On this episode, we're continuing to look into ANTM psychological evaluations and how they were really used.

If you haven't listened to our first episode on the psyche Valves, go back and listen to that.

And before I go on, I want to say that this episode is particularly dark.

We're talking about trauma, including sexual assault and physical abuse.

We're also talking about suicide and suicidal ideation.

Now onto the episode.

While I was doing interviews for this show, I asked every model I spoke to what they were told the ANTM psyche vowl was for.

Here's what Psycho twenty four is.

Gina Turner said, they.

Were explaining on a stage what the use of the psyche yowls were for, and it was just like, just so we can understand you and get to know you better and just make this a great experience.

They didn't really say it was to manipulate you, or to think ahead of you, or to think before you.

Could, or to put together a certain narrative.

But once she got cast on the show, that's exactly how her psyche vole was used.

Gina had a traumatic childhood.

She said her mother struggled with drug addiction and because of that Gina was in and out of foster care as an adult.

She experienced sexual assault, in suicidal ideation.

She told the show psychologists all of this.

Gina expected that what she told them would stay in those rooms, that it was all necessary information to ensure everyone's safety.

Gina was cast on the show, but once the camera started rolling, she discovered that those deeply traumatic experiences she shared in her psyche Vile had been given to A and TM producers.

Gina had a whirlwin of a season.

She was eliminated, brought back, eliminated again, then saved, and went on to become one of two finalists, only to lose the competition in the finale.

After one of those eliminations, the producers pulled for an exit interview.

They interviewed me for seven hours.

They caught me in a room with an interviewer, a sound guy, and a cameraman.

The majority of that interview was them poking and prodding at me and asking me questions about, you know, how traumatizing my childhood was, and like things I've gone through with my mom, and like being in and out of foster care, and how was it, you know, having a mom who you know struggled with drug addiction and what did that.

Do to you?

For legal reasons, I have to say this.

We can't confirm what Gina is saying about her mom here, but according to Gina, she shared this with the A and TM psychologists and the show producers brought it up in this confessional.

Gina says she started to shut down, but the producers didn't stop until they got the reaction they wanted.

Then the conversation very quickly turned into them talking about personal traumas and like my mental health and me talking about being suicidal.

And I just remember, for hours and hours on end, they just kept focusing on me being suicidal, and it's like, I just want to talk about something happy.

I don't want to talk about growing up in foster care.

I don't want to talk about what it's like to see my mom smoke crack through a doorway.

I don't want to I don't want to talk about any of that shit.

And like it was specifically about the suicidal thing.

I was exhausted, I was physically self exhausted, and.

I remember putting my handsmo it and I was like, I don't want to talk about it anymore, and I'm crying.

I wanted to an American on some Model.

I thought I could do it.

I don't want to talk about it.

Anymore, but that is literally the clip that they used for how I emotionally responded for losing the competition, and that will forever stick with me, like my exit from that show visually, at least the way it was presented was actually me talking about being suicidal.

Gina would be the last Top Model contestant to experience this kind of pressure and manipulation because that clip we just heard was from the final episode of A and TM ever made after fifteen years, the show went off the air in twenty eighteen, and they closed it out the same way they started.

They still couldn't put me in a positive light.

They still couldn't empower me.

They still tried to like keep me boxed into this like poor pitiful underdog girl, And for that, I can say, fuck them.

Yeah, I want to beyond some.

You want to beyond some?

To be on.

Welcome to the Curse of America's Next Top Model.

I'm Bridget or I'm Strong.

On this episode, we're continuing our deep dive into ANTM psychological evaluations.

Last episode, you heard the models say they were told their conversations with the show psychologists were to make sure they were a safe choice for the show.

They told the psychologists their deepest, darkest secrets because that's what they were asked to do.

Like Gina, most contestants thought they were speaking to the psychologists in confidence, but they were wrong.

I've talked to contestants who say their traumatic experiences were later used by producers to manipulate them for the cameras.

The fact that producers were even allowed to do that was buried deep in the contestants' contracts.

And then there's the lingering question about the real purpose of the psyche Vow.

There are several contestants whose trauma history and history with suicidal ideation should have gotten them red flagged by the show psychologists.

After A and TM, some of those contestants turned to drugs and alcohol, and one even took her own life.

