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The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts. On this podcast, Incels, we unpack an emerging mindset. I am a loser. If I was a woman, I wouldn't date me either. A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women at a deadly tipping point. Tomorrow is the day of retribution. The day in which I will have my revenge. This is Incels. Listen to season one of Incels on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Karen and Georgia and we just celebrated our 500th episode of My Favorite Murder. That's 500 podcasts filled with true crime comedy and some light girl math. We're about to podcast for you. Watch this. We have to think of something to say after welcome every week. And we're doing it every week for 10 years. Almost 10 years. 10 years. 10. That's what 500 episodes sounds like. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to My Favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and on the new season of Heavyweight. And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke. A man who robbed a bank when he was 14 years old and a centenarian rediscovers a love lost 80 years ago. How can 101-year-old fall in love again? Listen to Heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's 2006 and a teenager named Jaslene Gonzalez just sent in her audition tape to be on America's Next Top Model. I should be America's Next Top Model because I devote myself to this. Every day is like a fashion opportunity. Second portrait I caught up with Jaslene earlier this year. These days she's a preschool teacher and she has the soft spoken demeanor to match. But back in 2006, being on ANTM was her dream. I come from a Puerto Rican culture and in Chicago, no one was tall and skinny, so I was just like the model of the town. But there weren't too many high fashion runways in her neighborhood. In Chicago. So she got exposure elsewhere. From a very young age, I grew up on the stage. I was a singer and a dancer. But then, naturally, I progressed into becoming a model. I started competing in pageants. And I also started doing hair shows for this Latina woman who owned the hair salon. And I started to realize we would win every competition that I would grace the Runway on. People at school and in her neighborhood also started to realize there was something special about Jaslene. Remember, this was also in an era where if you were a tall, pretty girl, people would tell you, you should be on America's Next Top Model. You should audition for America's Next Top Model. That's all I ever heard about. So she did. Jaslene got her dad to rent a car. And she drove six hours from Chicago to the nearest audition in Cleveland. And when she got there, oh, Jaslene was ready. I remember my first opportunity to be exposed to the camera. I had to step out when they called my name, say my name, my height and where I'm from. So I was preparing myself mentally. This is gonna be the time to shine. I said my name, my height and where I'm from. Like the most cha cha diva ever. When Jaslene started telling me about her semifinals audition, her preschool teacher Persona melted away. She was filled with the energy. I remember from antm. I could see the energy that got her into the semifinals. The next day. I had to stay at a hotel. And that was where the casting director was actually present, which was Michelle Mock. And she had a camera in front of her. And she had asked each and every girl, when you come up to me, consider this camera Tyra Banks. And you gotta tell Tyra Banks why you want to be on America's Next Top Model. So the girls were all coming up, and they were all giving a sobbing story. I mean, I'm talking about every girl was crying. She had issues. She had this. So I'm in my mind, like, no, no, no, no, no. I finally get up and I start telling the shell mock in the camera that I should be America's next almara. Because I got the moves and I got the attitude. I compose and this and that. And I was so energetic. Like I had lifted something up in that room that I promise you, God is my witness. Every girl after started talking like me. Jaslene's performance landed her in front of the queen and her trusted advisors. Hi, my name is jaslene. I am 19 years old. Did you learn all that in Catholic school? I can portray so many different Lines, give me some looks. What looks can you portray? I can give you. Next. What do you want Next? What else? Jeslene nailed her audition in front of tyra and the Js. But once she left that room, she had another very important room to go into. Here's longtime ANTM creative director and judge J. Manuel explaining what happened to the wannabe contestants after they left the judging panel. The girls come in and meet with Ms. J, Tyra and myself. But they go out of our room and they literally go into three other rooms where three independent psychologists, they get an evaluation. J. Manuel is talking about the psychological evaluation. Every wannabe contestant had to go through a series of tests and conversations with a psychologist to determine if they were mentally fit enough to be on the show. Had a red, an orange and a green. And so the green was obviously totally mentally capable to be on the show. And then orange and then red were not allowed to be on the show. Jaslene, like all the other contestants, answered a series of questions. They were asked about their background, their relationships, their struggles. After