Nigel Barker Breaks His Silence on America’s Next Top Model — Behind the Scenes, The Firing, and What Really Happened | Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel #363

[SPEAKER_00]: No, I don't think you're so much for joining me today on misunderstood.
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a pleasure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very well.
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so I've been watching this three part docu series, which I found fascinating.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I grew up in the time where this was a really big show.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just wasn't something that I actually watched at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess maybe I would see it on all the entertainment news shows because it was the biggest show around clearly.
[SPEAKER_01]: The same Rachel, you must be one of the only people who didn't watch it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, but you know, I saw the clips.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the reason why I didn't watch it is because
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, wasn't my world.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't, I didn't grow up tall and a model.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I, I, I felt like no one believes you by the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: People are watching it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're looking at you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're like thinking, first of all, you could easily be a model.
[SPEAKER_01]: And clearly, you should have publicly been on the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, hey, whatever, but I'll take it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, but, but I knew the show very well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was fascinated by it and, you know, watching it back in the three part.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I binge did.
[SPEAKER_00]: I watched all three episodes.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was fascinating.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I realized why during COVID most people went back and watched if they hadn't watched before, watched again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it struck a different chord than it did back then, obviously.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I clearly want to get into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad you're here because I, of course, I know your face if.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody showed me a picture of you, and this hadn't even come out, of course, I would have known you because you guys made such a difference in your celebrities, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Automatic celebrities.
[SPEAKER_00]: But okay, so here we are.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to know about you because this famous face has a background that I would have never known about how I not seen the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I find that a little more fascinating, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's start with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I love your accent.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're from the UK.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, you know, eight mile into Troy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just thought English accent was good for television.
[SPEAKER_01]: But...
[SPEAKER_00]: wouldn't that be fine?
[SPEAKER_00]: It would be very smart.
[SPEAKER_01]: But tell me, you see, she's just enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, you're right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm from London, I've been here for 27 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I'm an American citizen, I've got two American kids, and I'm married a girl from Alabama.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm a, you know, at this point about as American as it can be outside of the accent.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But tell me about your upbringing.
[SPEAKER_00]: What got you into loving fashion?
[SPEAKER_00]: I know your mom had an influence for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: She did.
[SPEAKER_01]: My mother was a model, herself in the sort of 60s and what have you and, you know, that kind of, she, my mother's from Sri Lanka and she had partaked in sort of the pageant world originally, which kind of got her into modeling and into singing and acting and all those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I kind of grown up around that when I was a kid.
[SPEAKER_01]: I never really thought about
[SPEAKER_01]: say, going into fashion myself, I was, I went to English boarding school and there, the direction I was being pointed in was medicine and I was studying biology chemistry physics and maths and that was it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I sort of on a sideline for myself, I was taking courses,
[SPEAKER_01]: in fashion design, weaving, patent cutting, all these things outside of my brother had got into fashion, and almost had a little fashion company.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I had this sort of desire to kind of do what he was doing, because it seems so fun, different, not the traditional.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this sort of, my world sort of took a shift when my mother actually ended me into a TV show, of fun laying off.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is ironic, because
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, America's next model was probably the leading hours of television show for models, but I actually got my break on a show called The Clothes Show in the UK, which is one of the longest running English TV shows ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the late 80s, and I didn't win, it was a modeling search, like a reality show, but it was not a
[SPEAKER_01]: the whole, see it, a bunch of episodes like Tom Model of was a very condensed show.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got in the top three and I got a model contract.
[SPEAKER_01]: So kind of like set me off into the modeling world and medicine went one way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And fashion and modeling, and it's new, new world.
[SPEAKER_01]: But another came, it came sort of, was my new direction.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, the rest of the rest of the sort of histories they said.
[SPEAKER_00]: So from doing that show, you got a contract from people seeing you or the show helped you get that contract.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no, the show helped me get the contract.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't win, so I got nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just, you know, the nature of how it was back then.
[SPEAKER_01]: But one of the things about doing a show like that and then doing a show like top models was that it also showed me what could happen, what doors could be open, even if you don't win.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are opportunities that arise.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I was out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to do it all by myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to go get an agency and people knew of me from the show, but it was more just that I knew and existed.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think growing up as a young man in the UK and sort of the 70s and 80s, I'd fashion and modeling and photography.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where they were not real jobs as far as I was concerned, at least as far as I was educated.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I then sort of saw that they could be in work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though my mother had been a model, it was very,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it came from a very conservative kind of traditional kind of background and those were not options for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one laid those out as, oh, have you ever thought of trying this, you know, so and back then there was those things as a degree in photography.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that wasn't even an option.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had always had a love of photography and a taken.
[SPEAKER_01]: Photography lessons for my biology teacher when I was a kid at school and then how to print and all that kind of stuff So I had this sort of background But it's only when I started working as a model in fashion that I'm like wait a second that guy He's the photographer.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is another side of photography because otherwise photography to me was shooting wildlife landscapes I mean that's what I've been taught not this
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, but getting into photography, I'm curious if you saw or felt that you had a certain eye or did you learn that from being the model and seeing, oh wait, there's different angles or there's different looks or like how did you find out that you were going to have a question.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that both, I mean, I think that there's a combination of, you know, I remember what working is one working as a student, as it's taken pictures of kids at school and noticing if there were certain types of shots that when people would
[SPEAKER_01]: sort of go towards that, when they would want, because they'd please kind of print of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And those shots were always the ones of them, sort of winning, scoring, looking like they're best.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it seems obvious, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But those moments, which were the pivotal moments, which were actually hard to achieve, because if you're photographing someone in a sporting event,
[SPEAKER_01]: you don't even know when they about to score a goal.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you tap the catch.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I wouldn't sort of set it up so that they were doing that moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then capture that and then you would have that moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And same like in a school play, if you're just trying to shoot it, everyone has their mouth open and everyone doesn't look great.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you set it up and you frame it the way you want it, but how you wouldn't, people imagine it, you kind of get the shot.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I kind of figured those pieces out when I was at school only because I would react
[SPEAKER_01]: what people needed or wanted to see.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then came the sort of fashion industry and having been a model, I got to work with hundreds of some of the best photographers all over the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've lived in Milan, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, all in my young, early sort of late teens, early twenties.
