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For more than a decade she held the power to make or break the careers of aspiring young models.
Yet now it is ' career that is being threatened after a series of revelations emerged about the unhinged practises on her Noughties show, America's Next Top Model.
Last month, Tyra came under fire when Reality Check, a expose about the series, revealed producers covered up an incident of sexual assault, while also shining a modern spotlight on the past incidents of racism and fat-shaming.
Now Tyra faces a fresh wave of criticism with the release of E!'s Dirty Rotten Scandals, a rival documentary to the Netflix hit, which has been criticised for not holding Tyra to account.
The follow up did not feature Tyra herself, but included former contestants as well as fellow judge , who did not hold back in her criticism of Tyra, branding her a 'hardcore b***h'.
Cycle 17 winner Lisa D'Amato also had nothing pleasant to say about Tyra, vowing to never stop speaking out because the host and producer Ken Mok were 'still profiting off the tears and the trauma of the girls'.
Tyra Banks' career is being threatened after a series of revelations emerged about the unhinged practises on her Noughties show America's Next Top Model
Lisa was famously crowned the winner of the All Stars season after Angelea Preston was stripped of her title
Angelea won the 2011 season and was due to sign a $100,000 contract with Covergirl cosmetics, however, after another unnamed contestant reported to Tyra that she had previously worked as an escort, they took back her win.
Runner-up Lisa was then crowned the winner instead, leading to Angelea suing the show for breach of contract.
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Discussing the incident on Dirty Rotten Scandals, Angelea said: 'My dream was right there, like somebody dangling candy in front of a kid. They gave me $300 cash like some pity money and sent me on my way.'
Angelea's absence was not explained on the show, with fans sent into a frenzy as they speculated about her sudden withdrawal.
'I felt used, I felt like a throwaway,' she recalled. 'There could've been a sensible reason for why I didn't make the final runway but they wanted people to question what happened to me to boost their ratings. It wasn't right.'
Lisa added: 'She was set up from the very beginning to be the one that's disqualified at the end.'
Three years later, Angelea filed a lawsuit against Tyra and the CW network for $3 million yet ultimately dropped the case because 'I realised I wasn’t going to win.
'I didn’t get any money from it. The only good thing that happened [was that] people knew I was the winner.'
Another model who claimed they were set up to lose was Jeana Turner, who claimed her battle with alopecia was exploited on the show.
Jeana was famously encouraged to shave her head during the makeover episode, yet claimed she had been previously been told she would be fitted with a wig.
'I had a lot of insecurities about losing my hair but I thought being on the show was an opportunity to find myself,' she explained.
'Looking back at it, their editing was that deceptive that they were able to make an audience think that I felt powerful. I felt so small.'
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Jeana noted that she was never going to be able to win because for the first and only season the winning prize was a contract with a hair company rather than a cosmetic brand.
'How was I ever going to win when Pantene was a hair company?' Jeana exclaimed. I don't have hair!'
Angelea Preston opened up about winning the 2011 season but having her title revoked after it emerged she previously worked as an escort
Angelea's sudden absence was not explained on the show (pictured) with fans sent into a frenzy as they speculated about her sudden withdrawal
Lisa D'Amato, who competed on cycle five then returned and won cycle 17, noted: 'All of us were sleep deprived, all of us weren't able to eat enough food'
Despite her uncomfortable experience on the show, Lisa returned six years later for the All Stars cycle in a bid for 'redemption' and to 'change her life' (pictured on All Stars in 2011)
Yet winning the show wasn't all it was cracked up to be anyway, with cycle nine model Sarah Hartshorne noting that the grand prize of the £100,000 modelling contract was merely the 'promise of the opportunity to do 100k work over a year.'
She added: 'They're under no obligation to pay you.'
Cycle two winner Yoanna House said of her experience: 'For one year I was indebted to America's Next Top Model.
'I had to do a lot of appearances [and] I never got paid for any of them. I was sleeping on a couch and had to figure out how I was going to eat.'
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While Yoanna went on to pick up other modelling jobs she revealed she quickly developed a workout disorder after struggling with the extreme pressure to lose weight for bookings.
She revealed she became so underweight that she didn't menstruate for two years and was warned that if she carried on with her extreme dieting that she could impact her fertility.
