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This is an iHeart podcast. 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 Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts. Sacred Scandal is back, the hit true crime podcast that uncovers hidden truths and shattered faith. For 19 years, Elena Sada was a nun for the Legion of Christ. This season she's telling her story. When I first joined the Legion of Christ, I felt chosen. I was 19 years old when Martial Macel, the leader of the Legionaries, looked me in the eye and told me I had a calling. Surviving meant hiding. Escaping took courage. Risking everything to tell her truth. Listen to Sacred the Many Secrets of Martial maciel on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On a cold January day in 1995, 18 year old Christa pike killed 19 year old Colleen Slemmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Krista has been sitting on death row. How does someone prove that they deserve to live? We are starting the recording now. Please state your first and last name. Krista Pike. Listen to unrestorable Season 2 proof of life on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women found themselves in an AI fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts. This is Levittown, a new podcast from iHeart podcasts Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope about the rise of deepfake pornography and the battle to stop it. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, it's cycle 18, the British Invasion season of America's Next Top Model. It's raining so hard. It's really windy. It's so, so high up. Like I just. We're on the deck of the macau Tower, a 1100 foot building. ANTM Judge J. Manuel just told the remaining five models of the season the Macau Tower is the home of the tallest bungee jump in the world. And that the top deck of this building, way out on the ledge 760ft up, is the location for today's photo shoot, we turn up at this bloody tower and it is raining hard, maybe even hailing, who knows? It was definitely hailing. That's Sophie Sumner, who you heard in the tape, psyching herself up to go out on that ledge, knowing full well that one slippery wrong step combined with a harness malfunction could send her flying into the pavement 750ft below. You met Sophie a few episodes ago. She's the British model who said signing the ANTM contract basically meant the show owned you. On her season, she rocked a light Pink Bob. Very 2012. It was a season she went on to win, but on this day, she was ready to walk off set and just go home. We're in a brand new continent that most of us have never been to and we go out on that stupid ledge or something. I am terrified of height. Cycle 18 pit models from the UK against models from the US and Sophie wasn't new to this. She'd competed on Britain's Next Top Model before antm. But the photo shoot she did on that show looked like school picture day compared to this. Draped in simple long black dresses with exaggerated shoulder pads and hairstyles that were straight out of the Capitol beauty salon on Hunger Games, the models were supposed to represent the strength and power of Macau. But at this moment, they were looking anything but strong. I stepped out there and I have never to this day been that terrified on the side of a building. Like slipping all over the place with rain coming down God knows how high up. Up to this point, Sophie had pretty much trusted the production. Sure, some of the photo shoots were over the top, but she didn't think the show would ever put her in harm's way. Now, standing on that slippery 700 foot ledge, she wasn't so sure. According to Sophie, under normal circumstances, in these weather conditions, the skywalk they were posing on would be closed to the public. I don't know if it's before the photo shoot or after, but it definitely had been closed to the public. It was definitely unsafe. It was not okay. Kenmock was there. They were like, you know, we should really close it type thing. And I remember him, or somehow I overheard something that he was like, no, we're doing this no matter what. And so I also went out there with the knowledge that this wasn't safe and we shouldn't be out there. Now I have to say this. Legally, I can't confirm if Ken Mock said that or not, but it is what Sophie remembers. Okay, you're good there. Imagine being out On a ledge, you're terrified of heights. You think the situation isn't safe. And in your mind, the only thing keeping you from falling to your imminent death is the harness you're clinging to. And then you hear the photographer tell you to hold a pose. Want to try some without holding it? I can't. Can't. I'm sorry. Okay. It's okay. Try and get the harness a little bit further away from the body. If you can stop holding the harness. You mean the thing keeping her from falling off this slippery 760 foot ledge? I was just shaking, crying. It's so awful, right? Because you actually have no choice. You're going home because you didn't see the photo shoot. Watch the face. I feel like we've got good shots. Sophie didn't know it then, but the shaking, the crying, the pure terror and panic in her eyes was all by design. You see, height was her biggest fear. If someone had a particular fear, we would find out in the castings. That's Andrew Patterson, the creative producer for ANTM Cycles 15 through 20. He and his team came up with every photo shoot the models did, including this one. He was the reason they were up there struggling to look strong and beautiful while being pelted with freezing rain. Andrew had designed this photo shoot to get this very reaction out of the models. You go through the casting files and you'd be like, okay, well, you know, this one's scared of heights, so maybe this cycle we should do a photo shoot which is 100 stories in the air. He was there that day to see how his little experiment unfolded. It is pissing down with rain. It is so cold out there. I think there might have been slight icicles. Like, literally like the girls are getting pelted by ice and they're in tears and they're crying and, you know, girls are going out there and they're slipping and they're falling. Yeah. If the models wanted to blame anyone other than themselves for signing up for this, Andrew was the guy. But that didn't mean he didn't have a heart. I'm a nice guy and, you know, I'm trying to like, you know, warm them up and I'm like, you know, consoling them, like, oh, sweetheart, it's okay. You can do this. Don't worry, don't worry, don't worry. But ANTM's executive producer, Ken Mock wasn't having it. And I get a tap in the back of my shoulder From Ken Mock, St. Andrew. Stop it. Stop it. We want to see these girls Cry. This is going to make great television. Stop consoling them. Play it out. Let them be as it is. Maybe at a shoot in the real world, it would be kind, even expected for a creative producer to comfort the scared talent. But this wasn't the real world. This was reality tv. Wanna be on some wanna on top Wanna be on top. Welcome to the curse of America's Next