[SPEAKER_01]: got to work with all these fabulous photographers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I never actually assisted officially myself or got it any qualifications as photographer.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I met my wife and sister-in-law in the 1994, I pretty much was like...
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never seen such sort of beautiful people.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to photograph them and they became my early muses and I sort of turned my life from being this model, which I realized too at that point like I've done this for six years.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've had a great time of travel the world, but it was also I started in this sort of the end of this sort of
[SPEAKER_01]: Supermodel era where, you know, the Claudia Schiffers and Naomi Campbells and Christy Turlingsans were, you know, city crawfords were the names and it was all about that moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you could see...
[SPEAKER_01]: to the Kate Moss and who I'd worked with as a model and the Anna Sui and just different designers that were coming up that were much more sort of, I feel like the look was her and she can and drudgeony and it was a very different vibe.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you can see the whole fashion world was shifting and I'm a big guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm six for our play rugby at school.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was never going to be an
[SPEAKER_01]: but I didn't want to throw away years of what I'd learned and also
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a love of the industry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I loved the differences in the diversity and the odd baldness of the fashion industry and how it brought together so many great creatives under one roof and you all had to collaborate together to get the job done.
[SPEAKER_01]: So many different pieces to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I always loved all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And hence changed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then now I met these two girls, you know, Chrissy who had become my wife, who I was completely spitting with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then so I had this sort of like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm curious as a male model, you know, because I've heard all the stories and seen, you know, even on this new documentaries, what it's like to be a model and the waiting and the anxiety and the self doubt did it feel like that for a male?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, it can do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think it's different.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, again, back then it was very different.
[SPEAKER_01]: The world was different.
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't have
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I communicated my wife by writing her letters when I didn't see her and maybe you get to speak to her once a week on a phone on a Sunday when the rates were lower.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, guys, this is a time when you'd go to a pay phone in the street to call someone or you'd give them the pay phone number and they would call you and you'd grab the pay phone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's that I'm old.
[SPEAKER_01]: So those were the things, you know, and you know, life was just different and models were different.
[SPEAKER_01]: As far as how many of them we were.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'd be in New York City and there would be like,
[SPEAKER_01]: maybe a hundred of us total, we said, you know, now there are thousands of everyone's modeling and it's all over the world and it's the big thing, you know, you'd be in an agency at London and an agency would take you on and if they took you on, you pretty much would go into work because that's how and the agencies would invest in you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, they would pay for you to live, they would pay for your photoshoot, they would pay for you to travel, they would, you know, now and certainly for the past 10, 15 years
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's all on you as the model to pay for yourself, and it's almost a little bit more like throwing spaghetti in a wall than them seeing which sticks, you know, and it changed a lot how it all worked.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not to say that that doesn't still happen when some agents see some talent and goes, I believe in you and invests.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's not nearly as frequent.
[SPEAKER_01]: It used to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I wasn't as, it wasn't as terrifying, but I mean, at the same time.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there is still no such thing really as a sort of full figured plus size male model.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's not a thing that we even get really ever discussed, you know, I mean, there's not to say that there are sort of big and tall stores for men and men who are, so,
[SPEAKER_01]: larger, like myself, for example, who's 64 and 230, you know, could model do something, but it's less described as, it's, you know, I think that that is actually something which, but he perhaps even could be addressed, but it never really comes up.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a really interesting point.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never thought of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like for example, my husband is 64 and 230.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, he goes to certain stores that have closed that fit him better in general because it's just harder and he has a great body and look, you know, but it's it's harder for him to figure it out, but he's also not the type of guy that's looking at fashion magazines for anything, you know, it also I guess there's not too much of the, you know, that kind of an audience for someone like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, so as a photographer, you move forward and how do you start getting your own name as a photographer.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you know, it's one of those things again.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no, because I get asked this and have been asked this over the years by photographers and people trying to make it in fashion and there's no kind of golden sort of rule or way to do something.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think what what I did and what worked for me because I had been a model for sort of six, seven years.
[SPEAKER_01]: a lot of people, a lot of agencies, a travel around the world and new people and then now had my girlfriend who was a model and she was doing very well, was doing very Italian Vogue, all these different things, a few covers here and there and then she has an identical twin social fascinating to look at and watch their model.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was able to build my portfolio and what I did was, is that I would go to the agencies and go to the models and the people I knew and
[SPEAKER_01]: photograph them in their early stages of their career.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, when I lived in Milan originally, it was almost like a sort of a Melrose place type of situation where all the models live in these buildings together.
[SPEAKER_01]: We lived in this one building called The Darsino in Milan and the probably about 150 models living in this building.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I knew everyone because I'd been there for two years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I would, and they knew I was the,
[SPEAKER_01]: model who was becoming a photographer, sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would tell everybody, look, would you come back from your photo shoots every day?
[SPEAKER_01]: please don't go to the bathroom and shower and remove all your makeup and wash out your hair.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come and see me and then let if you would have pure wood.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me photograph you with this professional hair and makeup that you've just had done.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because that's something I didn't have access to.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have a hair and a makeup artist sitting around waiting to do things.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these models would show up sometimes they wouldn't bother because they'd just look normal.
[SPEAKER_01]: But oftentimes they would have had the best hair
[SPEAKER_01]: create, you know, the huge hair or just whatever it was, there's something really spectacular about great makeup and hair.
[SPEAKER_01]: Clearly it's what transforms the picture and then we come to see me and I would have the opportunity to photograph them oftentimes in the late afternoon like, be the afternoon in the summers in Italy and you know, and I did the same thing in Paris and Milan and New York and I started moving around doing this and I built up my portfolio.