In the contract the contestants sign, they waived their rights to confidentiality, meaning if the psychologists unearthed something in the psyche Vow that made a potential cast member a danger, they had the permission to share with producers, which makes sense, But they also had permission to share anything else they found out in the evaluations.

The contract says quote information obtained by producers may be used for purposes of selecting participants and in connection with the program in general, including but not limited to the production of the program.

That language is pretty vague, but that one line gave producers the clearance to use what was shared in the psyche vow to produce A and TM.

If I saw it the way it was written in the contract, I don't think I would connect the dots, and most of the models I talked to told me they didn't understand this part of the process.

ANTM made a point of telling contestants the psyche vow was for their safety, but they didn't mention it it's other youth, maybe because they knew the contestants wouldn't be so forthcoming with their personal trauma if they knew how it would be used.

Producers bringing up contestants deepest trauma on set seemed to be a pattern for A and TM.

Sarah Hartthorn saw it on cycle nine.

Somebody had a.

Sick relative, a very sick relative that they were close to, and they would ask them about it all the time.

They would push her and push her and push her like, are you afraid they're going.

To die while you're here?

Are you afraid that if you don't win, you will have missed out on time with them?

In vain and even more disturbing, UV Gomez from Cycle four told me something she opened up about during her A and TM psyche val was later shared with the producers of Tyra's talk show without UV's provision.

They asked us all these questions about like our early childhood or life or tru and the Tyers show called me because I had a pretty traumatic childhood to say the least, and they used some of the information that I had told them for America's Next Something Model about my family and they were like, we're doing the show where you confront family, and we know your mom was a very absent mother and there were some of youse and neglect.

We want you to come on the show and confront her about it.

I said, absolute, freakolutely not.

We'll talk to each other face to face.

I ain't taken her on TV to call my mom out.

But the fact that they did that I felt violated that they used that.

It felt very grimy.

We were there talking to a psychologist about all our woes and struggles and then you're gonna bring it back up.

It just felt very yucky.

Again, for legal reasons, I have to say this.

We can't confirm what UV is saying about her mom here, but this is what she says.

She told the A ANDTM psychologists, and somehow that information later got to the producers of Tyra's talk show.

It was an entirely different program but owned by the same production company.

During my reporting on A ANDTM, this idea of producers manipulating the contestants with personal trauma from their past came up a lot.

But it wasn't just in those confessional interviews or behind the scenes.

Some models say their trauma was used to create storylines, conflict, and shocking moments on the show, and I talked to a producer who confirmed that.

Former A ANDTM creative producer Andrew Patterson told me that if a contestant shared a fear of something in the Psyche val, he was told about it so he could craft photoshoots and runways that would put the contestant face to face with their fears.

The contestant would either come out triumphant having face their trauma, or have a complete mal down.

Either way, it made good TV.

We throw these elements of fear because it's a competition reality show.

Listen, you know, see how they reacted.

I always thought these photo shoots and runways were designed to get a reaction out of all the contestants, but Andrew told me sometimes he would look at their casting files for personal phobias and design challenges to fuck with specific contestants.

Those photo shoots and runways usually involve spiders or heights, you know, a little fear factor element.

Most people are afraid of bugs and hanging off the side of tall buildings.

But Lisa the Model says it got a lot more personal.

You've heard from Lisa before.

She's the one who peed in a diaper on cycle five and was later awarded that controversial win in cycle seventeen.

During her initial A and TM Psychebile, Lisa says she was asked about her most disgusting experience.

Strange question, but Lisa had just been through something that she couldn't forget.

I had taken care of my grandpa and my grandma.

Me and my grandma were really close and like Grandpa had just passed away, and at the funeral, my Grandma had the worst accident ever.

It was basically just like she couldn't control going to the bathroom.

So when she went to the bathroom at the funeral, the service is going on, she has the hugest accident number two.

Right.

I realized she didn't come back.

She was with the walker, and so I went to the bathroom to go check on her, and I realized that she shit all over herself.

It's all over her dress.

She was trying to clean herself.

She doesn't have that much balance.

I'm realizing that it's on the walls because she has it on her hands.

There's poop everywhere, and this is her husband's funeral.

So I'm just like holding in trying to be strong for her, but I'm also devastated.

This smile is disgusting.

I cleaned everything up as fast as I could with just paper, towels and water.

We didn't come out for like twenty minutes.