Jaslene met with the show's psychologist, she and all the other finalists were gathered to hear Tyra make her final selections. This was the last cut to see who would officially be joining the cast of ANTM Cycle 7. The last girl that will join these 12 lucky ladies over here is. Jaslene. Waited and waited and waited as other names were called. Monique. Jaslene didn't make the cut. She counted down the girls that were gonna go into the house, and I was not in that pool. I'm not giving up. You shouldn't give up. I'm coming back. Give me a hug. I was very upset and kind of dumbfounded by those results. I thought I was going to make it into the house. When Jazlyn got cut, she was so distraught, she couldn't even bring herself to do her exit interview. They eventually had to bring a producer to me to sit me down and tell me the reason why I didn't get picked. The producer told her it wasn't her Runway walk that got her cut. It wasn't about her not looking good in photos. It wasn't that she didn't have that it factor. She did. Jaslene was cut because of something she told the show psychologist. Welcome to the curse of America's Next Top Model. I'm Bridget Armstrong. Every ANTM hopeful had to undergo a psychological evaluation before being cast on the show. For many, it was just a long, tedious bump on the way to their dream. But for Jaslene Gonzalez. It was the thing that got her sent home. Here's what she shared with ANTM psychologists. I was very open and explicit about my relationship with my boyfriend at the time. I spoke about the highs and lows that I was going through. But to the psychologist, it sounded like more than highs and lows. It sounded like Jaslene was in danger. The therapist had overruled Tyra Banks decision to put me into the house because I was in an abusive relationship. That was the first time I had ever heard that I was in a domestic violence situation. Jaslene told the psychologist that her boyfriend was controlling and jealous. He would accuse her of cheating and go through her phone. And sometimes the abuse turned physical. But rather than putting her in the house and making her abusive relationship a storyline or just sending her home with no explanation at all, Jazleen says ANTM producers made a deal with her. They were like, you know, if you get out of that relationship, if you get help, we would guarantee you a spot back into the house. And so I underwent six months of therapy to understand what domestic violence is, how to get out of it, build some confidence. And so once I came back, I auditioned and the rest is history. America's Next Top Model is Jaslene. I didn't make it the first time, but now look at me. I'm America's Next Top Model. I'm a cover girl. And I think that shows to all young women if you have that drive, keep going. Jaslene made it into the house on Cycle eight and won the whole thing. She told me ANTM wasn't just a show she won or her ticket into the modeling industry. It was a lifeline. I didn't see those bad patterns, bad behavior as an abuser's profile. So I would have seen my ex boyfriend as someone just normal treating me normal, you know. So there was this new awareness that now I carry even throughout my life. To this day I feel like being on America's Next Top Model actually saved my life. Jaslene's experience with the ANTM psych eval is an example of how it worked at its best. But Jaslene's story is rare. For a lot of contestants, it was just an annoying thing they had to do to get on the show. But there are some who say the psyche vow was the beginning of their ANTM trauma and others who say it was biased and flawed. When we started looking into the psych eval, we thought we were just exploring a little known aspect of ANTM's casting process. We thought we would do one episode about how it worked and how it was used on the show. But when we scratched beneath the surface, we figured out there was a lot more to this story. Contestants say the personal trauma they shared in their psych evals was later used to produce the show. And we found contestants who may have slipped through the cracks. People whose casting raises serious questions. And some of those contestants later met tragic ends. To understand the darker side of ANTM psychological evaluation, you first have to understand what it is, how it works and the ways it fell short. So on part one of this two part episode, that's what we're going to break down. Being on reality TV can be stressful. The days are long and you have a camera in your face. From the moment you wake up at 6am to to the moment you go to sleep at 1am you're completely isolated from your friends, family and often the outside world. You're put in bizarre situations you probably wouldn't otherwise encounter in your real life. It's relentless and in the back of your mind you know any little thing you do will be watched and judged by millions of people. It's enough to fuck with anybody's mental health. That's why psych evals are a pretty standard practice in reality TV casting. From what I understand, ANTM's psych eval involved a written test portion and an actual conversation with the psychologist. Here's cycle 24 contestant Gina Turner. I'm from Minnesota, so I do remember that our psych evaluations were conducted and put together by the University of Minnesota. Gina's referring to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory or the mmpi. It's one of the most widely used psychological tests in the world. Based on what I've heard, the version the models took was probably the MMPI2. It's a huge test containing over 500 true false questions where the statements are designed to feel random, even repetitive at times so the person taking it can't easily predict what the test is measuring. Here are a few real questions from the test. You select true or false. Number one. I like Mechanics magazines. 