[SPEAKER_01]: and I got known by London agencies as the guy who could build a portfolio for these young models and click agency in New York actually took me on and I ended up shooting every single model in the agency and they created a book that was done by me, it called Click Silver that was all printed on metal and silver with it a big exhibition in New York and it was for every model's time to shine
[SPEAKER_01]: and I painted every model from the head to toe in silver paint and shot this whole thing and then printed it on silver.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have this big exhibition in New York.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and all these things are very different these days, but that's how it was for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was my kind of moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of people saw this, and I got a bunch of breaks, interview magazine, paper magazine, all these old people calling me, and it kind of snowballed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, but you know, it was a lot of work.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this is all, this wasn't overnight.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is years in the making, six years modeling for five years working as a photographer.
[SPEAKER_01]: So by the end of it, you know, before I even did top model, I had been shooting for, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've been in the industry for a decade, you know, right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's so fascinating.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So at this point, you know, I, well, I only heard it from the documentaries, but it seems like you are almost cast.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were looking for a good looking white photographer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Funny enough, you know, the funny thing is that, and this is, it's interesting to me, that was news to me when I heard Jay say that on the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, on the documentary, I had no idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, when I, what happened to me, my story of it is, in fact, that no lay man who is a stylist on the show a season one, who is a good friend of mine and someone who I've worked with on in the business came to me and said Nigel, they're looking for photographers for next season season two.
[SPEAKER_01]: To do a shoot, one of the shoots, one of the weeks for one of the episodes, would you be interested?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, yeah, that'd be so much fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got on there a bit on TV before.
[SPEAKER_01]: That would be really fun, like, I don't even know what that means, but let's have a go.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he literally took me shopping and we bought a pair of shoes that I thought was cool, and that was about as much as I could afford to change my look.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I tried to dress up to look TV, went to Jane Manuel's home where there was one of the executive producers was there to need Dominicine.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: Jay and they literally gave me a magazine like flick through the magazine and critique the pictures.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I kind of did that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd seen the first season of Top Model on TV like everyone else.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I kind of went through it and I just gave them my honest critique.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were like, look, we'll let you know if this works, we like your work.
[SPEAKER_01]: We think there'll be a couple of good shoots for you, maybe coming up in the next few seasons.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll call you in a couple of weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Two weeks went by, nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: A month went by, nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Six weeks went by, nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought I was.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where were you disappointed?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I don't know, yes and no, I mean, yes, as in my ego, probably was like, oh, I wish I could have been on TV, that would have been fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I was like, oh, well, nothing last I tried and I didn't get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's happened and then modeling industry and the fashion industry, you're used in rejection.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rejection is nine tenths of the game, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, that's every answer is no, and you haven't got the job.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very few on whatever, you know, if you're lucky, if someone ever says yes, someone will book you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That wasn't really a surprise.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like, OK, well, not this time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I guess I didn't get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I got this call on one of my assistants up with my studio in New York was like, hey, I think this is a thing you went for the other day.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, really?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I spoke to them and they were like, hi, yeah, with this top model.
[SPEAKER_01]: And sorry we haven't contacted you.
[SPEAKER_01]: But
[SPEAKER_01]: your tape actually has continued to go up and up in the, you know, with the producers and it's at the highest level and they were they're interested know you would be interested in the more permanent role on the show, not just as a photographer for an episode, but as the permanent judge and photographer for an entire season of top model.
[SPEAKER_01]: what that even meant.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it also, I didn't even know that I could do it because I had buttons, jobs booked in the weeks ahead.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't just free hanging out waiting to be booked by top model.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a juggling act for the first season for me to try and figure out jobs that I was doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And back then I were getting hired as a photographer sometimes for a month straight shooting for a certain client.
[SPEAKER_01]: just every day, you know, so it wasn't as easy as it sounds all of those types of jobs that didn't exist anymore, but back then that's what it was like, so, you know, yeah, it was interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I heard that on the show, I was like, huh, so, you know, wait a second here, that's not what I heard, but I'm like, I haven't been called about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, what happened?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because yeah, well, they said, you had to, you had to, you had to be a good photographer to get the job, you couldn't just hire anyone, but they did want someone,
[SPEAKER_01]: who was a sort of white straight male.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you came in and you ticked all the boxes and you could do it, you know, you had the talent, you came recommended by no lay, you had done great work.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you were considered a white male, I might well that's just ironic because I'm actually half shrunken.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, and never in my life have I been identified as white, but, you know, I want to be on TV.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's going to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's so funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: So at this point, I'm curious because you said, you know, you bought a pair of shoes and this was a little bit hard for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did they offer you enough money that you were like wait a minute?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is going to be really exciting or at the beginning, was it like minimal?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, it wasn't crazy money.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it wasn't great that it wasn't going to replace what you are already doing that you could quit.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like just like a job.
[SPEAKER_01]: To be honest, it was like a gig.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a few thousand dollars is actually what it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, per episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I was bad, but it was like a photography job.
[SPEAKER_00]: But did you exposure, you probably thought this would be amazing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the role of the dice was, and this is the thing, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think even top model contestants have talked about this, like whether there is a negative impact for being on a reality TV show.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I knew that even myself going in as a photographer back then, in 23 years ago, I knew that the fashion industry was so exclusive and so kind of,
[SPEAKER_01]: hard and, you know, to get into and people were very judgmentful and, and that's how it was and kind of still is to, you know, to time extend, but back then particularly to be on a prime time commercial television show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Despite how great it was, we'd have its drawbacks because people would frown upon it thinking you'd sold out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Especially if you worked in the high fashion cool sort of hipster side of fashion.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one thing if you did super commercial work.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I worked in a very, in the very sort of high-reactual ones of kind of doing cool stuff and stuff that was almost on the fringes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so then it was like, okay, well, but I thought to myself, how do I become?
