Yaya DaCosta, a contestant from cycle 3 of America's Next Top Model took to her Instagram account to share her thoughts on host Tyra Banks' speech about the show's controversies.
Compared to most other seasons, cycle 3 was among the least shocking and outrageous with the most intense photoshoot of the season being one where the models posed with a live tarantula, but Yaya DaCosta still took a moment to share her thoughts on her experience with the show and wat she thought about Tyra Banks' speech about the show's legacy.
In her speech, Tyra Banks admitted that she had done some "dumb s---" during her time hosting America's Next Top Model, but that she felt like the fact that they had created something so unique and diverse made their missteps worth the mistakes made along the way. And in her response to the speech, cycle 3 runner-up Yaya DaCosta seemed to agree with her.
"The story I'd been telling for so long was a story of trauma," Yaya DaCosta said in her Instagram video after revealing that she hadn't spoken to Tyra Banks since 2004, the same year that ANTM cycle 3 was filmed. She went on to talk about the fact that the series has become known in recent years for its many controversies, from photoshoots where the models were race-swapped to manipulative choices by the editors and producers and the judges purposely weaponizing the contestants' insecurities in order to make good TV.
"It wasn't by accident. It was by design. The goal was entertainment over real-world modeling preparation, and especially over mental health," Yaya DaCosta said of the fact that all of the things that ANTM has gotten backlash for in recent years was very much done on purpose and was more in order to create TV than it actually was to prepare the contestants for their hopeful future as models.
But, Yaya DaCosta says that she doesn't entirely fault the series for some of the more questionable things it did in order to create a good TV show. In her Instagram video, she went on to defend the fact that the show was so wildly successful because of the outrageous scenarios the contestants were put into and the scandalous things the judges said.
The model and actress continued on by pointing out that her season and many of the seasons that aged poorly were aired in the early- and mid-2000s, meaning that times truly have changed and things that were acceptable then are no longer acceptable now.
"Yes, things change. Like she said, we all evolve. Society as a whole is shifting, and so no wonder we as individuals are shifting. Let's not pretend the show wasn't wildly successful, because its audience was right there on the judging table," Yaya DaCosta said in her video.
"We all evolve. We're all doing the best we can at all times with the resources that we have. It doesn't mean that we accept abuse, but we know that everyone is just trying to get their human needs met," Yaya DaCosta said in the video and continued on to say that she felt like it was courageous of Tyra Banks to use her speech at the 2025 Essence Black Women in Hollywood Awards to respond to the criticism and backlash she's been on the receiving end of for the past few years.
Although Yaya DaCosta said that she's forgiven Tyra Banks for her negative experience on ANTM and that she feels like the good that Tyra Banks did on the show -- like casting transgender model Isis King in 2008's cycle 11 or featuring plus sized models throughout the show's run -- did more good than the bad, not all the models from ANTM's past feel that way.
Cycle 13's Jennifer An has previously spoken up about the fact that she felt uncomfortable with some of the more controversial challenges, like one in which they were put in makeup and body paint in order to darken their skin and change their race.
"I kept saying, 'You guys are putting me in blackface,'" Jennifer An recalled in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. In the interview, she went on to say that she felt like she had no choice but to let it happen because she didn't want to put her time on ANTM at risk or potentially be sent home for not participating in the competition. "I know that this is wrong, this is uncomfortable with me, nobody asked if I was okay with this, but I also realize that I'm in this competition state. Like, what can I do? I have no say over anything... once the cameras are on you in that way, you feel like you have to perform and not cause an issue, because the history of the show is, if you cause an issue, you get kicked off."