Another model who struggled with her body image on the show was Keenyah Hill, who was famously criticised by judge Janice for her 'gut'.
'Putting that on TV was really dangerous because I was so, so thin,' she said.
'I've had so many people message me and say that they've developed eating disorders after watching, and it sucks.'
Keenyah suffered from lasting effects from the jibes, revealing she couldn't eat in public after the show.
While Janice was known for her acid tongue on the show, she claimed that it was Tyra encouraging her to be cruel, claiming the models were psychologically tortured to feed her ego.
The 'world's first supermodel', 71, said: 'The producers, especially Tyra, were begging me to be harsher and cruel, like Simon Cowell was on American Idol.'
Janice also referenced Tyra's notorious melt down when eliminating Tiffany Richardson, recalling: 'Tyra didn't want any competition.
'She went off on one girl and it was so frightening that I was going to get up and hold her down.
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'She would go harder on the black girls on the show because of competitiveness and jealousy and her being older than these young women.
'She was always trying to be this tough teen mum to the girls but she didn't know them, she didn't give them enough confidence.'
Claiming that Tyra was profiting off their pain, Janice continued: 'They left the show completely depressed and depleted while she got so rich.
'America's Next Top Model really tortured these girls for Tyra's ego. I was there and I saw it for four seasons. She was a hardcore b***h.'
Another model who claimed they were set up to lose was Jeana Turner, who claimed her battle with alopecia was exploited on the show
Jeana was famously encouraged to shave her head during the makeover episode (pictured) yet claimed she had been previously been told she would be fitted with a wig
Cycle two winner Yoanna House said of her experience: 'For one year I was indebted to America's Next Top Model. I had to do a lot of appearances [and] I never got paid for them'
While Yoanna went on to pick up other modelling jobs she revealed she quickly developed a workout disorder after struggling with the extreme pressure to lose weight for bookings (pictured on the show in 2004)
All Stars winner Lisa also had nothing pleasant to say about Tyra, claiming her experience of childhood abuse was 'weaponised' against her and used to create storylines.
Lis, who first competed on cycle five then returned and won cycle 17, noted: 'All of us were sleep deprived, all of us weren't able to eat enough food.
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'They know what they're doing and it's intentional.'
During her initial stint on the show, Lisa was filmed in the model house while intoxicated, and claims there has been a stigma around her drinking ever since.
She was abused by her mother in childhood and claimed that producers continuously put pressure to discuss her trauma on camera, somethin that made her incredibly uncomfortable and encouraged her erratic behaviour.
Reflecting on a scene in which she drank too much and fell asleep outside, she explained: 'I wasn't eating correctly, I wasn't sleeping, and I probably had a couple too many glasses of wine.
'I was always one moment away from fully losing it. Because they were weaponising my childhood trauma, they wanted to f**k with me emotionally. Tyra made me look absolutely crazy on purpose.
She noted that when fellow model Coryn Woitel labelled her an 'alcoholic b**h', it 'set the tone of what I've been called around the globe for 15 years.
'I was set up to be publicly humiliated on repeat forever, so Tyra could make money.'
Despite her uncomfortable experience on the show, Lisa returned six years later for the All Stars cycle in a bid for 'redemption' and to 'change her life'.
Yet she revealed she quickly realised that things wouldn't be better the second time around, claiming the contestants were rounded up and forced to sit in a van for four hours with paper bags over their heads so they couldn't see their surroundings.
She described the experience as resembling the controversial psychological study, The Stanford Prison Experiment.
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Another model who struggled with her body image on the show was Keenyah Hill, who was famously criticised by judge Janice for her 'gut'
Keenyah suffered from lasting effects from the jibes, revealing she couldn't eat in public after the show (pictured being weighed on the programme)
Cycle nine's Sarah Hartshorne revealed the strict rules they had to follow on the show, claiming producers used 'cult techniques' to control them
'I was told I was too thin to be a plus-size model but too fat to be America's Next Top Model,' Sarah mused (she is pictured on the show in 2007)
While ANTM was known for pushing the boundaries with its photoshoot, one of its most unhinged concepts came in season four, when the models were required to 'swap race'
Another inappropriate photoshoot saw the models pose as homeless people while in shot with people who really were living on the streets
The shoot was inspired by Tyra's experience of posing as a homeless person for a day for her talk show.