So we finally came out.

We were what.

I cleaned this as best we could, but we smelled like poop, and I just thought, this is the worst way for my grandma to have this experience.

Lisa says she shared all of this with the show psychologist.

I'm curious of what the other girls said.

I guess my story beat theirs.

I guess.

On cycle five, they had us do a challenge.

Guess what the challenge was.

The challenge was to go through a obstacle course in Kalmanor where you're completely covered in Kalmanor.

You have to like dig yourself in the ground to get under something not touched things.

Lisa's gonna go first, where's my army grease?

Here you go, It's heaven is top area.

Leave me go right army front all the way down.

Fine, when you get dirty, girl, I love being dirty, so this actually is nothing to me.

I just have to add there is some question about whether it was mud manure or mud mixed with manure, but either way, it was nasty.

That was the whole point of the challenge.

And then they lock you in the limo.

They filled everything with covered in plastic and made you just sit in there with each other with the windows up for about four hours where everyone just smells like poop.

And there's a moment actually that aired on television where I'm like just sitting in the car and all the girls are bitching and I'm just a complete silence because I realized what this is.

I realized that they got this from my story of my grandma.

I felt completely manipulated.

After doing the obstacle course and sitting in the limo, the contestants had to go to a casting with l Girl magazine and try to be pretty and charming while covered with manure or mud or some combination.

It's worth noting Lisa won the challenge.

Lisa told me this experience isn't even the most disturbing thing she shared with the A and TM psychologist.

She says she was very candid about her difficult childhood and the sexual abuse she survived after the break.

You hear what Lisa shared during her psyche vile and why I think it should have been a red flag for producers.

Plus, we'll talk about the other contestants who may have exhibited signs of trauma who later met tragic ends.

As I've been reporting on A and TM, I noticed the path.

I've talked to over a dozen models for this show and watched hundreds of their interviews, and I've been alarmed at how many A ANDTM contestants are abuse survivors.

I know abuse is common, especially for women, but on every cycle there are multiple contestants with harrowing backgrounds, and something about this pattern sticks with me because I don't think it's coincidental.

Lisa Dematto told me she shared everything with the ANTM psychologists, including her darkest childhood trauma.

Cycle five, they had me see three different therapists, but I passed from all of them, which is also an important thing to let you know is, according to them, if you get cast on the show, it means that you are safe.

Just the heads up, Lisa is going to talk about childhood sexual abuse.

Here's what she told A ANDTM psychologists and take a deebras.

Okay.

When I went into my psychle evaluations with the therapists on cycle five, they asked me about my relationship with my mother, my parents, my upbringing, as they did with everybody.

For me, I had been molested by my mom's boyfriend from the time I was eight till twelve.

My sister and I just lived in fear.

It was a devastating existence.

Lisa says she tried to tell her mom and she didn't believe her.

Instead, she blamed Lisa.

Whenever I would stick up for myself to my mom and be like, we don't deserve this.

She would tell us like, who do you think you are?

Like you're nothing, Go fucking kill yourself.

That's the way my.

Mom would talk to me.

So yeah, top Model, the therapist all knew about.

This, you know the deal.

Legally, I have to say I can't confirm the things Lisa told me about her mother.

But Lisa says when she shared this with the A ANDTM psychologists, she was still in her early twenties.

She hadn't fully worked through a lot of her trauma.

She said she'd thought about taking her own life before being on A ANDTM Cycle five.

Doctor Stephen Stein is the psychologist who worked on reality shows like Survivor and Big Brother.

You met him last episode.

I asked doctor Stein what other concerns, aside from aggression and safety issues, would make him rule out someone as a potential cast member.

Someone who may show signs of suicide, may have had experiences or attempted of suicide.

Lisa wasn't the only one who told me she talked about suicide with the A ANDTM evaluators.

Remember, at the beginning of this episode, Gina says producers pushed her to talk about her own experience with suicidal thoughts.

That was something that psychologists must have noted before Gina was cast.

Doctor Stein said the other red flag he looks for are addiction issues.

Lisa's edit on Cycle five pretty much revolved around her perceived drinking problem, and she told me the stress of being on A and TM contributed to her drinking.

I had been drinking because the way they were torturing me in my interviews.

They kept abusing me with my childhood drama.

They kept manipulating my feelings and it was just devastating.