Top Model. I'm Bridget Armstrong. Even though reality TV is supposed to be real, we all know, at least these days, it's really about telling a story. And ANTM was no exception. The show presented itself as a look behind the curtain, a window into what it took to be a high fashion model. But America's Next Top Model was always a reality TV show first and a modeling competition second. It prioritized drama and good characters over the best models and featured unrealistic and even dangerous photo shoots that no model would ever do in the real industry. Like dangling Sophie off the side of a 700 foot building just so we could see her freak out. They did that to make great reality tv. So on this episode, we're going to take a look at how the show achieved that and what the cost was to the models. By the time we get to the Macau Tower photo shoot on cycle 18, ANTM had already built a reputation for wacky and extreme photo shoots, challenges, and runways. These are the stunts that made ANTM iconic. And each season they had to top the last. There are so many outrageous photo shoots in ANTM history that I've decided to make them into a little game I'm calling it did that really Happen? My team and I came up with the most ridiculous fictional runways and photo shoots we could think of. I want you to guess which are the ones we made up and which actually happened on antm. Consider it a test of your Top Model knowledge. Okay, let's start. Is it A, the models pose inside a meat locker lying on an ice block with nothing but a bikini on? Or B, the models are submerged in a freezing cold pool for over 45 minutes wearing nothing but a thin gown? If you guessed B, you are correct. On Cycle seven, the models had to pose in water so cold, one of the contestants, Carrie D. English, almost got hypothermia. Carrie D. You're from Fargo. Come on. I forgot. This is real. Real modeling. Guys. Being cold as heck, there's a point where my body just literally takes over. Like, I feel like my skin and everything is just like pins and needles. But when the camera got on me, you know, I tried to just Shake those shivers away and not show my face. She was so cold that she was kind of convulsive. As a model, you need to tell people when you're past your limit. It wasn't just that she was cold. It wasn't just that her teeth were chattering. She had reached the moment of hypothermia. Yep, you heard that. Right after Tyra encouraged Carrie D. To stick it out because she's from Fargo, J. Manuel blamed Carrie D. For not saying she was literally freezing sooner than okay, that one was a little too easy. Let's try another one. Which is a real ANTM photoshoot. Is it A, the models are harnessed to the wing of a low flying plane in full glam with aviator jackets and 6 inch heels? Or B, the models have to strut down a moving conveyor belt in front of an audience while wearing full length gowns and 6 inch heels? The answer is B. On cycle 15, the models had to walk a conveyor belt in the second street tunnel in la. I've never felt more embarrassed at one time in my life. I'd rather have natural labor again than do this. I didn't come in here having a very good walk in the first place, and I guess I started to overthink it. In a conveyor belt, when you go backwards, kind of bumpy. So, like I got on there and my shoe just felt right off. But I still was smiling though. Yeah, I'm still fierce. I'm still fierce. When you heard the audience go, whoa, that was their reaction to one of the models actually tripping and falling off the Runway. Okay, let's change the rules a little bit and play Two truths and a Lie. I'll give you three scenarios, two of which actually happened on antm. The other was made up. Option A, the models do a photo shoot in Canada drenched in maple syrup while wearing maple leaves. B, the models do a photo shoot in Japan in a tank of koi fish while wearing ramen noodles. Or C, the models do a photo shoot in Greece posing on top of a giant bowl of Greek salad wearing nothing but a bikini. Now remember, two of these really happened on antm. If you guessed A and C, you are correct. Andrew told me the maple syrup photoshoot was a last minute idea. The girls were supposed to do a photo shoot for former ANTM judge and supermodel Twiggy's clothing brand. At the time, Twiggy was living in Canada. But when she canceled the day before the shoot, Andrew and his team had to come up with something quick. We start at 6am like, we've got to have the girls in hair and makeup. And I go, okay, what's this country famous for? Maple syrup. Okay, all right, all right, okay. Maple leaves and maple syrup. And so we were like, okay. So literally from then we went outside and we grabbed all these maple leaves and we had all these bikinis, and I started sewing maple leaves onto bikinis. And the Greek salad photo shoot, well, that was Tyra's idea. They're like, we're going to Greece next cycle. I was like, okay, that's pretty cool. And so we contacted the tourism bureau in Greece, and, you know, typically that's what would happen is that one of the executives would do deals with the tourism bureau of each country or an airline to bring us all out there. In a meeting with Tyra, I'm like, what do you think of Greece, Tyra? Tell me the first thing that comes to your mind. And she goes, the Greek salad. And I was like, oh, my God. You don't think Greek mythology. You don't think Medusa. You don't think all of these other beautiful things. You think of a Greek salad. And she goes, yep, I want to throw the girls into a bowl of Greek salad. Andrew. I was like, okay, well, let me. Let me talk to the group tourism bureau and just see if I can win them over with this great idea. But it was. It was very top model, you know what I mean? To throw the girls into a bowl of Greek salad, which was our first photo shoot in Crete. Okay, last question. For extra credit, choose all that apply. Which of these runways did antm feature that actually caused the models bodily harm? Is it A, a floating Runway where the models had to walk a rickety Runway that was floating in a pool while wearing 6 inch heels? Is it B, a pendulum Runway where the models had to walk a Runway while dodging a pendulum swinging back and forth? Is it C, a Runway where the models were placed inside a plastic bubble and told to walk a 12 inch wide Runway that was floating over water? Or is it D, a Runway where the contestants had to walk down the side of a building in a harness? That, my friends, was a trick question. The answer is all four. Congratulations to our winners. As a prize, you get to continue listening to this episode. And you know what? I'm such a benevolent host. So do the losers. And these runways didn't just happen to be dangerous. Freelance reporter Kate Taylor wrote an excellent piece all about Top Model for Business Insider. She's a consulting producer for this podcast. She told me she talked to an ANTM crew member who told her the floating Runway was rickety on purpose. I spoke with a producer, actually, who, for the floating Runway said that they had people