21. At times I have very much wanted to leave home. 144. I believe I am being followed. 540 I have gotten angry and broken furniture or dishes when I was drinking. And my personal favorite, 191 I would like to be a journalist. The test has a lot of uses. It can screen for things like depression, personality disorders or emotional distress. We don't know what ANTM psychologists were really screening for, who they were trying to keep out and who they were trying to find. But we do know that the MMPI is usually just a starting place. The answers alone don't tell you much about a person. What really matters is the context. That's why a follow up with a mental health professional is critical. In the follow up, a person can explain the answers and how they relate to their own behaviors. The follow up discussion shapes how the test is interpreted. But the MMPI seems to be just one of the tests ANTM used. It sounds like the models were also given scenario based tests with multiple choice answers. You met Lisa D' Amato last episode. She was first on cycle five and was later given that controversial win on cycle 17. Here's what she said about ANTM's scenario based test. Some of the questions involve scenarios like this. If a group of people are bullying one person, what do you do? It's multiple choice, but it'd be like, I stand up for that person. It's none of my business, you know, or this or that. It shows the way that you would actually react to any given type of situation. The psych eval seemed to be a big part of the casting process. The model spent hours taking tests and having conversations with psychologists and they were told it was for their safety. When you first go on America's Next Top Model or you're getting cast for it, they preface you going to see a psychologist to make sure that you are prepared mentally, that you aren't going to be a danger to yourself or to anybody else on the show because you're going to be put under insane stress because you're basically taken out of your life that you're used to and you're kind of, you know, stuck in this whole Truman show experience where you're cut off from anything you know and love. And then also because you're going to then be put on television, it's to evaluate, to make sure that this is safe for everyone and yourself. Here's Brittany Brower from Cycle four. I just remember the psych evaluation or my understanding of it was basically to make sure we were like mentally able to go with like extreme, like, I don't want to say mind games, but we're going to be put through a lot. Can you handle it? And that's kind of how we are told, like we need to know that you're not going to break down, get suicidal. They've got to make sure you're not suicidal. And it would just keep asking the same questions in different ways over and over and over. Again, I'm like, oh, my gosh, no, I'm not gonna kill myself. Oh, my God, No, I'm not gonna harm anybody else. Oh, my gosh, Hannah. Kat Jones was on a later season, cycle 16. She remembers being told about past contestants who weren't cut out for the rigors of reality tv. I was under the impression that the psych evaluation was to make sure that we were mentally stable for the show. They were like, you are going to experience a lot of pressure and girls in the past have not been able to handle that. So we have to make sure that you're mentally strong enough to go through with what production will ask of you. The contestants were told the psych eval was about their safety. ANTM wanted to make sure potential contestants wouldn't harm themselves or others while on an ANTM set. But as we explore Top Model's psych eval process, I want you to ask yourself, what does safety really mean? And whose safety were they really worried about? Those are the questions my production team thought about a lot. It's clear ANTM was worried about the contestants physical safety and maybe their own. I'm sure they didn't want anyone to haul off and smack Tyra, and I'm sure they didn't want to get hit with a wrongful death lawsuit. But I do wonder if they were really concerned about the model's mental and emotional well being. I wanted to know more about how ANTM's psych eval process worked. So I reached out to one of ANTM's longtime psychologists, Dr. Suzanne Zachary. She told me ANTM was an interesting show to work on, but because of her contract, she couldn't do an interview for this podcast. So I reached out to someone else who knows all about psych evals and reality TV. He's as OG as you can get. 25 years ago, psychologist Dr. Steven Stein developed one of the first tests that measured emotional intelligence. Around 1999, he got a call from a guy who knew about this test, who knew a guy who was developing a new TV show. And he was looking for a psychologist because he was going to do some TV show. And he asked me if this emotional intelligence might be helpful. I didn't know really, but I said, well, we could find out. What's the show about? And he said, well, they're gonna put these people on an island and then vote out one each week. And that