I was trying to self sue.

That's what the drinking was.

It was me self soothing.

After A and TM Cycle five, Lisa did another reality show, celebri Rehab.

That show's premise is in the name famous people live in a house together while getting help for drug and alcohol issues from a doctor who specializes an addiction.

We don't know if the ANTM psychologists knew anything about Lisa's potential drinking problem when she auditioned for Cycle five, but they definitely knew about it when they brought her back for All Stars.

Lisa told me the models on All Stars understood the show more their second time around, so they weren't as eager to play into the drama.

Lisa said.

When producers couldn't get the juice they needed in the confessionals, they turned to alcohol.

They had guys there with champagne, so they're like, Okay, well, if we can't get them from the interviews, we'll get them right away and see who can get drunk and get this thing going.

I said no to the champagne probably about five times.

I'm not a mental health professional, but if I'm just judging based on what doctor Stein told me and the information I've gathered about the A ANDTM evil, I don't know if Lisa should have been cast on A and TM.

Even if A ANDTM producers didn't know about her alcohol abuse and history of suicidal thoughts before cycle five, they should have known after Lisa told consulting producer Oliver Twist about how after she was eliminated from cycle five, she stayed on set in a hotel nearby waiting for the season to rap, as is the case with all the contestants.

While they were stuck in limbo, Lisa says she and another contestant faked a suicide attempt as a prank.

She says that got her labeled a liability on set and sent home immediately.

But a few years later, when A and TM was casting for their All Star season, they called her and asked her to join the cast, which she did.

There are other models who may have had serious trauma in their past, models who made it on the show and later went down dangerous paths.

Kimberly Razuski was a contestant on cycle ten.

She had blonde hair around face and a poudy expression.

She had a very cute, almost baby face that masked the pain she was carrying inside.

I'm Kim.

I'm twenty years old from Western Massachusetts.

So what do you do for a living?

I work at a bank.

I'm anna teller.

Do you ever to take money?

Yeah?

A lot of money?

You do?

What do you take money?

Oh?

Steal it?

Yeah?

Oh god no the federal offense.

Kim's time on the show was brief.

She decided to leave after the first elimination of the season.

Do you want to be here?

To be completely honest, like the whole fashion thing, it doesn't interest me at all?

Come here?

Why did you come here?

I've learned how to like express the pictures, but like the whole designer thing, Like you know, I don't believe in the whole like you know I need to wear designer outfits and like you.

Don't need to wear designer outfits as a model.

Well I know that, but I'm just saying, like I don't find it interest.

Do you want to just go home?

Yeah, all right, go home.

Later after the cycle ended, Kim revealed the real reason why is she self eliminated.

Right before filming, her ex boyfriend died by suicide and Kim was having a hard time coping.

We don't know if Kim shared this information with A and TM, but it seems like she might have because after the season, she was asked to share the real story on Tyra's talk show.

Here's Kim's segment on the Tyra Show.

Three months before the show, my ex boyfriend committed suicide.

It was by far the hardest thing I've ever gone through, and at that point in my life, it was so sudden, and I rushed into the whole top model thing, which I actually I loved passion, I loved being that, I loved meeting Pira and I wanted it so bad, but I didn't feel good on the inside.

I was a mess.

You know, I got there and I'm like, this is just overwhelming.

I can't do this right now because all I have is the death on my mind.

And boyfriend was not the first person in your life to commit suicide.

No, When I was in seventh grade, my mom committed suicide.

So it kind of even made it worse because I started feeling like, oh my god, what am I doing to people?

Why is everyone around me dying?

And I got into a pretty bad depression and a lot of anxiety.

It was in and out of the hospital, having panic attacks.

It was hard.

We might never know how much of this Kimberly shared with the A ANDTM psychologist, because tragically, Kim took her own life in twenty sixteen.

We don't know if her participation in the show contributed to her mental health decline, but we do know the pressure of being on A ANDTM was too much for her to handle.

That's why she walked off the set herself.

But if the show conducted thorough psyche vows, how did someone like Kim slip through the cracks?

Unfortunately, Kimberly's story is just one of the A and TM tragedies that raises questions here's a conversation Jay Manuel had on his YouTube live with drag Queen Raja, who you may know from RuPaul's Drag Race.

Raja was also a makeup artist on A and TM.