go in and loosen the Runway even more to make it less safe because they're like, well, it's gonna be more interesting if someone falls. So that was something that throughout the process seemed to be, you want to make good television. And at times, the good television came at the expense of the well being of contestants. Eugenia Washington, who competed on that season cycle seven, was one of the ones who fell on the Runway. As soon as I stepped on it with one foot, I like slid. I kept going. After I fell off, I just kept going. I'm freaking bleeding. Eugenia still has the scars from Matt to this day. Here she is talking with consulting producer Oliver twixt on his YouTube channel. I don't know if you can see this scar, but this scar, right? This, this. Eugenia stood up to show Oliver a nasty scar on her knee. Rickety Runway from that Runway. Yes. When you wet. Kaboom. Yes. With my real life body. Okay, okay. Because you're on this Runway that's floating. And so they put on two corsets, pulled them as tight as they could possibly pull them so I could not breathe. And then I had 6 inch stiletto heels, like needle stiletto heels. So I'm walking on my fucking tippy toes. And then the shoes are a size too big. And they said, go out there, impose it, bitch. You better smile in front of all these lights in the dark under these conditions. So as a human being, you're like, bitch, I can die. Because first I can't breathe, I can't walk. And then the Runway's going like this on top of water. And they're talking about, get to the end and take a good picture. And the pendulum Runway ANTM sound mixer Jose Torres was there that day, and he remembers how it all went down that pendulum Runway. The entire crew was on pins and needles waiting for somebody, you know, and we didn't want somebody to get knocked off, but we were like, it was funny, but not funny. And then the one girl who got hit, and I'm trying to remember who that was. I can't remember her name. Her name was Alexandra. Ah, yeah. She was so nice. But yeah, man, she got hit and it like you could just play like that cartoon sound of somebody sort of like about to teeter off the side and fall off. And you could just hear like the bongo sound or whatever the. And off she went. And crashed into some lights, and she cut up her knee. And we're like, oh, God, no. All of this. All of these wild photo shoots and challenges happened before the cycle 18 Macau tower photoshoot. You heard at the top of this episode. And by the time that aired, ANTM was past its heyday and struggling to draw an audience as large as previous seasons. A modeling competition where 10 to 14 girls battle it out to see who's the best was no longer cutting it. Creative producer Andrew Patterson. Again, Tara was very adamant that after cycle 13, she never wanted to do a normal top model again. So she started with short girls, and then she went into high fashion, and then it progressed from there. So when I started, there was always a theme. There was the All Star season, the college season, the British Invasion, and the seasons where they included guys. But it wasn't just the season themes that had to up the ante. It was the challenges, the photo shoots and the runways themselves, which was not an easy task. By the time Andrew started in 2015, we were just trying to do things that hadn't been done before. Especially when I joined, they had already done 250 photo shoots on camera before. So trying to come up with creative that had never been seen was not easy. I'd sit there and I'd pitch things to Tyra, and she'd be like, no, honey, we did that. Cycle two, Episode eight. I was like, oh, damn it. Okay. And for each photo shoot, I had to come up with 15 different options. When you look at that, that's 100 to 180 different options per cycle. So would you say that you guys were sort of encouraged to do these things that could cause some, we'll say, accidents, some mishaps, some falls, some trip ups? Were you encouraged to do that? Yeah, we were encouraged to make things spicy, make things like they'd never been seen before. We thought it made good tv. And a lot of this came down to wanting the audience to go, wow, did you see this? Like, oh, my God, can you believe that they did this? Can you believe that they did that? So we had to come up with these elements of fear or these different elements to see if the girls could hack it or be able to do the photo shoot or go underwater and hold their breath and be able to strike a pose or, you know, can they smize while they have a silkworm on them, or are they able to hold it together when they're, you know, 200 stories in the air, being thrown off the side of the building in pelting rain? Working models sometimes have to pose in a scary situation or with a wild animal. Cindy Crawford posed nude with a boa constrictor in the 90s. One time, Kate Upton posed in a bikini in Antarctica while standing on an iceberg. But those kinds of photo shoots are rare. Andrew worked as a fashion photographer in the real world before joining antm. He told me, professional photo shoots are almost always the opposite of what we saw on Top Model. Coming from the real world of advertising, I've shot campaigns for Louis Vuitton. I've shot campaigns for Chanel, Hugo Boss. That's not how we do it. Top Model is not how we do it. In the real world. A model's pictures are very intimate. It's between them and the photographer. It's when you have a connection with a photographer and you really connect with them that you actually get beautiful images. And not a lot of that goes on. On top of all those intimate moments where you get these beautiful, you know, big eyes and you get reactions. Those moments wouldn't work, you know, on America's Next Top Model because they just change the channel and it'll be very boring. You know, crazy, wacky, quirky, unusual photo shoots was to keep the audience, and that was to keep ratings. That was to keep, you know, people wanting to watch the next episode or, you know, tuning in to the next cycle. I mean, a lot of this stuff might not be realistic, but it certainly added to the story in which we were creating and it added to the competitive element of a competition reality show. On Cycle one, they did do semi realistic photo shoots. And the result? Most fans consider Cycle two to be the real start of America's Next Top Model. I don't think ANTM would have lasted very long if it would have remained realistic. ANTM took the premise of modeling and made it entertaining. And there's nothing wrong about that. Project Runway takes the art of designing clothes and makes it competitive by presenting themed and timed challenges. The issue with ATM is that models use their faces and bodies to convey their talent. And that means putting their bodies on the line. Which seems even more insidious when you consider they signed a contract that says if they get hurt while carrying out these production fever dreams, ANTM wouldn't owe them anything, not even medical care once they left the show if they got a long term injury. Many of the