[SPEAKER_01]: Stephen myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do I become Bruce Weber?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do I become Irving Penn, Avodon?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, as not to say that I ever did become any of those things, but the point being that as a young photographer, those are your idols, and you know, you're like, how does one do that, other than obviously getting lucky with your work and getting all these opportunities?
[SPEAKER_01]: But this was an opportunity to be
[SPEAKER_01]: a household name, because people all over the country, if not all over the world, would soon know your name, your work, and your face, which is unusual for photographer, because a lot of times you can ID, say, you know, any leave of its is pictures.
[SPEAKER_01]: But do you know what she would look like if you passed her in the street?
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe Anna, you know, it's not a great example, because she's quite well known.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's a great example.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it is better to the idea that that was new.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that was something that had, you know, that I kind of rolled the dice on and thought, well, let's give it a shot and who knew.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, it was funny because we were not really in vote when we first started top model and of course by the end, Italian vote was our magazine sponsor and Andre Leontale, editor of a large American vote was the judge and so we became very in-vote as the show went on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you had seen cycle one.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, why do they call it cycles?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this like a modeling term?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't understand why wasn't it season one episode?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is that?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, what are you not there about top model?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're not known that we are known for creating our own vernacular.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do know that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this was a creative word.
[SPEAKER_01]: to my amazing and all the best, you know, it's sort of, I mean, I think that there is some rhyme and reason to it outside of the fact most TV shows when they do a season.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a season a year.
[SPEAKER_01]: But because we were asked to do two seasons a year, they decided to call it cycles.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it became a thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, it was just, you know, if there's one thing that the, you know, Tyrone, sort of crew were a good at, was coming up with words and names that became catchy and different and for some reason caught on and became unique to top model, but then, you know, ended up being a part of the vernacular.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, there was no real rhyme or reason to I still kind of call it seasons to be fair.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you would see in cycle one and what were your thoughts going into this about the show and about Tyra and the rest of the cast, so to speak, the rest of the judges or whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I was like, oh, it's TV.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a little, I certainly thought some of it was a bit over the top on the first, but also no one had ever seen any of this sort of stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't that different than what I had experienced.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'd see how hard it could be.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you have tough it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I was a young male model, I had spent,
[SPEAKER_01]: night sleeping on a park bench in Milan because I couldn't afford to pay the rent.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I had no money and I had no way of getting back to the UK and I was, you know, broke and I slept like our homeless person on a park bench.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that happened to me and I, and I, and I also saw what could happen and what were the possibilities and what, you know, the good things and the bad things and the crazy stuff and also working as a male model, you know, that's certainly a profession where you're
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, not the star of the show and you never were going to be, you know, it was always a women's world and, you know, the male models were very much sort of an accessory in most shoots, you know, certainly if you're working with a female as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: One thing if you're just working as the guy for male sort of shoots, but, and again, more so back then than perhaps even now.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, so I guess watching it, seeing it,
[SPEAKER_01]: I found it, you know, entertaining, it was like, I mean, everyone in the industry was secretly one or not so secretly was watching top model.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a culture.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were all gossiping about it in the background.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it had already got that momentum.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when it came about, and then because I knew people like no lay that happened to be working on it, that I was, I'd have to have a slightly closer connection to it than perhaps with your other people.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was very much aware of it and watching it.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I didn't, it was no real signals that it was like,
[SPEAKER_01]: something you shouldn't do for any other perspective outside of the fact that it might not be good for your career because of the commercial aspect of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So at the beginning when you started, you know, what was it like, what was your experience where you like after a couple cycles of this where you like, oh, my god, this is amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is exactly what I signed up for.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is better.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is worse than expected.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what happened to you in your thoughts?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was, it's sort of, it's not.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't know how to have a body experience where you have a complete, like, let me check this out.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of it's happening in real time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think it became, first of all, there's a lot of other things that happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the show became increasingly popular.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's something else.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the first season, although it was popular, was still a very small show on a network called UPN that doesn't even exist anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a small network and, you know, it wasn't an international show or any of those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: it the show grew and grew and grew, you know, we went from being a small show on a small network to being the number one show on prime time, certainly on a Wednesday night and had an audience of over 100 million people when we were in a 160 countries worldwide.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we went from
[SPEAKER_01]: juggernaut and everybody wanted a piece, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: So
[SPEAKER_01]: It's good bad and ugly, right, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So people were caught all the biggest companies, wanted to work with you one way or the other.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not necessarily a coolest, fashionable company, but people wanted to, you know, everyone, it was a very successful commercial success.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and then the charities and the various NGOs, I was able to work with, make a wish foundation that he made in society and traveling to Africa doing trips, you know, photographing children and with HIV and, you know, things that I just thought
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, actually in a jolly and Brad Pitt did that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, but I was sort of a sudden getting asked to do those things, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So there was a lot of things that came with it that you were like, well, this is amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I can help use this platform to do this or do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they were, you know, and the money got better, the pay get, all the things kind of, you know, snowballed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just started, I had my first child jack.
[SPEAKER_01]: a year and a half into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had a small family to look after.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this was, and we started doing two seasons a year.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it started doing all my time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, so you were, you know, it was, and it was fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you got to travel the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, and my wife was my makeup artist.
[SPEAKER_01]: So she came with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not a big makeup.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Chrissy and my son would travel with me all over the world on top of the model.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I had a very unique story, you know, as far as my
[SPEAKER_00]: got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so that was my next question because I wondered if it affected your home life, but it seems like it actually made an opportunity for your family to succeed even more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, my wife appeared on top model multiple times as the cover girl expert.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you watch this show and you will see that when they are at the cover girl sort of spokesperson,
[SPEAKER_01]: My wife was by often the cover girl spokesperson.
[SPEAKER_01]: She actually went on to do her own TV show with cover girl, called Next.new you, where she travels all over the country and doing makeovers of people as the actual cover girl spokesperson.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that kind of happened as a sideline on the back side of it all.
[SPEAKER_01]: My mother appeared on America's next
[SPEAKER_01]: As when she went to the UK, we did the shoot for a bodywood photo shoot.
