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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Tyra Banks screamed it, but was she ever really rooting for these girls? In the series opener, host Bridget Armstrong explores one of ANTM’s biggest criticisms—that the show didn’t create any top models. We go back to the beginning to figure out how this germ of an idea in Tyra Banks’ imagination ended up on our screens. We talk about Tyra’s accomplice, ANTM Executive Producer Ken Mok, and explore how America’s Next Top Model was built on a formula of entertainment, desperation, and humiliation.

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Cycle 1 was messy, low-rent, and groundbreaking. It was also the blueprint for everything ANTM would become. It introduced us to the larger-than-life personalities that became synonymous with the show. Cycle 1 also laid the groundwork for the body shaming, humiliation, and on-screen drama that made ANTM iconic. From the beginning, ANTM loved a Cinderella story. While Cycle 1 winner Adrianne Curry may have gotten the crown, she didn’t get her happily ever after.

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We explore one of ANTM’s most infamous controversies. Angelea Preston won the All-Stars season of America’s Next Top Model. Later, she was stripped of the title, and her win was given to Lisa D’Amato. But what really happened behind the scenes? Angelea and Lisa tell very different stories. We hear from the models at the center of ANTM’s messiest win and discuss the contestant contract that enabled it all.

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CONTENT WARNING: This episode mentions sexual assault, suicide, and suicidal ideation.

Before you could be cast on America’s Next Top Model, you had to pass a psychological evaluation. Contestants were told these psych evals were about keeping them safe. But whose safety was ANTM really worried about? In this episode, we explain how the ANTM psych eval worked and where it failed.

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CONTENT WARNING: This episode mentions sexual assault, suicide, and suicidal ideation.

We continue our discussion about the ANTM psychological evaluation. We hear from models who say the traumatic experiences they shared with the show’s psychologists were later used to manipulate them for the cameras. We discuss contestants who may have slipped through the cracks of the psych eval and later met tragic ends. Then we explore the story of one model who says being on ANTM sent her into a downward spiral towards drugs and crime.

Looking to place a face to the name and hear bonus content? Check out our Instagram account, @glasspodcasts, where we recap each episode with show notes that include the people, places, and even video clips referenced in the episode.

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