models signed up to do these outrageous things because they thought it would help them in the real modeling world. But as we've said over and over, for most of them, it didn't. It actually made them a joke in the fashion industry. After the break, we'll take a look at the casting process and how from the very beginning ANTM was was thinking about the story. Not the best models. All I know is what I've been told and that to have 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 in 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. This is a tape recorded statement. Person being interviewed is Krista Gail Pike. This is in regards to the death of Colleen Slimmer. She started going off on me, but I hit her. I just hit her and hit her and hit her and hit her on a cliff. On a cold January day in 1995, 18 year old Christa pike killed 19 year old Colleen Slemmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Christa has been sitting on death row. The state has asked for an execution date for Christa. We let people languish in prison for decades raising questions about who we consider fundamentally unrestorable. How does someone prove that they deserve to live? We are starting the recording now. Please state your first and last name. Christa Pike. Listen to unrestorable Season 2 proof of life on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. At 19, Elena Zada believed she had found her calling in the new season of Sacred Scandal. We pull back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Martial Maciel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose within the Legion of Christ. My name is Elena Sada, and this is my story. It's a story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive, and eventually how I got out. This season on Sacred Scandal, hear the full story from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from devout follower to determined survivor as Helena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected him. Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Sacred the Many secrets of Marcial Maciel as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Nicole Angemi, P.A. and creator of the autopsy blog the Gross Room. And I'm Maria Q. Kain. Together we're the mother daughter duo behind the Mother Knows Death podcast. On our show, we tackle burning questions like what happens when you're stuck in an amusement ride upside down for hours? Or why are celebrities always eating their placentas? Is the latest TikTok trend dangerous? The answer is yes. It's always yes. And most importantly, what is anal breathing? Each week we explore the most bizarre stories in the news. And believe us, it just gets weirder. Every week we share real life stories, dissect shocking autopsy findings, and delve into the dark humor that comes with discussing death. And now we are excited to announce that we are joining the I Heart Podcast network. Whether you're a true crime aficionado or just have a tinge of morbid curiosity, there's something for everyone on Mother Knows Death. New episodes of our show drop twice a week. Listen to Mother Knows Death on America's number one podcast network, I Heart. Open your free iHeart app and search Mother Knows Death. There's a process for creating the characters and personalities we love and hate on reality tv. It starts in casting. In the unscripted world, you're dealing with everyday people and they are not actors. That's Raphael Dorval. He was a casting producer for America's Next top model cycles 21 through 24. Those were the seasons that included guys and girls. Thousands of wannabe contestants sent in audition tapes and showed up to castings. Raphael was a part of the team who looked for people who would pop on screen. Some people are already amplified. They're pre turned. They come in the door swinging, you know, and we're just steering them. Like Brittney Brower from Cycle four. Brittany looked a lot like a young Janice Dickinson, something that probably made her stand out. Here's what she said happened during her casting process. I got called in a room probably with maybe like, 20 to 30 other women. They had to stand in a big circle and go around the room and say who we were and a little bit about ourselves. And everyone was just kind of going around the circle and, you know, like, hi, I'm Diana. I'm from, you know, London, North Carolina. I like pink flowers. And then she gets around to me, and I'm like, hello, I'm Britti Alina Brower. I'm from Tallahassee, Florida. I'm 22 years old. Go Seminoles. And I am so happy to be here. Michelle, like, stomped everybody. Michelle Mopp, the head casting director, and I had a green Abercrombie skirt on. And she goes, you see green skirt here? You see green skirt? You call me green skirt. She's like, you guys see green skirt here? She's like, that's the kind of energy we need from all of you. But not everyone comes in pre turned like Brittany. It was Raphael's job as a casting producer to identify that spark in a contestant. We are taking their personality and basically amplifying it. Sometimes potential contestants need the casting producers to put that battery in their back. So we're in the semifinal stage, and we're figuring out, okay, who's gonna make cast. And this one guy, he came out to where the producers were, and he said, I can't do this. I can't do this. And he's freaking out. I was like, what's the matter? What's going on? He's like, I can't send this one, and this one's a bitch, and this one's phony and blah, blah, blah. And he had so much to say. The guy wanted out. He didn't think he could handle all the different personalities. But instead of seeing a quitter, Raphael saw the makings of great tv. I was like, oh, God, you have strong feelings. Okay, so. Oh, right. Well, why are you telling me? And he's like, I just have the vents. I can't. I don't even want to be out there with them. I don't want to. And he's getting all agitated. And I was like, well, I don't think you should be telling me this. Why don't you go say that to the face? It seems like you. You know, you have a lot to tell them. So tell them. So he did. He went out there and he had stuff to say, and he made the cuss. So casting producers, we literally are creating people. Sharon Brown was still in high school when she was on cycle 11 of Top Model, and she looked like it on her season. She had this big, infectious smile that betrayed her age. She turned 18amonth before she auditioned. She told me she was one of the ones who needed guidance. And that guidance started during the psych eval. The psychologist proceeded to basically give us our character, which I didn't know at the time, but he started it off by saying, like, wow, I looked over all of your stuff, and I can see that you're a very confident person. Now, looking back, I was like, oh, he was giving me my character. Or, like, what they wanted to portray me as. And he also went with like. But I can see you're also very reserved in this situation. You want to make sure that you lean more into that confident side, that you