[SPEAKER_01]: My mother came on and taught all the girls how to tie a saree and stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, how was that?
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, a whole family was in.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like a family affair.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's funny because you know, you watched that back the show and I see all the things that were happening that were negative, all of the sort of backlash pieces of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, much of that,
[SPEAKER_01]: And it sounds silly, because it sounds like, well, how do you not know that?
[SPEAKER_01]: All this was happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it, I actually wasn't aware in real time about a lot of the things because how it was managed to show and how they did this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was deliberate because they,
[SPEAKER_01]: In order to keep the judges separate from the contestants, it was important that we didn't know what was happening behind the scenes in their private life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was important for them that when we saw them at judging, that all we saw was what they presented at that moment, how they were dressed in that moment, and they had done their hair,
[SPEAKER_01]: How they spoke to us at judging and then what the photograph they showed us was that that was all we would To know we weren't to know about background because if we somehow started to not like a contestant because we're like Oh, she's so nasty buying the scenes as well as a problem make she's
[SPEAKER_01]: That was one we was considered to be unrealistic because in the real world you don't know one knows what you're doing at home.
[SPEAKER_01]: They just know how you performed and funded people at work.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that should be the way it should be.
[SPEAKER_01]: But also, I think they were trying to protect, say,
[SPEAKER_01]: characters and stories that were happening from the judges so they're going, well that's a really terrible thing that girl shouldn't be doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't want her on the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's more like, no, that's that story behind the scenes.
[SPEAKER_01]: This girl now presents a good picture or a good this and that's what we will see.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's how we judged it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So things like, you know, in Shandy, what happened to Shandy, for example, the first time I even really knew about that at
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, oh, that's awful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Post that, what happened to Shania?
[SPEAKER_01]: What happened?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when I saw the documentary, you were like, wow, that's completely wasn't told correctly or showcase.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think at the time, when it did happen, there was inklings around the set of what had happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I knew a bit more about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't complete like the first time I saw it was on TV, but I never, but it was just like,
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, I'd heard a rumor and I mean, we were shut down as judges like you're not allowed to speak to the girls, not allowed to ask about this, even if we went to the bathroom during judging someone would take you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you, if there was a contestant,
[SPEAKER_01]: They would never have to run into a contestant.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can never see them.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've always taken the contestant.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there was no personal interaction, relationships at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I want to ask about the judging, but I want to know before that, what were your relationships like personally?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like were you hanging out outside of filming with Miss Jay, with Jay, with Tyra, with Janas, or was it just on set?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you would hang out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we wouldn't hang out all of us,
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I, you know, but many of you have one dinner season with Tyra, normally within the abroad location.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, to be fair, she was very busy and running the show, and it was her show.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was very much the creative behind it and executive producer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she was very hands-on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like, you know, cut off for being so hands-on.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people, especially celebrities, who do executive producer TV shows or what have you, and they put their name on something, but they're not really executive producers.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, she's was really executive producers, actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: She wasn't just showing up as talent and then leaving.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not living a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was in the editing room.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's editing and actually,
[SPEAKER_01]: following storylines and making, you know, putting the whole thing together to be honest to some extent and coming up with the creative and the fashion shoots and the photo shoots and all the things.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, and again, I don't even know fully how involved she was.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, one of the ways that I also kind of got through my piece of it, because I could tell there was, you know, there was certain aspects of the show where
[SPEAKER_01]: If you get too involved in the politics, it could be detrimental for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm like, look, I'm going to personally just pull back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have my own life, my own family, that my own, you know, I don't want to be all wrapped up in the...
[SPEAKER_01]: politics about who's doing what and how and I'm going to do my own thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would always sort of remove myself and perhaps that's one of the reasons why I'm the longest standing judge on America's next-time model outside of Tyra Banks on the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Jay Maniel was the creative director of the photo shoots and Jay Alexander was the runway coach and they both did a bit of judging but
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Jay was on every photo shoot with every photographer every week.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did two photo shoots at season max, you know, maybe one challenge outside of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just saw them but judging and that was it, you know.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and to just go back to what you were saying about Tyre for once again, something I didn't know that I found out in the documentary series was that she really created this, you know, and it was really her baby.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was really impressed to see how she took that and built it and how it was created.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to hear you say that that really was her life and she had her hands in all parts of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: it's really good to hear because it did ring true and it was impressive.
[SPEAKER_00]: It really was and the stress that that puts on somebody is a lot because she does say something towards the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's that bosses have bosses and I know that there was a lot of trickle down stuff but it is interesting to hear that she and good to hear that she took it so seriously and wanted it to be better at some point.
[SPEAKER_00]: It became a little toxic with certain people as you know, as we see and as it unfolded, I wanted to ask you about those judging scenes because you see these girls come forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you see the line up with you guys, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And listen, I know Janice Dickinson, well, we actually were on celebrity rehab together and we were roommates.
[SPEAKER_00]: So fun fact for you, not a fun three weeks for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll tell you that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in watching her, I will say Janice's very, was very true.
[SPEAKER_00]: in those scenes of exactly who she is as a person and how she, you know, represents herself.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was not a character.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I don't know any of you guys, so I didn't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I did notice, watching it, how toxic a lot of that stuff was.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so people can say, oh, that was for the show she was acting.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how Janis is in real life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, whether or not people that, you know, want to admit it, I think everyone really knows it because she continues to represent herself that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, did it come off though at the time as toxic because back then it wasn't like now where like you get canceled for some things that are, you know, tutoring on if it's okay or not, all the way to the other side.
[SPEAKER_00]: But back then like watching her say that people were fat.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were ugly.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were not worthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, seemed like a lot to watch that back on that documentary.
[SPEAKER_00]: How did you feel at those moments?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I was at those moments too, was somewhat horrified.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I think if you even see my reactions and what I would say and how I would handle myself, you know, it was a knee jerk reaction to a lot of what she would say and do.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think you often saw that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think what was trying to be parlayed by, say, even terror by having us all together was that this also, these people,
[SPEAKER_01]: whether they were the right thing for people to hear, this was a mirror to some extent of what was happening in the fashion industry.
