American supermodel Tyra Banks faces an uphill battle – perhaps the greatest one since she tried launching “hot ice cream” in Sydney.

Banks is suing Netflix and the directors of Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, a docuseries released by the streamer in February.

She claims the program has defamed her. But as a public figure, she’ll need to meet a very high evidentiary standard to win this lawsuit.

On June 13, Banks filed a defamation lawsuit in the District Court of the Central District of California against Netflix, directors Daniel Sivan and Mor Loushy, and EverWonder Studio, over her portrayal in a docuseries about America’s Next Top Model (ANTM) (2003-18) – a show she created and hosted.

After Reality Check aired in February, Banks faced criticism from fans and the media for failing to take accountability for the show’s controversial practices. These included exploiting contenstants’ trauma, criticising their appearance, and conducting problematic photoshoots (such as models posing as murder victims, or as different ethnicities).

Banks’ own lawsuit cites Reality Check’s impact on her Australian ice cream business, SMiZE & DREAM, for which online ratings plummeted by more than 20% after “viewers flooded the site with retaliatory reviews”.

She claims Reality Check only used 16 minutes of her three-and-a-half hour interview, stripping it of context and reassembling it to support a false and defamatory........

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