When producers asked Shandi Sullivan why she wanted to become America’s Next Top Model, the 19-year-old didn’t hesitate.

“I shouted, ‘I don’t want to work at Walgreens anymore!’” Sullivan recalled to Rolling Stone. “I literally screamed it at the top of my lungs.”

She believed that moment would transform her life. Within weeks of the open casting call at a Kansas City mall, she was selected for the second season of the Tyra Banks-hosted reality competition, which premiered in 2004. The show quickly became a cultural phenomenon and dominated television for more than a decade. Now, a new Netflix docuseries revisits the program’s legacy — and the damage some contestants say it left behind.

Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model features interviews with key figures behind the series, including Banks, J. Alexander, Nigel Barker, and Jay Manuel. But its most powerful voices belong to the former contestants themselves. Many describe a chaotic set environment shaped by producer manipulation and a lack of emotional and physical safeguards — experiences they say left lasting trauma and harmed their careers.

Sullivan joined the show hoping it would be her escape from Kansas City. Instead, she says one of the most painful moments of her life was broadcast to millions.

“For a long time I felt like it was my fault — like I allowed it to happen,” she said. “But people were watching the whole time. Someone should have stepped in and said, ‘Put the cameras down and help her.’ Instead, they kept filming because they hoped something dramatic would happen — and for them, it made great television.”

Her memories center on a trip to Milan, Italy, when she reached the final four contestants. After a long day of challenges, producers invited male models to the house for a party. Exhausted, drinking heavily, and barely eating, Sullivan blacked out. She remembers fragments — being encouraged into a hot tub, flashes of people around her, and waking up horrified the next morning.

The episode later framed the night as infidelity toward her boyfriend. Sullivan says that portrayal was deeply hurtful.

“Setting boundaries and then seeing the footage aired anyway showed me they didn’t care about me — only the show,” she said.

Executive producer Ken Mok defended the filming in the documentary, describing the series as a documentary-style production that captured reality around the clock. Banks offered limited comment, saying production decisions were not under her control.

Now 43, Sullivan says speaking about the experience still triggers emotional pain, but she wanted to finally release the shame she carried for years. She has no plans to watch the documentary, choosing instead to focus on her present life — though she admits she would still welcome an apology.