lean more into this. I thought that, like, oh, wow, he's telling me about myself and affirming who I am and how kind. But, yeah, no, he was giving me my character. Then that was followed up by the producer, who then reiterated that it was like, I know you like to read, and I know you're an introvert, but in this situation, we need you to be very, very extroverted. Sharron told me she'd struggled with self esteem when she was younger. Her mom instilled a sense of confidence in her, taught her how to say positive affirmations. Maybe that's what producers picked up on, a sense of outward confidence that was still developing on the inside. Raphael told me it was their job to really get to know potential castmates beyond what they presented. On the surface, you can tell they've never had a day of therapy in their life because they want to suddenly tell me everything. We learn a lot about people in a very short period of time. It was a producer's job to make contestants feel comfortable enough to talk openly. You're building a relationship, a rapport with these people. So, yeah, a big part of being a casting producer is building trust, for sure. Sharon says she was an open book during her casting process. Once the producers had an idea of who she was, or at least who they wanted her to be on the show, they started coaching her on what to do and say. They came up with something that made her stand out in her audition, where she met Tyra and the Jays. Our first meeting with the judges, they were asking me, okay, so what are you gonna do? And I was like, well, I'm just gonna go and leave me and say, you know. And they're like, no, you gotta come up with something. So I was like, okay, we want this to be memorable. So that's where the whole, like, lucky underwear came from. Because that was kind of like. We talked about that together. The competition has started, and I'm ready for it. And when the competition is on, I got my game face on, and I'm, like, hella confident. Are you convinced you've already won? I know it, Tyra. Ooh. Tell me why. Because I am America's Next Top Model. You guys just don't know it yet. And what does that. I was just gonna ask the exact same thing. My lucky underwear. Everything we've done so far, I've had them. I always look hot. She says when producers were going over her semifinals plan with her, she mentioned that she had a pair of underwear that said America's Next Top Model across the butt. The producers loved them and told her she should use that in front of the judging panel. And the little stunt worked. Sharron made it into the house. But once she was in the house, producers told her she still needed to present her confident facade. The camera makes you look smaller, so we need you to be bigger with all of your actions. If there's anything going on, make sure you're the first one there. Tyra loves your. Like, they would keep telling me that. Tyra loves your confidence. Tyra loves your confidence. Tyra loves. And so just amping it up. And they did it in a way where you felt like you were getting a private meeting with producers. At the time, not realizing that I was being pushed or manipulated or coached in a way, I just thought that it was like a big sister trying to put me on game of how to, you know, how to show up. Creating characters in reality TV isn't specific to antm. Audiences need characters to know who to identify with, who to root for and who to root against. Often the characters play into archetypes or stereotypes we already know that makes them memorable. Professor Amanda Klein teaches about reality television at East Carolina University. She says creating character is what makes the story stick. This is sort of a fundamental human need. The way people make sense of the world is through categories, putting things into places that help them make sense. Why it's important on reality TV is they need to establish character and story right away. And so to do that, they need people to appear as certain character types. You've heard me refer to former contestants as the girl next door, the wild child, or the villain, this association on ANTM was by design. Here's ANTM casting producer Raphael Darvall. Again, there's a certain formula that you. That's a comfort. That's the reason why you tune in and get excited to watch. And I think the most exciting thing about Top Model was you always, obviously had a different cast that was very different from the last. But you also kind of always got that same formula as well. So, you know, you always got, like the country girl guy, you know, who is middle of nowhere, who has no modeling experience whatsoever. Then you got, like, the hot jock that was thrown in there who's super confident and whatever. And maybe the beauty queen, you know, you got the girl who's like, did every pageant and you throw them all together. And, like, you're like, how is this gonna work? You know, that's what makes it interesting to watch and fun. And that's what we looked for. Remember Brittany from Cycle four? The one Michelle Mott called Green Skirt? Well, on her season, she was loud, she liked to have fun, and she liked to drink, sometimes to the detriment of her competition performance. There was a challenge where the models had to interact with representatives from CoverGirl at a party. In the episode, Brittany seemed more interested in getting drunk than actually impressing the people from covergirl. Or at least that's how the producers made it look. They were developing a character. Britney was the party girl. There's people for magazines. I want to try one of those things. Elle magazines. Cosmopolitan. No, that's the drink I had. Then there was another time when the models went out and Britney got wasted. She was dancing on the table. But Britney wasn't the only one who got drunk that day. UV Gomez told me she did too. We were all at this cute little restaurant, and I drank way too much and didn't eat at all. And I was like, oh, I'm not feeling good. And I think the producers saw that, and they pulled me to the side and they, like, snuck me out because they already had the drunk girl. There couldn't be two. So they completely edited all of that out. I even think I might have gotten sick, but they were, like, protecting me, like, guarded the bathroom, told me to turn my mic off. They just didn't want to film any of that because they had Britney. Producers like their characters to be neat. It helps the audience follow the storyline. We weren't watching ANTM because we wanted to see complicated characters wrestling with their inner natures. If we wanted that, we could have turned to hbo. I asked Britney if That drunk party girl character followed her after the show if it hurt her chances in the industry, and she said it didn't really affect her. But Sharon wasn't so lucky. In addition to needing country girls, jocks and party girls, ANTM needed villains. The characters we laugh at, not with the ones we love to hate. Sharon had been told to play up her confidence, but on screen, it came across as annoying. Remember I told