[SPEAKER_01]: So people could be that toxic or could be that critical and difficult nasty sometimes in the fashion industry.
[SPEAKER_01]: They could say things to your face like you're too fat, you're too skinny, you're too brown, you're too dark, you've got this, you've got that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I haven't happened to me as a male model, you know, they
[SPEAKER_01]: you can't do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there were things you couldn't change.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't shrink, you know, you know, high-wise.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't, there's, you know, whether it's a weight thing for women or my life happened to be always very slim, but she was often called way too skinny, too slim.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can't, you know, you're not big enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't fit the clothes, you know, you know, why you so skinny?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like, well, that's just the way she is, you know, it's, you know, so,
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you hear these things as a young person, certainly as a teenager, my wife was 18, I was 18 when my first started, very hard to process a lot of those thoughts of things and and know how to handle it in a safe way.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess myself, coming from the industry, sitting there wasn't overly shocked by what I heard, but
[SPEAKER_01]: was determined not to be that person as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was always, you know, when I came out, I tried to be constructive and to be fair kind, actually, with my critiques.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they were also sometimes critiques.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they were like, look,
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you can do better, or if you try this, this could really help you advance faster, and I believe that you have that chance.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think when you look at the whole thing, you had, say, a certain character saying, really wacky, strong, aggressive, tough, nasty things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And other people, who are saying things that were perhaps more comedic and funny, and then other people perhaps like myself, they would say things that were more sort of straightforward in common sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, in many respects, sometimes what I would say,
[SPEAKER_01]: What I got sort of, I was lucky in a way in my casting because
[SPEAKER_01]: They appreciated the fact that, and they would say this, Nigel, you are the, you're the voice of reason on this show.
[SPEAKER_01]: We like you on the show because you were the voice of reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would hear that from the producers all the way to the top of the network saying that when you speak, and I wasn't trying to be the voice of reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was simply just who I am, anyone who knows me, just I'm just kind of a straight shoot to and call it the way it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how I handle myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I certainly didn't see the need to be overly cruel or mean.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I might, you know, some things that I said too, probably didn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, age well, just simply because if you look back 20 plus years ago, you know, just saying certain things, saying plus size model is not isn't even, you know, appropriate today, you know, sort of, you know, we would say a full figured model or something, but there were things that people, we would just say, there's no one to never really had said them before out loud.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were saying some of these things for the very first time in public out loud, you know, and that was the sort of, you know, the judging panel, the way it was pitched to everyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: was that imagine if you went to the casting, they looked at your portfolio and you walk out in a room and you don't get the job, but you don't know why you didn't get the job.
[SPEAKER_01]: What could we do just open up all the things that were being said about those models for every job, tell them,
[SPEAKER_01]: And then let it be known so that you would fast track if and how you wanted to change and if you could change those things because you would now know why you didn't get the job and that was the idea behind it whether it was well executed practice or in the end even true is you know another thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that makes total sense, but I will tell you in watching this back, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: There were, I think three times that I found I had tears coming down my face.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't really react a lot to reality stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it really hit me to watch these girls in this elimination.
[SPEAKER_00]: moment, I guess it's called, and it's just so hard to watch because these girls who are missing validation at home, missing validation in their lives in general, were on a show because they wanted to be beautiful and for women especially, but I'm sure men too.
[SPEAKER_00]: beauty and your self-esteem go hand in hand a hundred percent right and the people that think that they are beautiful enough in some way to even apply to be on that show to have that little bit you know like no one's gonna come on a show if they don't have some self-esteem to think that they're good enough right but then when they're told they're not this they're not that they're too much they're too little
[SPEAKER_00]: To watch that any young girl's face was really hard for me to watch, maybe it's because I have a 13 year old so now I'm a little softer thinking about what a young girl goes there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's because it triggered my own self esteem of, you know, knowing what that feeling is in a different way, but if somebody telling you you're not good enough, you're never going to make it, it just was really hard to watch.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I saw the girls in the interviews and I'm sure there are many more that took that and it affected their self esteem forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that made me really sad.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, and fair, fair point.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I've got a daughter who's 17 myself, you know, and a son who's 20 years old, you know, I didn't at the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a 30 year old man myself, you know, I was only a few years older than the contestants, half of them, some of the contestants are mid-twenties.
[SPEAKER_00]: But were there any stories that you or people that remain with you today that you were like, God, I wonder what happened to that person because that could have affected their whole life?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I think that didn't happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you can just see on the show from the level of the contestants that plenty of people
[SPEAKER_01]: upset, pissed off, and angry today, and it's 20 years ago, so clearly did just what you said.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there are also, you know, and I saw over 300 plus contestants.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are also dozens, if not more, hundreds of contestants that did not have that experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, they don't know, you're right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, and they, you know, and there's a few of them who have been a little vocal recently, because of the TV show saying, I actually had,
[SPEAKER_01]: not that experience at all and, you know, and my career was, you know, large part because of the show, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, it's not to say that that takes away on minimizes what happened to those people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was contestants because it did and it was real for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And everyone has their own truth in that moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the problem is is that, you know, and having come off and reality show myself in the first place is that
[SPEAKER_01]: When you sign up for these things, you kind of sign up for these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and the show was not like the one that I've seen it before.
[SPEAKER_01]: The show had gone on to be a massive show.
[SPEAKER_01]: If one witnessed what was happening and they still blind up.