would be the nature of the show. I said, wow, who's gonna watch that? That show, of course, turned out to be Survivor, and they used Dr. Stein's adapted emotional intelligence test to cast the first season. Since then, Dr. Stein has worked on dozens and dozens of reality shows, including franchises of Big Brother, the Amazing Race, and the Bachelor. Dr. Stein confirmed that when he's working on a show, his first priority is to make sure the contestant is a safe choice. We want to make sure that they have no significant psychotic episodes, bipolar, they're not have some substance abuse, or they're not very aggressive and have problems with anger. So there's certain things that we rule out. Borderline personality. We want to make sure that it's going to be a safe environment both for them and the other cast members. I asked Dr. Stein about the MMPI 2, the psychological test the models were given, and about how it's used in reality TV casting. Dr. Stein uses the same test when he's conducting psych evals. It's the most widely used mental health test in psychology. It's used almost everywhere, Hospitals and clinics and all that kind of thing. But Dr. Stein doesn't only use the MMPI for safety. He also has a say in casting. So he looks for certain personality types and emotional traits that could make great tv. Some of the questions we ask look at things like your ability to identify your own emotions, how you're feeling. Some people have no idea how they're feeling. Some people are really tuned into their own feelings. We look at how you express yourself. Think about the talking head confessionals we see on a lot of reality TV shows. Cast members need to be able to talk about their feelings. Dr. Stein is also interested in how well a person plays with others. Your ability to make good relationships with others, your interpersonal skills, your ability to make good decisions. Do you get over emotional and make bad decisions, or are you cool, calm and collect? And finally, your ability to manage stress, which is a big thing in reality shows. You gotta sometimes go through long periods of time, stressful situations. So we want to see how well you are at managing the stress in your life. But there is one trait he says almost all reality stars have across the board. If you're gonna be on a reality show, chances are about 90% you're gonna score high in a narcissism scale. Narcissists want to be on tv also. The narcissists tend to perform right. They want the attention. So when they're on a show, they take up all the light. And, you know, production likes that. They like people who are in the limelight and do funny things and so on. Dr. Stein also told me that what he looks for isn't universal. What works for one reality show might not work for another. So some shows, you know, we like to call them a social experiment. Think of the Big Brother and shows like that where you put people in a house or in a situation and there what's important is your ability to kind of use your interpersonal skills and maybe even be a bit manipulative, your ability to manipulate other people. Other shows may be cooking shows. You may be looking for a different set of skills. You may be looking for how they deal under stress because they have a very brief time to cook or bake or whatever they're about to do in the competition. In the case of antm, it's more like how well can you pose with a tiger? There are a lot of ways tests like this can be useful, but it's not a perfect system. It's flawed because, well, it's written and administered by people and people are biased. When you come from a different culture, people who don't come from that culture may take how you say things is being angry or aggressive. We'll get into that after the break. All I know is what I've been told. And that's a half truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her. We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv. Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her from Lava for good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns. Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts. Hey, it's Karen and Georgia. And we just celebrated our 500th episode of My Favorite Murder. That's 500 podcasts filled with true crime comedy and some light crack girl math. We're about to podcast for you. Watch this. We have to think of something to say after welcome every week. And we're doing it every week for 10 years. Almost 10 years. 10 years. 10. That's what 500 episodes sounds like. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to My Favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye. I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of Heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken heart. How can 101-year-old woman fall in love again? And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old. And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke. And he got down. And I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power. Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother try to solve my problems through hypnotism. We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're like, super charming all the time, being more able to look people in the eye, not always hide behind a microphone. Listen to heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Power struggles, shady money, drugs, violence, and broken promises. It's a freaking war zone. These people are animals. There's no integrity, there's no loyalty. That's all gone. In the 1980s, modeling wasn't just a dream. It was a battlefield. Book, book, book my deals. Let's get models in, let's get them out. And the models themselves, they carried scars that never fully healed till this day. Honestly, if I see a measuring tape, I freak out. The Model wars podcast peels back the glossy cover and reveals a high stakes game where survival meant more than beauty. Hosted by me, Vanessa Gregoriadis, this is the untold story of an industry built on ruthless ambition. Listen to Model wars on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We explained how psych evals and reality TV work. They're designed to weed out people who. Who might be dangerous to themselves and others. And one indication that a person could be dangerous or violent is anger. You met Angelea Preston last episode. She was the one who got her win on All Stars revoked on her first appearance on ANTM. She was sent home during the cycle 12 audition process. She got into it with another semi finalist named Sandra. Here's tape of their argument. Who are you rolling your eyes at? Do you have an eye problem too? Are you smiling? Me? Because I can't. Sandra looked at me. She now you want to roll your eyes. Like, you know, like, don't get me started. Long nail. You don't have any class whatsoever, so therefore I have no time for you. The two models called each other names and Angelique gave her the good old talk to the hand. But by today's standards, it's all pretty tame. It certainly doesn't make angielee seem volatile or mentally unstable, but it still got her cut. The casting director was like, this is not the end. We just want you to take anger management classes because we just want you to get, you know, your anger in check. And I don't think I was necessarily angry. I think what it was is the way I expressed myself. When you come from a different culture and you're interacting with people who don't come from that culture, they may take how you say things as being angry or aggressive. And I guess there were concerns that I was possibly going to hit someone in the house. Angielee says there was even an opportunity to get into a physical altercation with her opp when her rival's name got called to join the cast. That girl intentionally shoulder checked Angielee. She bumped me going over to Tyra and like everybody thought I was gonna hit her and I didn't. So I think it was like the psychiatrist was telling them based on the little test that we take, oh, she's violent or blah blah blah, but you're not seeing that when this girl bumped me because I could have went after her but I didn't because, you know, I be talking, I be rah rah, but I'm really a softie. Like, I'm not going to hit nobody. Angeli took ANTM's advice and went to anger management classes. She had to pay for it herself. When she came back for cycle 14, she was cast on the show. But Angielee wasn't the only contestant who was told to go to anger management before making it into the A and T M house. Tiffany, we were rooting for your. Richardson originally auditioned for cycle three. She made it to the semifinals and on the first episode got into a good old fashioned bar fight when some random woman poured a drink on her during a dance battle. Bitch poured beer on my weed. So I'm thinking, don't fight, do it. You know, everything was I had the evil twin and the good one. So as we all know, the evil twin. Soon as I Turn around. I hear glasses breaking. Oh, no, she did not. Unbelievable. Just my opinion, but I always thought that fight looked staged. Like the producers had an idea of how Tiffany might react and set her up to have some drama on the first episode. Tiffany was sent home during the cycle three semifinals. She talked about this with Oliver Twixt in 2022. He's a content creator and top model superfan. During the pandemic, he started interviewing dozens of ANTM models on his personal channels. And Oliver is a consulting producer on this podcast. Here's what Tiffany told him. I didn't pass the mental test the first time. The questions they was asking was so weird. Like, if the police pull you over and you got such. Such such with it, is you gonna tell the truth or is you gonna. And so they put all these questions, and then if you don't answer them correctly, they make you think you crazy. So I felt like I shouldn't even told the truth because I thought by telling the truth, they would appreciate me more. But I didn't get picked. Before I left, producers whispered to me and they were saying things about the anger management and different stuff like that. So I already kind of had it in my brain that I was going back to the fourth, and they said, you go get your anger management. Welcome to fourth cycle. Let me say this. We don't know if any other contestants were sent to anger management based on the psyche vows. These are just the women who've spoken publicly about their experience. We also don't know about the models who were flagged and didn't get a second chance. It's clear Tyra and the producers wanted Tiffany and Angielee on the show, and rightfully so. They gave us some of ANTM's most memorable moments. But before they got there, ANTM told them to get anger management. Now, here's the thing about anger. It's subjective. Everyone gets angry, but not everyone's anger is deemed violent or dangerous. The elephant in the room here is that angielee and Tiffany are both black. And they were the