you Sharron's mom taught her to say affirmations. Sharon always wanted to be on antm, so at home, her mother would tell her, you are America's Next Top Model. My mom taught me a version of this, naming it and claiming it. Producers thought it would be a good idea to have Sharron repeat that mantra once she got into the house. It's one thing to have your mom tell you you're gonna be America's Next Top Model, baby. It's another thing to keep repeating it to everyone you meet on the first episode of a show where everyone also thinks they're going to be America's Next Top Model. I believe I am America's Next Top Model. I will get this because I want this so bad. So let me start by introducing myself. My name is Sharron. I am America's Next Top Model. Oh, really? My name is Sharron, and I am America's Next Top Model. Okay, so there's nothing I can ask you then, because you have it all in the bag. Yes. Very confident with myself. But I don't want anybody to read it as, like, being cocky or arrogant. But cocky and arrogant was exactly how she came off. Sharon gave the producers what they wanted, but the character they'd created for her wasn't likable. Hello, Sharon. She's always wild and over the top and crazy. I find that kind of repulsive in most girls. Producers were setting Sharon up to be the season's first villain. They already laid the foundation of her being cocky and annoying. They drove it home by making her a bully. You already know reality TV producers often stir the pot to get drama going between cast members. Cycle 11, the cycle Sharron was on, featured ANTM's first openly trans contestant. Her name is Isis. We're going to talk about the way ANTM handled gender identity later on in this season. For now, we're going to focus on the storyline between Isis and Sharon. And I'll say this, the situation we saw on the show did not make Sharon look good. Cycle 11 premiered in 2008. The way society talks about gender identity in trans people Today still isn't great, but 2008 might as well have been the stone age. On the first episode when it was revealed that ISIS is trans, some of the girls in the house were uncomfortable. Some of them were downright mean. A group of girls were portrayed as bullying Isis and Sharon was in that group. The first photo shoot of the season was a voting shoot. Remember it was 2008 when it was their turn. Each model had to look sexy at the ballot booth with a wind machine blowing in their face peak antm A group of models were staged in ISIS shoot behind the booth as if they were spying on her. Isis. Sharon was in that group of models. And just a heads up, this isn't nice to hear. Obviously you have this drape that is see through. You got the cameras so you have no privacy and you guys are still spying on her. Remember you're in the shot. This is the funniest thing that's in my head. Her like trying to be sexy. Reality is she's a man. That was Sharon who said reality is she's a man. In a cut end confessional, Sharon and the other models made jokes about isis. They called her sweaty and said she looked hairy. But in the scene it's unclear who's saying what. Either way, it made Sharon look like the ringleader. She came across as a mean bully. But according to Sharron, what we saw in the show is in the full picture. ISIS was doing her photo shoot and we were behind the photo booth. First of all, we were placed there. And so they handpicked all of ironically the black and brown girls to go on her photo shoot and they placed us behind her where she was shooting. There was one white model, they did that to make that scene as if she was being taunted and bullied during her shoot. Sharon says they were standing there for a long time and they started to crack ya mama jokes on each other, including isis. It was immature for sure. But Sharon swears they weren't just picking on isis. When you cut out one portion of it and only show another portion of looks like something that it's not. And now the whole world thinks that all of those girls, black and brown girls that were back there, our catty, our gossiping, our taunting, when it was actually the opposite, it didn't just make them look like bullies, it made them look like bigots. Because that's the plotline ANTM wanted. Later in that same episode, we see Sharon's confessional and she appears to be ranting about isis. ISIS is over the top America's Next Top Model is not gonna be a drag queen. I'm sorry, it's not. That's the line we all remember Sharon by. She told me that behind the scenes, producers asked her a question and told her to repeat it back to them. I was asked, what do you think about a drag queen being America's Next Top Model? But when you're asked a question in a way you're told you have to repeat the question back. That's pretty standard in these reality TV confessionals. It's so producers can cut their questions and the contestants answers will still make sense. Sharon says she didn't voluntarily call Isis a drag queen. She was asked, do you think America's Next Top Model will be a drag queen? And then asked to repeat her answer in a neutral and sassy way. She says the producers chose her sassy response. Sharron told me that if she was asked to do this today, she would say no. She'd tell them Isis is a woman, not a drag queen. But this was filmed 20 years ago when Charon was still in high school. She didn't have the understanding she has now. If I have the knowledge to correct them and correct Hall, I referred to her in that moment than I would have, but I didn't. I was a young girl. I ain't know no better. And I was also kind of prompted to answer the question in such a way. This scene of Sharon bullying Isis put the nail in her coffin. She was already annoying and arrogant. Now she was being mean. And to top it all off, she bombed when it was her time in front of the camera. Hey, Sharon. It's looking a little convoluted. You keep on. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. And in a way, it's not pretty. On that episode. During the elimination, when Tyra announced the girls who would go to the next round, Isis was called out second, which is pretty high praise. Sharon, however, was sent home packing. It was the same day as the high school graduation she'd missed to be on antm. Sharron was devastated, but she cheered herself up. Even though she went home early. She'd beaten out thousands of girls and made it on her favorite show. The real depression didn't kick in until weeks later when she saw her edit on television. My family threw a watch party and so we all got together at like, my uncle's house and everybody was so excited and we made a big event and a big party out of it. And I was excited too, because never did it cross my mind that things would Be, you know, edited in such a way. I did know that I was eliminated early on and I know that my family and stuff didn't know that. So I was maybe a little nervous about that. But as everything started airing, initially they would show me and we'd be like, yeah, that's okay, that's okay. And then as they kept going on, it started