[SPEAKER_01]: literally thousands of people every time there was a casting call, we did one in New York City and we had over 10,000 people and that was all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many people had lined up to try and enter the competition.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for some broad reason, despite all the things and I think this all gets people into people's heads so you get carried away with
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no, I must be doing the right thing because look, you know, it's everyone is cheering along on the sidelines.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now that doesn't justify it, but there's that sort of mass hysteria aspect of success that makes people think it's like the emperor is clothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that must be right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, I hear you and I'm and there are I'm sure hundreds of amazing stories It's of course me as a viewer watching this documentary No, I agree with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I watched it too and cried.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was in it and I still cried I have the the tears running down my face and I thought
[SPEAKER_01]: I even called Jay up afterwards and was like, Jay, I didn't even know that this was even happening to you during the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you and I have friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think too, there's a lot of things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was cathartic for a lot of people to watch that and go, oh my god, but I think it's also important to know that the editors of the documentary are also telling a story themselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: They also have their own decision of which pieces to pull together, to pull the heart strings, just like it was edited in the first place,
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also tell other stories by how you edit and how you put things together to make a point.
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't again say that their point isn't true or not right, but there are brilliant story tellers and one of the reasons why we decided to even do the documentary on Netflix was because the directors were award-winning journalistic directors who previous documentary
[SPEAKER_01]: actually when we met the directors, they had an even watch top model.
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't even know it the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they weren't fans.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they weren't not fans.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were just kind of which I appreciated.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, all right, these guys are going to do this from justice.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think they did.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's fair.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think what happened and how the documentary that I watched it, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, yeah, okay, it didn't age well.
[SPEAKER_01]: It shouldn't have aged well.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are a lot of things that shouldn't have happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fashion industry is also
[SPEAKER_01]: was like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of things the fashion industry shouldn't have happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, wished they didn't happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm hoping have changed too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of things in life 20 years ago, which was shameful, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very fair.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as a viewer and someone who didn't follow it at the beginning, I will say, you know, I heard a lot of chatter about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the end, you know, I didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't feel as terrible as I thought I would about Tyra.
[SPEAKER_00]: I sort of felt like I understood her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like I did like that she sat there and answered questions and gave her side of the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And whether or not she took responsibility in the way I think that people may have wanted her to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I saw that and I felt that.
[SPEAKER_00]: maybe she did as much as she felt like she could.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know her, but you know, she seems like a very tough woman who believes in what she's doing and wants to move on to the next thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I appreciated that she was even part of it, I guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I did see how as an entrepreneur, you have a certain way of doing things in a certain way of being and not everybody's going to like you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And can you make mistakes going along?
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: And hopefully, you know, she's going to sit with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: She does say at the end something about the only way that you're going to
[SPEAKER_00]: and from learning from it and hopefully from this experience whether or not she wants to admit it, she should hopefully will know what she did to people, but she also created a phenomenon that not many people get to create and be a part of, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think that, you know, then to the day you can, I can't speak for her.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't speak for Tara's truth or why she says
[SPEAKER_01]: And I at least I believe that the way she approached everything was really trying to be fair and trying to and then she did care, maybe sometimes she over cared and she went over the top.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that being said, she there was definitely elements of, you know, what we look at now is just really poor judgment, you know, in certain areas.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there was, and again, it's not all heard.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a whole production team.
[SPEAKER_01]: failed to look after these contestants at the highest levels.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a show that was being okay and approved by the networks and every level looking at everything and they saw the numbers, they saw the success and they said I want more and that unfortunately sometimes feeds the beast.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is a really good point.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think a lot of people wanted to point the finger just at her, especially after you guys were let go.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I want to quickly talk about that, but before I get there, do you have a moment that you remember being part of this show that was like, that was the best thing that ever happened?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's my favorite memory.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's lots.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a lot of amazing times.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of really great, great experiences.
[SPEAKER_01]: getting access to the forbidden city in China, who were the first American crew to ever shoot there, ever in history?
[SPEAKER_00]: amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we hired a thousand Chinese soldiers and sort of dressed them in ancient Chinese outfits and had them as sort of extras in the forbidden city and then sat in the Emperor's seat and did a fashion show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Onkits, you know, like things that we did that were like, you sort of splashes off and go, am I actually here?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this actually happening?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, doing photo shoots in the grand Coliseum in
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, in Barcelona for, you know, which had been around for two thousand years and, you know, going to South Africa and shooting, you know, just in the most extreme, you kind of imagine if we can imagine it and dream it, we could do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had budgets that were, you know, astronomical, the kind of things that you just can't do in television these days that we had, we could do that, you know, we could do garden of Eden shoot.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been three days building a set.
[SPEAKER_01]: and then have all the girls body-painted from head-to-toe 25 makeup artists.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, just huge budgets, you know, and the show just grew and grew and grew.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we would have advanced teams that would travel for six weeks before we got to a foreign country to map out every step that we would take in advance of us arriving, including our food and our meals.
[SPEAKER_01]: We would have...
[SPEAKER_01]: decoy cars for us because it was sort of a sort of level of pain that happened when we got there but the press would follow us everywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: We would get out one at a time with our own security to go to have dinner with people.
[SPEAKER_01]: radioing in that you could go to the restaurant and get out one at a time.
[SPEAKER_01]: We all flew on different planes and all kinds of stuff that was like way over the top, you know, but that was that moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a sort of that is sort of pinnacle of like a really successful mega show, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what was that like, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: I can imagine that you have a lot of sense of loyalty to the show and the people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it because it did so many things for your entire family.
[SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned your mom, your wife, being able to travel with you, being part of this show, and how much success it brought you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But was there a moment that you thought, oh gosh, this is making me feel like I'm worried that I need to get out of this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Was there a turning point for you, ever?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, to do fair, I don't think I have like specific loyalty to the show just because it gave me success.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that again, I'm a pretty pragmatic person, you know, if something is fair or fun or good or, you know, then it, then I'm happy to say if it isn't and I'm also happy to say, and I don't think that really changes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think that for my perspective, what I was going through personally.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it was very successful.
[SPEAKER_01]: The show is huge.