ones who were told to get anger management before they got cast on the show, which is ironic for a show that gave a lot of airtime to contestants. Angry outbursts. Remember Elise from Cycle one, whose rant you heard on episode two? She called Giselle a worthless cunt whose parents should be ashamed of her. And Jennifer Frost from Cycle three, who pushed another contestant on camera. I don't see all meows away. Don't ever touch me again or else you will get knocked out. Oh, I'd like to see it. Good. And what about Lauren utter from cycle 10 who stood on a chair and screamed at another contestant during an argument? You are crazy. On a later episode, she told another contestant she hopes they choke on their coffee. Here is your f ing cough of coffee, you big lady. You are not even worth it, sweetheart. Choke on it. Or the conflict between Romeo and Adam on cycle 21. I don't understand where the aggression. There's zero percent chance I punch you right now. So I don't know if you're. If it's like so punching. So punch me. So punch me. So punch me. So punch me. Or chill out, so punch me. I'm not gonna punch you. Cause it's an automatic. So punch me. Romeo headbutted Adam. Romeo's crazy. He's a loose cannon. You headbutted somebody. That sounds pretty angry to me. And there are other examples, but as far as we know, whatever those contestants told psychologists wasn't enough to get them flagged as too angry to be on the show. And that raises concerns about the psychologists who are evaluating the candidates. There's research that shows that at least 2/3 of healthcare providers, including mental health professionals, demonstrate implicit bias against marginalized groups. Not Only that, the MMPI 2, the test the models were given has been widely criticized for being biased. When it was originally developed in the 40s, the control group they based the test on was made up of mostly young, white married people from Minnesota. Even after revisions, researchers have found that black test takers often score higher on certain scales, like paranoia, not necessarily because of mental illness, but because of the effect of lived realities like racism and discrimination. We don't know for sure if bias played a role in Tiffany and Angeli being sent to anger management. Whatever the reason, the ANTM psychologists thought Tiffany and Angielee didn't have the temperament for the competition. But they weren't told to seek therapy to talk about the underlying issues that could be making them angry. ANTM advised them to go to anger management, which is a glorified band aid for deeper problems. And that band aid seemed to work well enough for atm. The next time Angelea Preston auditioned, she knew exactly what the psychologist wanted to hear. I was lying on the psych eval like, I can't let these motherfuckers think I'm crazy. After the break, we get into the other blind spot of the psych eval. All I know is what I've been told, and that's a half truth and is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her. We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv. Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her from Lava. For good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns. Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts. Hey, it's Karen and Georgia, and we just celebrated our 500th episode of My Favorite Murder. That's 500 podcasts filled with true crime comedy and some light girl math. We're about to podcast for you. Watch this. We have to think of something to say after welcome every week. And we're doing it every week for 10 years. Almost 10 years. 10 years. 10. That's what 500 episodes sounds like. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye. I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of Heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken heart. How can 101-year-old woman fall in love again? And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old. And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke. And he got down. And I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power. Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother tried to solve my problems through hypnotism. We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're like, super charming all the time, being more able to look people in the eye, not always hide behind a microphone. Listen to heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Power struggles, shady money, drugs, violence, and broken promises. It's a freaking war zone. These people are animals. There's no integrity, there's no loyalty. That's all gone. In the 1980s, modeling wasn't just a dream. It was a battlefield. Book, book, book my deals. Let's get models in, let's get them out. And the models themselves, they carried scars that never fully healed till this day. Honestly, if I see a measuring tape, I freak out. The Model wars podcast peels back the glossy cover and reveals a high stakes game where survival meant more than beauty. Hosted by me, Vanessa Gregoriadis, this is the untold story of an industry built on ruthless ambition. Listen to Model wars on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. After talking to Angelea Preston myself, I don't think she was violent. I don't even think she's angry. I think she was confrontational. After angielee went to anger management, she auditioned for ANTM again. And this time, she knew what to say. One of the things the psychiatrist pointed out after