Kelly Cutrone has jumped into the middle of the new backlash around Tyra Banks, defending the former host after Netflix released Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model and saying Banks was treated unfairly in the series. Cutrone said Banks “got done dirty on that f*cking documentary,” and added that she had already turned down several invitations to take part in it.

The comments matter now because the documentary has reopened old wounds around America's Next Top Model just as former figures from the franchise are being asked to relive it again. For readers searching now, the answer is simple: this is the latest public response to a film that has put Banks, the show and the people who worked around them back under a hard light.

Cutrone did not stop at defending Banks. She also went after Jay Manuel, criticizing him for joining the documentary and continuing to speak critically about Banks. Manuel, who worked alongside Banks for 18 cycles before leaving in 2012, had said in the film that “sometimes, not always, it was not her best shot.” That push and pull matters because it shows the documentary did not just revisit a past show; it reopened the split among the people who helped build it.

The new scrutiny has also pulled other familiar names back into the frame. Former contestant Tiffany Richardson accused Banks of bullying her after the documentary was released, while Banks herself acknowledged in the series, “I went too far. You know, I lost it.” Miss J. Alexander, who left the franchise with Manuel and Nigel Barker in 2012, also disclosed in the documentary that a 2022 stroke left him paralyzed from the waist down. Those revelations give the film its emotional weight, even as its cast members disagree over what it fairly captured.

That disagreement may now matter more than the film itself. Banks teased plans earlier this year for America's Next Top Model to return for Cycle 25, the first new season since 2018, but the documentary has made any comeback harder to discuss without revisiting the show’s most damaging moments. Whether Banks, Netflix or other former franchise figures answer again is the next thing readers will be watching, because the story is no longer just about the past — it is about who gets to define it now.