There's an elephant in the room to this season that I find a little bit like maybe there was a curse to it, because we gotta talk about JL and Renee.

The season they're referring to is cycle eight.

That season had two contestants who faced tough times after the show.

J L.

Strauss was one of them.

JL was the wild child of her season.

She was fun though, like if you went out with her, you would have the time of your life, but you might end the night running from the police.

But sometimes her behavior on A and TM seemed a bit erratic.

There was an episode on cycle eight where the models were being judged on how well they interacted with celebrities at a party.

Fifty Cent was there and what started out is a seemingly flirty interaction ended with him pushing her into a pool.

Right now, Yeah, I know, I'm mad.

Dale deserved it because she didn't leave that man alone.

Jayo was being annoying, but pushing her into a pool took it too far.

I swear fifty cent's always been an asshole.

Here's Jasline, the winner of cycle eight, talking to Oliver Twist.

She's recalling Jail's behavior on their season.

Jayo was a rock star on our season.

She's like reality TV star Gold Gold.

But when you think about some of these personalities now in retrospect, how and why they were developed that way, there was actually something already being rooted from her background that was causing her to kind of outburst the way she would on the show.

Yeah, Jaslene seems to be skating around something.

We all saw Jayl's behavior was off.

We don't know if JL had substance abuse issues at the time, and I have to say there's no evidence that she did, but she did have friends who were struggling with addiction.

We saw her getting news of a friend's overdose death during her season.

Jaylle checked her messages and found out that a close friend of hers had passed away.

Hello, what's going on?

She overdose?

Oh no, okay, I'm gonna call you back because I'm gonna go because I'm gonna freaking okay.

Oh God.

After being eliminated from Cycle eight, Jall developed an addiction to meth and other drugs.

In twenty twelve, her family reached out to the Doctor Phil Show to try to get her help.

When she appeared on the show, she looked nothing like the beautiful, vibrant model we met on A and TM a few years before.

She was gone and her skin was blatchy, her teeth had started to write.

She looked way older than twenty nine.

You're doing drugs, you're living in crappy hotels, you're stripping in some sleeves ball joint.

Everyone didn't know all that.

Oh I didn't.

Where is it everybody's business?

I didn't bring it up until you lied.

If you had just said yes, then we would have gone on and talked about something else.

Look, I get it, but you've had a crappy deal all along.

What happened to you when you were ten years old?

Oh my god, I'm talking about that.

You don't have to talk about it.

You know what I'm talking about, right?

And you reached out for help, right?

And did they believe you?

No, they didn't believe you.

This isn't just that's your problem.

This is a family problem.

Doctor Phil seemed to be alluding to something bad that happened to jl when she was a kid.

I don't know if she shared that with the A and TM psychologist.

Jelle later said she felt exploited by the Doctor Phil show and from the tape it sounds like he was more interested in putting her on blast than actually helping her.

But Jlle eventually got clean.

She got a job as an addiction counselor and remained clean for five years before tragically passing of breast cancer in twenty eighteen.

Other Top Model contestants, including Carrie D English the Cycle seven winner, have shared their opinions about Jale's time on ANTM.

Carrie D told Gawker she didn't think A and TM producers did enough to vet Jail, especially given the stress of being on the show and the struggles the model's face.

After Carrie D added that quote, all they saw was a personality good for television.

The psyche vow was supposed to be a guardrail to make sure nothing violent happened on set, to try to minimize the things the show could be held liable for or that could harm the production, But there was a glaring blind spot.

It wasn't concerned with how the show itself might affect contestants' mental health in the long run.

After contestants were sent home, they told me no one from A ANDTM ever checked in on them or their mental well being.

They thought being on the show would be their ticket into the modeling industry, but as we know, many former contestants experienced rejection after rejection, in part because of how the show betrayed them after the break.

The story of one model who says being on ANTM sent her into a downwards spiral towards drugs and crime.

Renee Alway made it to the final three Cycle eight.

She did well in the competition, but she was the season's villain.

She had beefs with a few models.

One of them almost came to blows.

It got so bad Tyra came to the house to do an intervention where Renee was the subject.

Tyra sat Renee down beside her and had each girl go around and say how Renee had wronged them.

You've been negative to everybody so many times.

It's like, how am I going to believe you?

At the casting wig, You're not say very good things.

I feel like she has more issues in side that she has to deal with, because I think that's just.