I was eliminated in the first episode was my psych results. I felt like I was too honest. Or on cycle 12, I felt like I was too honest with the questions. I was like, okay, now I know when I go back on again, I gotta tighten up. I can't be as honest because if I'm honest, then that could possibly hurt my opportunity again. So angielee did what she needed to do to get cast. I was lying on the, on the, on the psych eval, like, mm, mm. I can't let these motherfuckers think I'm crazy. And you know what's funny now that I'm thinking about it, because you meet with the psychiatrist, so I remember her saying, your answers from the first time you auditioned to now are so different. And in my mind, I'm like, girl, please. Like, I knew what to say on this one. This time, angielee gave the answers she thought would get her on the show, but it wasn't necessarily the truth. Here's what Cycle24's Gina Turner told me about her psyche vow. I'm gonna be completely fucking honest with you. I lied on my fucking test. It would be like, if Johnny was running after you with a knife, what would you do? A, stand there and let him stab you. B, run the opposite direction. Three, grab a weapon and defend yourself. Or four, commit suicide or, like, something stupid, right? My answer would be C, I'm gonna grab A weapon and defend myself. Johnny, Gotta go. But I knew that that's probably not the way I wanted to be represented. I didn't really want them to know, like, exactly who I was and how I would respond to every scenario. So, like, some things I was truthful with, but the ones that I was like, mm, this question seems a little bit, like, too specific. I was like, let me go ahead and, like, monitor my answer just a little bit. We don't know what ANTM psychologists were really looking for, but some contestants say they just gave the answers that they thought would get them past the psyche vow. We don't know if it made a difference or not. What we know is that they got cast on the show. I want to tell you about one more case of a contestant telling ANTM psychologists something that wasn't true. Remember Jaslene, who you heard from at the top of this episode? She was red flagged by psychologists because she was in an abusive relationship. They sent her away, advised her to go to therapy, and told her to come back once she left that relationship. ANTM loved a Cinderella story where a girl with a traumatic background is transformed by the magic of Tyra Banks. When Jaslene came back to audition again, she told Tyra and ANTM producers she'd left that relationship. It was what they wanted to hear, but it wasn't true. This is Jaslene, a year after her win on Tyra's talk show. I have a confession. I was with my ex boyfriend for four years. He did hit me and, you know, went through emotional abuse, but I ended up going back to him. ANTM didn't use her abusive relationship as a storyline, but Tyra and her production company found a way to get some mileage out of it in this incredibly cringy segment of the Tyra show. So after that, we're, you know, off camera, we're talking and I'm like, I'm so proud of you. You got out of that bad relationship and you're like, yeah, mama, Tyra, I got out. So how did you feel being not truthful with me and knowing that you were still with him? It hurt me a lot, actually. Like, it was. It was a deep secret, you know, it's gonna be very hard. I'm sorry. I don't want to be a baby cry. No, it's not a baby cry, Jaslene. That's not a baby cry. This is real. It's okay. I respect you so much and I appreciate so much you've done for me, Tyrell, and I am Willing to stand here and accept my mistake. I don't even think it makes you a liar, because part of abuse is living in this weird world and almost lying to yourself. I think you were still in that cycle of hell. So I forgive you. Hold on. I forgive you. I've watched this clip again and again, and it's so strange that it's framed as Jaslene apologizing to Tyra. Do y' all really think Tyra didn't know before this moment? Did he hit you again when you went. Yeah. So he did it. He said it. Yeah. It was definitely one of those where I just stood back and I was, no, you know what? Like, it's not gonna happen no more. So where are you now? With him. Are you really broken up or are you. Yeah, I live in New York. I want to be clear. I'm not blaming Jaslene here. Abuse is a cycle, and it usually takes survivors multiple tries to leave for good, if they ever do. Jaslene eventually ended the relationship after her win, and she does credit the show with helping her leave. But the point is, she told the psychologist what they wanted to hear, and it worked. At the beginning of this episode, we heard from contestants who were told the psych eval was for their own safety. But how could a process with these glaring shortcomings really keep them safe? The portion of the psyche file that was done in the name of safety seemed in part to be about covering ANTM's own ass. They didn't want someone who would take their own life on the show or six months after. They didn't want someone who would walk off set when production got too intense. They didn't want someone who might attack a union protected crew member. Basically, they didn't want someone who would be a liability to the show. But here's where the psyche vial gets really interesting. Because they did want people with traumatic backgrounds, it gave them something to use to create storylines. Courtney Davies was on cycle 