Back in her America’s Next Top Model days, Tyra Banks used to love to tell viewers and contestants that “every hallway is a runway.” Looks like when it comes to supermodel and her legal showdown with Netflix and the directors of the Reality Check docuseries, every filing is a battlefront too.
In today’s case, a battlefield with video receipts.
Facing an effort by the streamer to toss out Banks’ June filed defamation suit over her depiction in the Daniel Sivan and Mor Loushy helmed three-parter, the ANTM creator and her Clare Locke lawyers hit back hard Tuesday with an opposition filing full of some pretty stark video to back up their case. Evidence that sure looks like Netflix and the Reality Check filmmakers “through selective deletion, rearrangement, and other editing techniques” distinctly altered Banks’ words and reaction.
Specifically, Banks and her attorneys point to the de facto non-response the model is shown giving to whether or not she knew about a sexual assault of ANTM participant Shandi Sullivan. Today’s filing and accompanying videos also spotlights a 2004 chat with Sullivan over infidelity — a conversation that in Reality Check comes across as instigated by Banks.
Take a look at what was shown in Reality Check and what was actually filmed:
In case you missed it above, the opposition filing describes the comparison: “After conveying to viewers Sullivan’s story of sexual assault, Banks was asked on camera, ‘You remember the story with Shandi?’ Banks nodded and said, ‘Um … I do remember her story.’ Episode 1 airs the question. It airs the “Um.” It removes the nod from between them, cuts the answer, and goes to black. Banks is left apparently unable to say whether she remembers the assault of a contestant on her own show. The nod was not cut off. It was cut out.”
Citing “willful misconduct,” today’s opposition to Netflix and the directors’ s anti-SLAPP motion insists the “Defendants held the full footage, understood that it contradicted the impressions they were creating, and cut it for the purpose of conveying those false impressions.”
To that, there’s the apparent cheat on that cheating conversation from 22 years ago:
In today’s L.A. Superior Court filing, Banks’ team say: “As originally broadcast, Sullivan asks Banks whether she has ever cheated or been cheated on. Banks answers, sees Sullivan tearing up, and asks whether she is okay. The Docuseries deletes Sullivan’s question, reverses the order, and adds a commentator to tell viewers that “it is not a coincidence that she starts talking about cheating” and that she has “producers in her ear.” Sullivan raised the subject. The Docuseries say Banks did.”
Suing Netflix, 89 Blocks Holdings, EverWonder Studio, Netflix Music, Loushy and Sivan for false light, defamation by implication, breach of contract and false endorsement, Banks received a lot of blowback after Reality Check dropped in February. Fallout that resulted in “loss of future business opportunities, loss of business income, other compounding losses,” “severe reputational harm” and “significant mental anguish,” Banks claimed earlier in the summer in her initial complaint.
With both sides dug in, the matter of the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher represented Netflix’s dismissal will be heard in court in DTLA on October 30.
Asked for a response to Banks’ filing today, Netflix simply presented the statement that it released over two months ago when the all started.
Tuesday, like before, a Netflix spokesperson said: “Directors Daniel Sivan and Mor Loushy are respected documentarians who thoroughly interviewed the people behind America’s Next Top Model. Tyra Banks was given the opportunity to speak openly about her experience and the creators fairly presented her perspective alongside those of every other participant shown in this documentary. We stand behind Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model and will continue to vigorously defend it.”
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