All the front.

She makes a lot of valid points, but she says that there is stuff going on internally with you.

When you talk, you had a tendency to talk down to somebody.

Renee was defensive at first, but after hearing how the girls felt about her, she showed some vulnerability.

This is your chance to address all of these girls right now today.

I'm sorry for anything I might said took, hurt or offend you guys.

It's a defense might for myself.

I've been hurt by anybody that I've ever loved besides my husband and my son has hurt me.

So from that episode on, Renee tried to change her attitude and she made it to the final three on that season one thing A and TM Loved a redemption arc.

After she left the show, Renee did the top model spin off, Modelville, a competition reality show that aired as a recurring segment on Tyra's talk show.

Here's Renee talking with another contestant, Bianca Golden, about how hard it was to get modeling jobs after A and TM.

It's very rare for black models to work right now.

Yeah, because it's really hard for me to find work too.

And I'm like, as white.

As they come.

And here's Renee on Modelville talking about being abused as a child.

I went through some horrible things when I was growing up, and it made me very angry and bitter and just I don't know how to explain it, Like I just get angry with people, you know, Like that was my mentality.

And I was extremely abused when I was growing up.

And it wasn't just physical, it was mental, emotional, it was everything.

So Renee came in second place on Modelville in third place on ANTM.

She did well on both shows, but that still didn't help her once she got into the real world.

After Modelville, Renee's life took a turn for the worse.

She was a mother, out of work and desperate to make it as a model.

She said she'd use drugs before A and TM, but this time her habit got out of control.

She developed an addiction to heroin that led to homelessness and a life of crime.

In twenty thirteen, she was arrested on felony burglary charges and sentenced to twelve years in prison.

She got out early in twenty eighteen.

We couldn't get Renee to do an interview for this podcast.

So I went back to an interview she did with an ABC afe.

It was taped while Renee was in prison.

I got into the world and I went I went, okay, like here I am, you know, ready to do this, and it was just closed door after closed door after closed door.

That was really hard to take.

That was really hard to take.

I felt like a failure because I couldn't get past the reality TV stigma that had been put on me.

It's striking that when Renee was given the opportunity to speak out after her arrest, she pointed back to A and TM, saying the show set her up for failure.

I mean, let's just take a look at I mean just for America's next top bottle, and let's not look at any other reality TV competition.

How many of those girls do you see working today?

Very few, even the winners.

Most of the winners are just on doing their regular life or barely making it in the industry.

It's almost like a set up for failure.

Once you're done with reality TV, they don't look back at you.

There's no like check on you and see how you're doing.

It's just over.

It's done, and it's kind of all this build up for just a very big letdown.

Like most of the models I've spoken with, Renee never heard from anyone from the show after she left.

I can honestly tell you that I did not get a single phone call from Tyra, from anybody checking up until they wanted me to do Modelville, and then after that that was it.

That was it.

I mean, once you're out the door, you're out the door, and they look on to the next which you can't hardly blame them, because that's their job.

Their job is to keep moving forward and bringing new entertainment to the masses, and you know, that's what America wants.

I can honestly say that there was never any outreach at all done after the show.

I mean after the elimination, while we were still there, still filming, a therapist got on the phone, and you talked to a therapist for about five ten minutes, and that was the gist of it, you know.

Renee says she doesn't blame A and TM for the choices she made in the part you didn't hear of that interview.

She takes accountability for her actions.

She acknowledges that lots of models are disappointed with their careers.

After A and TM and they don't turn to drugs or crime.

I understand America's Next Top Model isn't a mentorship program, no matter how much Tyra tried to sell us the Big Sister Act.

Technically, the show doesn't have any responsibility to the models after they leave, and realistically not everyone was going to have a big modeling career.

But at the very least, they could have done something to make sure the models were prepared to handle the potential let down, especially the girls who seem like they would take it the hardest.

Offering additional mental health resources to contestants after a show rap isn't unheard of.

In fact, doctor Stephenstein says something he offers on the shows he works on, and he's been doing it for decades.

Generally, what I like to do, and many shows do, is we give them up to three sessions of therapy once they have completed the show.

So usually I meet with them all when they're eliminated, see how they're doing.

If we get the sense that somebody needs more help, I'll refer to someone in their hometown.

