Tyra Banks reveals the super small 'Top Model' budget for the show's first season
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Supermodel Tyra Banks (L) and Nicole Linkletter of Grand Parks, North Dakota, winner of cycle five of the UPN television reality series "America's Next Top Model", pose at the show's finale in Hollywood December 7, 2005. Linkletter, a 20-year-old student, won a $100,000 contract to model for the CoverGirl cosmetics company, the opportunity to be managed by Ford Models and will appear on the cover of ELLEgirl magazine in February 2006. (Reuters)
“America’s Next Top Model” has come a long way since 2003. While chatting with “Entertainment Tonight,” mastermind Tyra Banks revealed just how small the show’s budget was when the series was starting out on UPN.
“The girls in the first poster have my clothes on,” she said. “Those are my clothes that I put in a trash bag for the airplane because I didn’t want to put it in a suitcase because then I’d have to check it. I was scared that it would get lost and then we’d have no clothes for the poster.”
And looks may be deceiving, as their judging room was just a transformed hotel room.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“The judging room was actually blue drapes all around the room, but that was a hotel room. We moved the bed out and stuff,” she revealed.
Fifteen years later, the show is currently airing its 24th cycle on VH1. Banks took off the 23rd cycle, which was hosted by Rita Ora, but decided to return.
Ashley Graham has also been on the panel of judges in the most recent seasons.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}And Cycle 3 winner, Eva Marcille, has headed back to reality TV as a cast member of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.”
This story originally appeared in the New York Post.