13. She was also in an abusive relationship. Before auditioning for antm, she shared this with the show's psychologist. And she told Oliver Twix that on her first day on set, that's all the producers wanted to talk to her about. Like, the very first time I walked out, they were like, tell us about your abusive relationship. I just wanted to be me and not have that be a part of my story. Like, they wanted me to be the victim and like the damaged girl. Kourtney wouldn't cooperate. She refused to talk about it, but there were contestants who were blindsided with their trauma on camera. Like Marvita Washington. Marvita originally auditioned for Cycle nine. In her psych eval, she shared she was a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. And the producers clearly shared that with Tyra so she could bring it up on camera. Here's Marvita's Cycle 9 audition. I don't even know why I'm crying. I don't even cry. I hear that you've been through a lot. A lot, a lot, a lot of stuff in your life. Yeah. Tell me about growing up and all the things that you went through and all the tragedy. I went through a lot as a kid. I've been just passed off to family members a lot. So I was always having to adapt to new people, new places. A lot of people have done a lot of bad things to me. Why don't you talk about that? Molested, raped. So much has happened to you. What makes you strong enough to still stand here right now in front of us? After Tyra asked her these invasive questions, Marvita wasn't selected for Cycle nine. She was told to go to therapy, which she did. When she came back to audition for cycle 10, she made it onto the show where her childhood abuse was a part of her storyline. Marvita isn't the only contestant who said the deep personal trauma they shared in their psych eval was later used by producers to manipulate them for the cameras. On the next episode, we'll get into the hidden use of the psychological evaluation. Contestants were told the psych eval was for their safety and screening purposes, but many say it was used for a lot more than that. And I just remember for hours and hours on end, they just kept focusing on me being suicidal. And it's like, I just want to talk about something happy. I don't want to talk about growing up in foster care. And it was just really fucked up. I was exhausted. I was physically so exhausted. And I remember putting my hands on my. And I was like, I don't want to talk about it anymore. And I'm crying. But that is literally the clip that they used for how I emotionally responded for losing the competition. Then we'll talk about the contestants whose casting raises serious questions about the antm psyche vow. Contestants whose lives took a dark turn once the show ended. Thanks for listening to the curse of America's next top Model. We really appreciate the support. We'd love for you to really show your support by subscribing to our show on Apple podcasts. And don't forget to leave us a five star rating and review if you love the show. Tell your group chat, your co workers, your friends, your mama to check us out. And if you don't, maybe keep that one to yourself. Thanks again to all of our listeners. The Curse of America's Next Top Model is a production of Glass Podcast, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart podcast. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass, hosted and senior produced by me, Bridget Armstrong. Our story editor is Monique Laborde, also produced by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Associate producers are Alisha Key, Kristin Melcurry and Curry Richmond. Consulting producers are Oliver Twixt and Kate Taylor. Our iHeart team is Ally Perry and Jessica Krynczyk. Audio editing and mixing by Andrew Calloway and Matt Del Vecchio. The Curse of America's Next Top Model theme music was composed by Oliver Baines Music Library provided by My Music. Special thanks to everyone we interviewed for this podcast, especially the models for sharing their stories and for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Also check out the Glass Podcast, Instagram glasspodcast for Curse of America, America's Next Top Model, behind the scenes content and more. The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns. Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts. On this podcast, Incels, we unpack an emerging mindset. I am a loser. If I was a woman, I wouldn't date me. I'd rather a hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women at a deadly tipping point. Tomorrow is the day of retribution. The day in which I will have my revenge. This is Incels. Listen to season one of Incels on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Karen and Georgia and we just celebrated our 500th episode of My Favorite Murder. That's 500 podcasts filled with true crime comedy and some light girl math. We're about to podcast for you. Watch this. We have to think of something to say after welcome every week. And we're doing it every week for 10 years. Almost 10 years. 10 years. 10. That's what 500 episodes sounds like. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye. I'm Jonathan Goldstein. And on the new season of Heavyweight. And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke. A man who robbed a bank when he was 14 years old and a centenarian rediscovers a love lost 80 years ago. How can a 101-year-old woman fall in love again? Listen to heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.