[SPEAKER_01]: People loved it everywhere you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone just said how much they love the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Never will anyone ever sort of say, God, the show is really toxic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, God, the show is, you know, can't believe you're all natural.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one, no one ever, ever said that.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one wrote about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: None of the press, no one.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, no interview at any single time that any reporter go, oh, this is bad, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is all 20 years down the line, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So at that time, it did not appear to be like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we didn't, don't forget, there was no social media.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there was no Instagram, there was no Facebook even, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no Twitter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, when the show was on, it happened late at the end of the show and all of this stuff that you hear in the documentary was sort of pride, pretty that happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the girls did not have a platform to go on after the show and complain or say their story or tell their story to the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it would become off the show and disappear into obscurity outside of a newspaper writing about them or an interview podcast and exist.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was none of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was only
[SPEAKER_01]: if a TV interview happened, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And the only people they really interviewed were the winners.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, they won.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the winners only wanted to say good things because they had just won.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So again, you know, much of this hindsight is 2020 because now we have all the back and forth and all the history and stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we had had social media and these girls were able to have gone out and said, God, this was really toxic.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a horrible time and really depressed.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was dreadful.
[SPEAKER_01]: probably would have been completely different.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would have gone, oh my goodness, what is going on?
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, at the time it felt almost like sort of groundbreaking to be fair.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tell me about what it was like when you found out that you were fired, did you have any inkling that that was going to happen?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I didn't have anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think it eventually right towards the end I did, but I say that, as far as like towards the end, but
[SPEAKER_01]: Every season, you know, your contract is is out, and sometimes you'd renew for two three seasons, so you knew it sort of got good, they still had to pick you up, right, sign you on your contract.
[SPEAKER_01]: This time my, my contract has run out, and they're going to happen Bobby three or four times in 18 seasons that I worked on the show, but it has always been picked up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's, there's also a deadline on a timeline for that to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'd be word, none of us, myself, the two days, word, let
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, let it on what was happening until literally six o'clock in the evening on the very day of the that are they had to contractually pick us up or not and they told us then and Tyra called us, you know, one at a time.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they were being picked up and it was above her sort of, you know, juices made decisions and nothing that she could do and, you know, she was upset about it, blah, blah, blah, but it was very last minute and it was also like, at the same time you're like, well, come on, you must have known and and and and for me, with a young family, you know, mortgage, all of that, all of that not more stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, and I blocked out my schedule for the next several months because I
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of a sudden, with the top model and all of a sudden, I wasn't, and there was no like, oh, and he's not the job, you're like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, well, what am I going to do now?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, for me, I was able to pivot very fast.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was offered a job by NBC to host the Facebook Naomi Campbell within one week of dropping off time on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I had a very, you know, again, flip opportunity to work in that show, do, you know, working with Naomi Campbell and it's a whole other thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, it wasn't so crazy for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was sort of a big press moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we were on CNN.
[SPEAKER_01]: when we got fired, because it was sort of apparently international news.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, again, that's just as the irony of that show.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was such a press-worthy show and so big, a country that people wanted to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I know we're running out of time here, so I just want to say there's so much to talk to you about after the fact that is so fascinating that you've done and created and that shows how you are as a person, you know that your entire identity was not just tied to that one show, you know, which is great.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I congratulate you for all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do want to know, I know you've done some press now with Miss J, with Jay, Miss J had had some health issues as we saw on the
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, great.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've always been friends and we've been friends ever since and we've hung out and seen each other nonstop throughout the years since top model and in fact Jay Alexander was out with me last night.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a party in Manhattan and he was there and he's in his wheelchair and he showed up and, you know, he could.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not easy for him to get around, it's not easy for him to fully communicate like he used to and yet he's still out for that supporting his friends and was there for me with, you know, I have a alcohol business called Barcom Martinez and we have espresso Martinez.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a big party in that happen and he came to support me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Jay Manil has done the same over and over again and oftentimes together and we normally see each other at fashion week, but you know, since Jay's, you know, Jay Alexander's accident, it's been much harder for him to come out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, but he's, we've all just, you know, the end of the day we're just human beings too, and you know, I think we've, we were always friends, and, you know, we have very different worlds, but very different backgrounds, very different experiences,
[SPEAKER_01]: good people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, we we were friends and I admired their creativity and, you know, and a lot of what they stood for last question, excuse me, one was less than me spoke to Tyra.
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't spoken to Tyra for a few years, and I have not spoken to her since the show aired.
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't spoken to her in the past few years.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had lunch with Ken Mark about a few years back when I was in LA.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we had a, you know, it was fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we had a good time at Laft and Reminest and what have you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's water under the bridge, what happened with us, and as far as the show and the breakup.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was unpleasant and difficult at the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, you know, I was like,
[SPEAKER_01]: over, you know, sort of personalised it, you know, and it was clearly more business to Tyra than perhaps it felt for me at the time, and the Jay's, but I am moved on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for filling us in on everything that's been going on with you, your thoughts on the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell us where people can find out more about you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and it's some of the easiest ways to probably be to go to Instagram, which is at Nigel Barker, and Facebook which is at Nigel Barker official.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I have a new company, which is a Barker Martinez.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you go to my website, which is Barker Martinez.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're doing all kinds of different fun stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're also working on new TV shows and things like that and still shooting as a fashion struggle.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we got it all going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, it's.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an exciting world to live in and to continue to live in the fashion world, and it's certainly with the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think what I hope comes out of it is that there's a lot of learned and a lot of mistakes that can be not made again, and hopefully a lot of wounds that perhaps were inflicted on some of these contestants that can have potential of healing now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's the most important thing is where it is one move on from something like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's his dwell.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I've got it's been I really appreciate your time and I wish you the best of luck.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to make sure we order a case of those martinis.
[SPEAKER_00]: They look great here social media for that has been looking fantastic.
[SPEAKER_00]: So good lunch to future.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: Thanks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for listening to Ms.
[SPEAKER_00]: Understood.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host, Rachel, you could tell.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Understood with Rachel, you could tell.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's spelled m-is-s-s-understood.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much, and I'll see you next time.