Americas Next Top Model: Dark Secrets Revealed!

Extreme hunger, lack of sleep, physical scarring from dramatic transformations and accusations of 'psychological warfare' – accounts from America's Next Top Model contestants sound nothing like the seemingly glamorous world of high fashion.

So it is perhaps no surprise that , executive producer and judge  has finally decided to address the show's controversies in Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model - a new three-part series that features interviews with catwalk coach J Alexander (Miss Jay), creative director Jay Manuel, photographer Nigel Barker and executive producer Ken Mok.

The revived popularity of America's Next Top Model brought with it swift backlash from a new generation of viewers who discovered the show during the pandemic. It is a resurgence that Banks herself acknowledges 'brought so much joy to so many people – and so much anger.'

Banks, 52, said she 'knew [she] went too far' on the reality show, which ran on UPN, CW and later VH1 from 2003 until 2018, and that she 'kept pushing more and more and more' because she tried to give fans what they wanted.

But some former contestants are not convinced.

Among those is cycle one winner Adrianne Curry, who was left physically scarred by her experience on the reality show.

Speaking exclusively with the Daily Mail, Curry, now 43, recalled how the models 'were weighed every single morning' and claimed she was ravenous on set.

'We would have to wait all day for catering to come to any set. We were so f*****g hungry all the time. I've never been so hungry,' she said.

'We wouldn't be allowed to go to sleep until after elimination, which sometimes would last until three in the morning. And then they'd have a personal trainer run in and wake us up at like 5am.'

Curry, who was 20 at the time, explained that she was 'so hungry' because they 'were always in a hurry.'

'There was no time to have breakfast, there's no time to have lunch,' she said. 'Catering was always "on the way." And now I know that it was psychological warfare. I think they knew that the more sleep deprived and hungry and f****d up we were, the better television would be.'

Some ten years later, Marvin Cortes appeared on the first co-ed season in 2013, and now claims to have had a similar experience.

'We would have food on set but, for some reason, they would specifically bring you the food right before you're supposed to shoot… and they would let you know as you're eating, "Oh be ready in ten or 15 [minutes],"' he said.

'Every model knows you're not supposed to eat right before a shoot, so we would basically not eat … they would give us stuff at the worst possible time. I don't know if that was coordinated.'

In her memoir last year, former contestant Sarah Hartshorne (right), who appeared on the show during cycle nine as a plus-sized model, claimed producers attempted to coax a reaction out of her after cutting her tresses into a blonde pixie