A couple of years ago we were contacted by a woman who was a guest on the Tyra Banks show. The woman claimed that she and her 11 -year-old daughter were invited on to the show under the pretense of getting her daughter, a big “Top Mode” fan, modeling advice from Tyra. While she signed the contract and prior to her appearance our source insisted that she was given no indication that Tyra would be anything but positive with her daughter. However when she got on the show Tyra was accusatory and negative, and even had on a pedophile via satellite to explain how some bikini photos of her daughter, which were posed online anonymously, were bait for predators. The woman and her daughter were basically humiliated and were victims of a bait and switch. The little girl cried all the way home and was subject to bullying and taunting at school.
That wasn’t the only guest that had an issue with their treatment on Tyra’s show. We also ran a story from the Enquirer, one of several in the tabloid, in which a former Tyra guest, a cancer victim, described how awful her “makeover” experience was.
So when I heard this latest story, that the now gratefully-over Tyra show is being sued, I wasn’t surprised. Apparently Tyra had on a 15 year-old girl who swore she was a “sex addict,” only no one at the Tyra show got permission from the minor girl’s parents to have her on. What a mess this show was:
Tyra Banks may be the next top litigated.
Georgia mom Beverly McClendon filed the complaint against Banks, Warner Bros. Entertainment and executive producers for $3 million last week, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
She claims her 15-year-old daughter, Jewel Ciera Washington, responded to an open call on the show’s website for self-proclaimed sex addicts in October 2009. After being selected, she flew alone to New York the following month, was picked up by a limo and put up in a hotel.
“This show undoubtedly was watched by sexual deviants, perverts and pedophiles alike,” McClendon argued in the complaint, according to ABC News.
She is arguing the producers broke Georgia state labor laws by not alerting her about her daughter’s scheduled appearance.
Warner Bros. Television did not respond to requests seeking comment.
The family also wants a ban on any future repeats of the episode.
[From The NY Daily News]
This seems completely likely given all we know about the Tyra show, and it’s unbelievably stupid. How could they have an underage kid on without getting permission from her parents first? I couldn’t stand this show when it was on, and I can’t stand that sanctimonious piece of work Tyra. I hope that notoriously cheap Tyra has to personally pay up for this. She ran a very lousy show, and she should be held responsible for it.
Photos are from 9/29/10 and 9/30/10. Credit: WENN.com
I can’t stand Tyra, her show sucks and I hope it gets canceled. All hail Wendy Williams!
Wow how do you not know your daughter is missing for how ever long she was gone for the show and then why do you wait until the show is over to sue someone? Weird.
Another person who disgusts me.
How I wish Top Model would go off the air too.
Isn’t she wicked scared of dolphins? Maybe that’s why she is wearing that stupid net over her face…to keep those pesky dolphins out!
well, i saw the show with de little model-girl and actually, tyra had a good point, because the mother of the 11 year old girl had taken pictures of her that were really slutty for an 11 year old.. tyra just told her, to make some nice girly-pictures, but the mother didn’t get the hint… she just wanted her little girl to bring home money…
I don’t like Tyra Banks for this very reason. Don’t get me wrong, I think any parent who lets there kid go on the Tyra Banks show has some issues but Tyra gets me because she claims to be so pro-women and girl empowerment. I have never watched a complete show, thankfully, but every small part I have ever seen has not been pro anything. They only seem to be pro-Tyra Banks.
Soooo over her! Her daytime show suks really bad, I gave up on that a long time ago. A long time ago I read she wanted to be the next Oprah, ain’t happening sweetie, all her guests are no-bodys. As for Top Model, that show is played out too, I cant stand that big fat blk judge so I quit it
She sucks!
What is that spider’s web on her face? She looks like something out of Star Wars!
Her show is butt she is so full of herself the only good thing about her show is when Joel Mchale from the Soup makes fun of it.
She looks so weird since she went on a diet.
what a user.
This is so bias!!! I love Tyra and she really inspires other people!