getting silent and silent and I could feel the energy in the room. My heart dropped. Sharon found out with the rest of the world in a room filled with her family and friends that she was cycle 11's first villain. And it was a very kind of like tense, sensitive situation. It's in the air and it was very confusing. You're questioning reality and you're questioning what happened and you're questioning your truth and what you knew also happened. And it was heartbreaking because it wasn't a true reflection of who I was. It didn't matter to ANTM producers who Sharon really was because Sharon was a character in a story. It was a story of an old overconfident bully who gets what's coming to her when she flops in the first photo shoot and is eliminated. It was a tidy character arc that started the season off with a bang. We have no way of knowing if Sharon was sent home that week because she actually had the worst photo or if she was sent home because that made the best story. And that's because a lot of what we saw on ANTM was an illusion. I've heard producers talk where they were like, yeah, this girl's boring, she's terrible. Tv, what do we want to do? Photo shoot, you know, everything is still on the up and up. Maybe their photo that's chosen is not the best photo, is not their best photo. After the break, you'll hear how the producers created the version of reality we saw on the show. 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. At 19, Elena Sada believed she had found her calling. In the new season of Sacred Scandal, we pull back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Martial Maciel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose within the Legion of Christ. My name is Elena Sada and this is my story. It's a story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive, and eventually how I got out. This season on Sacred Scandal, hear the full story from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from devout follower to determined survivor as Helena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected him. Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Sacred the Many Secrets of Marcial Maciel as part of the Mikeultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a tape recorded statement. Person being interviewed is Krista Gale Pike. This is in regards to the death of a Colleen Slim. She just started going off on me but I hit her. I just hit her and hit her and hit her and hit her. On a cold January day in 1995, 18 year old Christa pike killed 19 year old Colleen Slemmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Christa has been sitting on death row. The state has asked for an execution date for Christa. We let people languish in prison for decades raising questions about who we consider fundamentally unrestorable. How does someone prove that they deserve to live? We are starting the recording now. Please state your first and last name. Krista Pike. Listen to unrestorable Season 2 proof of life on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Nicole Angemi, PA, and creator of the autopsy blog the Gross Room. And I'm Maria Q. Kane Together, we're the Mother daughter duo behind the Mother Knows Death podcast. On our show, we tackle burning questions like what happens when you're stuck in an amusement ride upside down for hours? Or why are celebrities always eating their placentas? Is the latest TikTok trend dangerous? The answer is yes. It's always yes. And most importantly, what is anal breathing? Each week we explore the most bizarre stories in the news. And believe us, it just gets weirder. Every week we share real life stories, dissect shocking autopsy findings, and delve into the dark humor that comes with discussing death. And now we are excited to announce that we are joining the I Heart Podcast Network. Whether you're a true crime aficionado or just have a tinge of morbid curiosity, there's something for everyone on Mother Knows Death. New episodes of our show drop twice a week. Listen to Mother knows death on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search Mother Knows Death. Reality competition shows are not always there. That was certainly true on antm. What made the show entertaining wasn't just the photo shoots. It was the drama, the personalities the models brought to the set. But the best models didn't always make the best reality tv. So producers had a way of getting rid of contestants who weren't entertaining enough. Here's sound mixer Jose Torres. I've heard producers talk where they were like, yeah, this girl's boring. She's terrible tv. What do we want to do? Photo shoot. You know, everything is still on the up and up. Maybe their photo that's chosen is not the best photo is not their best photo. That's why so many of Yalls faves were getting sent home early. Producers had the right to use creative license and tailor the competition how they saw fit. Meaning the most talented model didn't always win. Oftentimes the person with the best story or best TV personality did. When someone wasn't delivering what the producers needed to make good tv, or when the producers were done with their storyline, they would pick a model's worst photo and say it was their best. I asked ANTM creative producer Andrew Patterson about this. Was it always the best person winning and was it always the worst person being sent home? Hell no. Hell no. Now I'm not saying every elimination was predetermined for the plot. Producers couldn't manipulate everything. You still had to be a talented model in order to progress in the competition. It's just that the talented models who also had interesting personalities or the best stories were usually the ones who made it to the finale. And when it was time to get rid of a lackluster contestant, producers had other ways of tipping the scales. I asked casting producer Raphael Dorval how that worked. He didn't want to give me an example from ANTM, so he used RuPaul's Drag Race to explain. Let's say you're a contestant on RuPaul's Drag Race, right? And let's say for whatever reason, you're not rising to the occasion on the show, and you're just not stepping up as an interesting personality on the show. Right now, if you're just falling flat and producers are freaking out, they're like, oh, God, we gotta get rid of this person. They're bringing the whole show down. Now. We know about this person. So when you're vetting these people who listen, let's just say there's always a season where there's somebody who doesn't know how to sew. He's referring to sewing challenges. Drag Race is also a competition reality show. Contestants are expected to perform, dance, sing, act, and occasionally sew their own costumes. Every contestant has their strengths, but inevitably, there's always some queen on the show who doesn't even know how to thread a needle. Needle. So if you're going on the show and you don't know how to sew, it's going to be very difficult for you if there's a challenge that you have to sew not one, not two, but three different outfits, which has happened on the