “nightmare” and revealing just how intense the pressure became. “I took Xanax before every judging,” she admitted. “You’re standing there for eight, nine hours under those hot lights waiting for people to inform you that something is mistaken with the way you look. It was emotionally exhausting.”

At the middle of all of it was the show’s creator and host, Tyra Banks, whose panel critiques became a defining and sometimes painful a part of the competition.

Whilst the modeling industry began embracing fuller figures, Thompson says the definition of “plus-size” remained rigid and unrealistic. She explained that acceptance often got here with conditions that didn’t align with real bodies or real people.

“We’d go along with our pads to castings and photo shoots, and the padding would make our waist larger, our hips larger, but we might still have the identical jawline, arms and ankles,” Thompson revealed. “You would have a belly, but you continue to needed to have a cut jawline.”

In line with Thompson, inclusivity often felt performative, a trend reasonably than a metamorphosis. because the industry clung to narrow beauty standards under the guise of progress.

Despite winning “ANTM” and constructing a successful profession afterward, Thompson says the label of “reality TV star” followed her, and never at all times in a superb way.

She explained that in an industry obsessive about anonymity, being recognizable could cost her jobs. “You were buying who I used to be on ‘Top Model,’” Thompson said. “If a brand wants a lady to simply show clothes and so they don’t need someone [recognizable in a catalog] because that takes away from their product, then you definitely’re not going to get that job.”

Now, with the Netflix documentary “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model” set to revisit the franchise’s legacy, Thompson’s reflections feel like just the tip of the iceberg in a much larger conversation.