New York PR icon Kelly Cutrone is known for being… unfiltered. It’s what made her such a great reality TV personality in the 2000s and 2010s. She appeared on True Life, The Hills, The City, and her own one-season series Kell on Earth. While others in fashion were (and are) just as brazen — moreso even — Cutrone was the only one willing to show the dark, demanding, and downright rude truth on TV.
This willingness to cut to the bone made her a perfect fit for America’s Next Top Model, on which Cutrone appeared as a judge from 2012 to 2015, replacing Andre Leon Tally on the panel.
Since the pandemic, there has been renewed and growing interest in America’s Next Top Model, with many online commentators criticizing the producers, judges, and, particularly, host and executive producer Tyra Banks for their inhumane and exploitative treatment of the show’s young and naive contestants.
In response to the criticism, Banks, along with many of the other judges and former contestants, agreed to be interviewed for the new Netflix documentary — Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.
The 3-part docuseries is full of piping hot tea, with many of the interviewees heaping blame on Banks and fellow executive producer Ken Mok for the toxic atmosphere, torturous makeovers, tone deaf photo shoots, and dangerous runways.
Cutrone does not appear in the documentary herself, but she took to Instagram to spill her own tea about fellow judge Jay Manuel, calling him out for being rude to her when she first arrived on the judging panel and then reveling in the fact that she managed to outlast him.
Cutrone writes that Manuel was never in the fashion industry before he was on the show. She claims he worked the makeup counter at a MAC location in Toronto. She also writes Banks boosted him up and now he’s trying to become relevant again by trashing his former boss. “Maybe he will get a deal as a spokesperson for spray tanning or filler,” Cutrone wrote.
Commenters on the above Instagram post were quick to call out the irony of one of fashion’s most famous bullies getting her heckles up about someone being rude to her. But in an age when everyone is so overly media trained and unwilling to risk putting their foot in it, it’s nice to know we can still count on Cutrone to tell us what she’s thinking. Keep it up, gurl! We’ll be here with popcorn in hand, anxiously awaiting your next read.
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