show. So let's just say the powers that be are like, o, this girl's rough. She's killing us. This. This is not going to work. So I'm trying to get rid of Britney. I guess our next challenge has to be a sewing challenge. Maybe we're on episode four, and maybe the big sewing challenge wasn't supposed to happen until episode six. We're switching up the game, and now we're making the Sewing Challenge episode four. So there's always ways to kind of do what you need to do. For whatever reason, Raphael didn't want to spill the tea on antm. Maybe he's a Tyra Banks loyalist. Maybe he's still under his NDA. But in case you're having trouble deciphering his Drag Race riddle, Raphael is saying ANTM had a way of producing the results they wanted in the competition. Producers designed the photo shoots and runways. They also knew the contestants weaknesses. So if there was a boring model who took decent pictures but had a horrible Runway walk, surprise, surprise. That Runway they'd planned for week eight is happening today. The boring model would trip over her heels and get sent home promptly by the judges. And they didn't even have to select her worst photo to get rid of her. I'm not trying to make the producers sound like evil masterminds who wanted to torture and sabotage these models. They were doing their jobs, creating a show that was entertaining and memorable. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Watching 12 perfectly nice and talented models compete in intimate photoshoots and realistic runways would have been boring. It was fun to watch Britney drink and dance on tables. It's riveting to see a bunch of scared models hanging off the side of a 700 foot building. It was satisfying to see Sharon get eliminated first. Before the contestants, it was a different story. They knew the show would be edited. However, most of them thought they would get a fair shake in the competition. But ANTM used them like pieces on a chessboard. There were heroes and villains, and the producers moved them around or knocked them off the board to fit the story they wanted to tell. Here's sound mixer Jose Torres. Top model. Honestly, a lot of those girls were just like cogs in the machine. You know, they got looked at as they were a commodity, they were a product. They were brought on to be part of a TV show. If they had a good experience, great. And if they didn't, that's a shame. You know, it's too bad. That was the mentality. Being a contestant on ANTM meant you might get dangled off the side of a building, thrown in a pool of water, or on top of a Greek salad. You might be made to look like a drunk or a villain. But it was supposed to all be worth it because even if you didn't win, you got a portfolio. Aspiring models often paid thousands of dollars to get professional photos they could send out to agents. Your portfolio could jumpstart your career. Here's Tyra talking to the contestants about the power of of a good portfolio. I booked 25 fashion shows in Paris off of one, two, three photos. So you have four, so you have a leg up. Okay, Tyra Poppins. But the point is, the promise of the portfolio is why a lot of these women allowed themselves to be dangled off the side of a building or covered in live bees. Because if they could look fierce while they did it, that photo could be their golden ticket. But after they were eliminated, a lot of contestants found out their ANTM portfolio was a glorified coffee table book. They were a joke to modeling agencies. Here's Kenya Hill from Cycle four. I already knew by the time it ended, like, this is a TV show. But I was expecting the modeling industry to embrace me with open arms because this is America's Next Top Model. After the show, Kenya moved to New York, ready to take on the industry. ANTM photos in hand. But like a lot of the models I've spoken to, she was in for a rude awakening. I couldn't even use my portfolio from America's Next Top Model in my actual portfolio because the pictures from the show were so over the top, so overly edited, overly styled, overly made up. It was for tv. Real modeling portfolios didn't look like how our pictures looked. The retouching was insane. That is not how photos actually look in magazines. Kenya eventually became a working model, but she had to build her career herself. These days, she coaches new models who are trying to break into the industry. She says it's her mission to give them more than ANTM gave her. Before Kenya was cast on antm, she'd been a fan and she fully bought into the premise. She thought ANTM was really a competition to find and make the best model as a teenager. I did too. I think we all did. But once Kenya left Top Model and launched her career, she realized the show wasn't at all like the real modeling industry. The average person watching the show would think, oh, yep, that's a photo shoot shoot. That's the modeling industry. And so I think like the entire country took that as, yep, this is real. This is the modeling industry through and through. And it's just not true. It's just not the case. So much of it was just tv. It was pure entertainment. And something America found very entertaining were racist stereotypes. And ANTM was among the best to ever do it. That's what we'll get into on the next episode. 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 Federman and Andrea Gunning. Associate producer are Alicia 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 Callaway 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 lasspodcast for Curse of 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 in small towns. Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever, wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts. Sacred Scandal is Back, the hit true crime podcast that uncovers hidden truths and shattered faith. For 19 years, Elena Sada was a nun for the Legion of Christ. This season she's telling her story. When I first joined the Legion of Christ, I felt chosen. I was 19 years old old when Martial Mail, the leader of the Legionaries, looked me in the eye and told me I had a calling. Surviving meant hiding. Escaping, took courage. Risking everything to tell her truth. Listen to Sacred Scandal, the many secrets of Martial Massiel on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On a cold January day in 1995, 18 year old Christa pike killed 19 year old Colleen Slemmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Christa has been sitting on Death row. How does someone prove that they deserve to live? We are starting the recording now. Please state your first and last name. Krista Pike. Listen to Unrestorable Season 2 Proof of Life on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women found themselves in an AI fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well not me, but me with someone else's body parts. This is Levittown, a new podcast from iHeart podcasts Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope about the rise of deepfake pornography and the battle to stop it. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.