I'll find a therapist for them and or choice of three therapists, and they can continue for two or three sessions or on their own more than that.

Again, it depends on the show what they're willing to fund.

From what I've heard, this isn't how it went down on A and TOM.

Even contestants I've spoken to who shared serious trauma histories or suicidal ideation in their casting say they received very little follow up from the show psychologists, And I should point out here that wasn't necessarily the psychologist's decision.

Like doctor Stein said, the level of post show psychological care all came down to the budget, and that's a decision made at the very top.

Certainly, after the success of its first few seasons, you'd think A and TM could have allocated more money for mental health resources, but they didn't.

After she was eliminated, Renee always said she talked to a therapist for ten minutes on the phone.

Other models I've talked to said something similar.

Renee may be an extreme example of someone who couldn't handle the reality of life after reality TV, but I know she's not the only A and TM model who felt disappointed and depressed after leaving the show.

Brittany Brower from Cycle four is one of the many models I talked to who felt that way.

You're on this high from Top Model, and then that starts to slow down.

That's when the depression stage came and God takes a toll on everything.

Immediately after the show, Brittany was riding the wave of opportunities that came with her fifteen minutes of fame, but as that time passed, people forgot about Brittany.

The next cycle comes up, then another cycle comes up.

It just took me a long time to bounce back from that.

I had to like figure out who I was really again after Top Models and figure out how to truly be me, like the strong version of me again and not be so like let down.

Contestants were told the Psyche Valve measured their mental fitness, but beyond what they could be held accountable for.

A and TM didn't seem to care much about the contestants long term well being.

That may be well within their rights, but morally it raises questions.

After talking to doctor Stein, I'm realizing A and TM was a particularly brazen offender in the world of reality TV.

For twenty four seasons, it picked apart women's traumas and bodies to entertain us, and afterwards the show didn't even check on them.

It didn't offer resources, which is the least they could do.

That's what other shows are doing at the time, and it didn't seem to learn or change its process as the rest of the industry took more accountability for their contestants well being.

Then there's a matter of how they conducted the psyche vale and how they used them.

If they were about safety, why would they cast contestants they ruled out as angry or troubled and bring them back to have confrontations on the show.

Why would they cast contestants who'd shown signs of substance abuse.

Why would they cast contestants who shared their history with suicidal ideation.

Why would they cast a contestant who experienced the suicide of two loved ones, one of which had just happened.

I think it's because they needed them.

They needed people with traumatic backgrounds, behavioral issues, substance use disorders, and personality disorders, people who were likely to act out on camera.

They needed these people to entertain us.

So in a way, maybe the psyche vow worked exactly as producers intended, as a way to find the people they thought they needed to make a good reality show, which is exactly what they did.

One last thing before we go, we reached out to the executive producer of A and TM, Ken Mock, so that he could provide more perspective on the psyche vowels and what we've discussed in this episode, but we did not hear from him before airing this episode.

On the next episode, we'll explore how A and TM prioritized making the best reality TV, not the best models.

And I get a tap on the back of my shoulder from Ken Mark say stop it.

We want to see these girls cry.

This is gonna make great television.

And I'll just go back and I'm right, yeah, Ka, it is Curtifued.

A lot of those girls didn't get looked at as people.

They were products.

If they were boring, they got cut.

Thanks for listening to the Curse of America's Next Top Model.

We really appreciate the support.

We'd love for you to really show your support by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts and don't forget to leave us a five star rating and review.

If you love the show, tell your group, chat, your co workers, your friends, your mama to check us out.

And if you don't, maybe keep that one to yourself.

Thanks again to all of our listeners.

The Curse of America's Next Top Model.

It's a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.

The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass, hosted and senior produced by me Bridget Armstrong.

Our story editor is Monique Leboard, also produced by Ben Fetterman and Andre Dunning.

Associate producers are Alisha Key, Kristin Melcurriy, and Curry Richmond.

Consulting producers are Oliver TwixT and Kate Taylor.

Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck.

Audio editing and mixing by Andrew Callaway and Matt del Vechio.

The Curse of America's Next Top Model theme music was composed by Oliver Bains.

Music library provided by mid Music special Thanks to everyone we interviewed for this podcast, especially the models for sharing their stories.

And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Also check out the Glass podcast Instagram at Glass Podcasts for Curse of America's Next Top Model Behind the scenes content and more