‘America’s Next Top Model’ alum Tiffany Richardson speaks out following ‘Reality Check’ on Netflix: ‘You know how you treated me’

Tiffany Richardson, who appeared on cycle 3 and cycle 4 of “America’s Next Top Model,” opens up about her experience.

After Netflix’s latest documentary, “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model,” arrived on the platform this week — bringing with it a wave of early 2000s nostalgia and renewed controversy — former contestant Tiffany Richardson is calling the series’ creator, executive producer, and host, Tyra Banks, a “bully.”

Richardson, who appeared on both cycle 3 and cycle 4 of “America’s Next Top Model,” was at the center of one of the show’s most memed moments when Banks famously yelled, “I was rooting for you.” In the new documentary, Richardson shares her side of the story. She also took to Instagram on Tuesday, Feb. 17, to say even more.

“Hold up @TyraBanks let’s keep it cute,” she began in a since-deleted post. “You are one lying a— b—. You know how you treated me the whole time off and on camera, YOU WAS A BULLY!!!”

She continued, “You treated me like sh— and said the nastiest things about me and my son.”

Richardson accused the show of editing their infamous confrontation to make it appear as though Banks was being supportive rather than combative.

“That is not how the argument went but YALL EDITED TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE YOU CARED,” she claimed.

Addressing Banks directly, she added, “I BET YOU WONT SIT DOWN WITH ME FACE TO FACE AND TALK ABOUT IT!!!”

The former reality TV star also appeared to take issue with how she was portrayed in the three-part documentary chronicling the rise and controversies of the long-running modeling competition.

“I got more money and help(ed) more people than all or many of the top models but that’s the update yall give. damn shame,” she wrote. “It’s giving yall still hating on lil black a— me.”

She concluded with, “hoe just let it go, IT’S BEEN OVER 20 years,” directed at Banks.

During cycle 4, Banks eliminated two contestants at once for the first time in the show’s history, including Richardson. When Richardson did not immediately break down in tears — instead hugging her fellow contestants goodbye with a smile on her face — something shifted. Banks called the eliminated contestants back and admonished Richardson, refusing to let her fully defend herself before delivering the now-iconic line: “I was rooting for you! We were all rooting for you!” She added that when her own mother yelled at her in that way, it was out of love.

At the time, Richardson publicly described the moment as tough love. In the years since, however, she has spoken more candidly about how belittled and disrespected she felt.

In the documentary, Richardson recalls still feeling the sting of the fallout and suggests she never experienced the “tough love” Banks later claimed she was offering in that moment.

For her part, Banks acknowledges in “Reality Check” that she went too far.

“I went too far. You know, I lost it,” Banks says in the documentary. “It was probably bigger than her. It was family, friends, society, Black girls, all the challenges that we have. So many people saying that we’re not good enough. I think all that was in that moment.”