Watching the Netflix documentary on America’s Next Top Model stirred up complicated memories for Hope Bonarcher, memories shaped by her own years working as a professional model long before she became a Christian. Reflecting on the gap between reality TV and the real modeling world, she shares how faith, perseverance, and personal conviction shaped a very different path from the one portrayed on screen.
I never watched America’s Next Top Model when it was on television. As a real-life, working model at the time, the show rubbed me the wrong way. What little glimpses I’d see of clips or adverts were enough to realize the show had little in common with the actual reality of modelling. Now, having watched the Netflix documentary, ‘Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model,’ I can confidently say; for the most part, I was correct.
There were a few things I actually learned watching the doc, like the year I started my foray into modelling was the same year Tyra Banks successfully pitched her show to what was then America’s UPN network, long before I became a believer. Over the years, I’d met and worked with a few of the cast members, so I recognized some familiar faces, but my most memorable run-in was with Jay Manuel, long-time co-host, producer, and makeup artist to the uber stars.
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My first mistake on the L’Oreal shoot we worked on together, was not knowing who he was.
My first mistake on the L’Oreal shoot we worked on together, was not knowing who he was. It was 2006ish, the show was really hot; I was clearly the only one not to recognise him. After an uncomfortable back and forth about his desire to bleach my eyebrows for the shoot (he said yay, I said nay) he won, but only for a manner of seconds before my displeased face probably got the best of him and the bleach came off. This lead to some finger wagging about models needing to suffer for fashion, which didn’t endear Jay or the show to me one bit. He was talking to a real model, not some poor soul with no experience, willing to believe anything he’d sell her because he was famous.
‘I am a Christian model, and this is why I decided to start an etiquette school’
The most poignant part of ‘Reality Check,’ for me was when Dani Evans explained, after her win on Cycle 6, that she went on to languish in a model’s apartment, watching the girls around her book jobs and go on castings. She was told the show she humiliated herself to win was the achilles heel stunting her success. America’s Next Top Models never get to be America’s next top models because of appearing on ‘America’s Next Top Model’! This cruel truth epitomized why I never liked the show in the first place. It smacked of the inauthentic. The shoots they staged were contrived, formulaic, not to mention disgusting… a bulimia themed shoot with a model covered in fake vomit? As if!
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What was actually real about America’s Next Top Model was everything that is wrong with the modeling industry.
What was actually real about America’s Next Top Model was everything that is wrong with the modeling industry. The cattiness, the cruelty, the lack of regard for human life (Shandi Sullivan’s ordeal in Cycle 2 made me sick to my stomach). And for what? Because these were beautiful, young women without loved ones around to protect or advocate for them. That’s the ugly side of modelling. I lived it everyday, and didn’t need to see it glorified and commodified for tv.
If God’s given you a gift and a calling, go for it; with eyes wide open, wisdom fine tuned, ready to do the hard work. I’m glad the memories I have from my young life modelling are my own; memories of many hard years pounding pavements, receiving rejections, being told I’m not pretty enough, skinny enough, white enough, black enough, fashion enough, but never giving up. One day, seven or so years in, I could finally say I’d paid my dues and was able to make a great living modelling professionally. I met my husband on a photo shoot, became a believer and discovered the most treasured beauty of all, relationship with Jesus. I lived my dream. Not Tyra’s dream, Nigel’s dream, or anyone else’s. Trade Secret: there is no quick fix. Forging the road less travelled and persevering is harder but worth the reward in the end.
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