Janice Dickinson: Tyra Banks “Was a Hardcore B—h”
Janice Dickinson, a judge on America’s Next Top Model for the show’s first four cycles, stated on E!’s Dirty Rotten Scandals that “the producers on [ANTM], especially Tyra, were begging me to be harsher and cruel, like Simon Cowell was on American Idol.
Reflecting on her experience, Janice continued, Tyra “put the girls down for everything—their hairstyles, the way they walked, the way they held their face. It really tore their ego and identity. I was there and I saw it for four seasons. She was a hardcore b—h.”
As shown in archival footage, Tyra—who declined to comment for the E! series—told E! in 2003 that hiring Janice was “100 percent” her idea, but she had “no idea” the former supermodel was “going to be as honest and tell it as it is, as she was [doing].”
In a 2009 interview with ABC News, when Tyra was asked why she thought Janice had called her “righteous” and said she lacked respect for her co-judges, Tyra replied with a smile, “Why do you think?”
When the interviewer suggested Janice was “jealous,” Tyra responded, “I didn’t say that word, you said it.”
However, Janice has also praised Tyra, calling her “a tough businesswoman” who “does great TV” on OWN’s Where Are They Now? in 2015.
“I’ve said some pretty bad things about her in the past because I’d been fired, and I was very hurt that I’d been fired, so I acted out,” the Celebrity Big Brother alum stated at the time. “That’s not when I acted in a sober-like fashion. I really apologize to you, Tyra, for the things I might’ve said to you.”
