Introducing Curse of: America's Next Top Model

Curse of: America’s Next Top Model

iHeartPodcasts and Glass Podcasts

Documentary, Tv & Film, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2025

⏱️ 4 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When America’s Next Top Model premiered in the early 2000s, it looked like a golden ticket: a glamorous TV show that could catapult aspiring models into fame. But two decades later, many contestants describe its aftermath as a curse. Hosted by pop-culture journalist Bridget Armstrong, Curse of America’s Next Top Model is a deep investigation into the hidden costs of reality television, and what the show’s legacy reveals about beauty, power, and the culture that cheered it on.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Think back to the early 2000s.
0:02.2	You're flipping through TV channels, and then you hear this.
0:06.1	I was rooting for you.
0:07.2	We were all rooting for you.
0:08.5	How dare you?
0:09.8	Learn something from this.
0:14.9	America's next top model was my show, and it might have been yours too.
0:20.0	But these days, that iconic show that so many of us
0:23.3	love seems pretty horrified. Robin, first of all, is too old to be starting a model. She's huge.
0:31.5	She's got rolls of skin that hang over her jeans. Do you really think you can have a cover girl
0:35.8	contract with the gap in your mouth? Today, some people think A&M was cursed because of what happened to so many of the models
0:43.3	once the camera stopped rolling.
0:45.3	I was in debt after the show.
0:47.3	We basically sold our souls and they got rich.
0:51.3	I'm Bridget Armstrong, and this is the curse of America's Next Top Model.
0:57.2	I'm a journalist covering pop culture,
0:59.8	and for the past six months,
1:01.4	I've been investigating the real story of A&M
1:04.1	by talking to the models, the producers,
1:06.3	and the people who profited from it all.
1:08.8	We're starting at the very beginning,
1:10.7	but the story of how
	...

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