She is one of THE most arrogant people in Hollywood. Ever watched how she and that stupid Elvin Queen photographer talk to the models on her show? Its nauseating.
wait… this woman’s daughter flew alone from georgia to NY, stayed in a hotel, went on the show, came back to georgia and the mother didn’t know about it until the show aired?! bitch sounds like she might snatch the “mother of the year” award from dina lohan.
It’s funny that you call Tyra notoriously cheap because the show supposedly shut down production earlier this year because of “budget problems.”
I hate The Tyra Show (and by extension, Tyra) with a passion. It is a vapid source of entertainment (and sadly, advice) for many young women. Tyra liked to act as if she was one of the girls, but she just sounded like a moron.
I’m glad spiderman’s around trying to catch real criminal’s like Tyra (she sounds like a cartoon villian from these stories of her) but he needs to use more web next time.
How do minors even get on the show without parental permission? How is that not one single person on the show did a background check on her to find out that she was only fifteen? That’s just unimaginable, what is wrong with this show? Who signed the release?
Still, how the crap do you not notice that your child has left the state and been taken to the other side of the country to appear on a talk show? Okay, probably the same kind who ends up with a fifteen-year-old self-proclaimed sex addict daughter. WAKE UP AND PARENT, LADY. She’s sure that perverts are watching the show and waiting for her daughter, well, buttered monkeys of Hell, at least SOMEONE is keeping an eye on her.
Everything that the show did was wrong, wrong, wroooooooonng. I don’t like Tyra Banks because her ego’s the size of Pangaea, her crazy is weaponized and her weaves just declared ‘total war’ and shall soon have their own orbit. However, three million dollars is a pretty big reward for someone who is too stupid to realize that her very underaged daughter has left the state. What, you want a medal?
Oh yeah so Tyra is responsible for what exactly? I say the PARENTS are responsible for allowing others to take racy pictures of a minor or for allowing a minor to be a sex addict. Get your head out of your *ss CB.
@ original kate: Yeah, that’s what the judge will say.
I’m no Tyra fan, but this sounds like a bunch of litigious BS that may very well just get thrown right out of court. Tyra’s show is a great example of why models should stick to modeling, and not try to do more than that.
How is is that no one involved in making this show did some kind of background check to make sure that she of age? Where was the parental consent form? Who released this? That is just utterly baffling to me, to do something so strange in regards to something so fundamental.
But you’ve got to be one screw-loosed fool if you think you’re entitled to three million dollars as a reward for your mindbending stupidity. They broke Georgia law? Bad. They, however, are not of gross child neglect, so who’s cute now? At least at the age of fifteen, she would have some basic life skills and resources she she need to employ them, you know, it’s not like she’s eight, or something ridiculous. Still, how, HOW the crap do you not notice that your very underaged daughter has left the state, flown to the other side of the country and participated in an internationally-broadcast talk show? I guess it’s the same way that you end up with a child who is a self-proclaimed sex addict when barely into her teens. Man alive. Courtrooms can’t undo stupid and you’re headed for a big wake up call if you rouse yourself out of this stupor, lady. She is convinced that perverts, mashers, etc. will get a view at her little girl, well buttered monkeys of Hell, at least SOMEONE’s keeping an eye on her.
I don’t like Tyra: her ego’s the size of Pangaea, her crazy has weaponized and will rise against us in the Somewhat Glorious Revolution to come, and I’m pretty sure that her weaves are sentient, as they’ve declared ‘total war’ on us and about to get the zoning permits for an orbit. Yes, I said that, and yet, this oaf lady, pushes the indiscretions on the part of Tyra and team’s whack-and-a-half antics to the margins because as unimaginably stupid as they were, you’ve got some first-class idiot solipsism percolating in this McClellan person. Alright, I sound heartless, but how engaged could she have been in her daughter’s well-being if something like this could happen in the first place? I’m sure she has legitimate issues, but this wave of motherly furor seems to perfectly coincide with an opportunity for dollars.
Maybe her kid went to New York because she was hoping to defect.
What the what happened to my comment? It’s like it split itself in half and scattered. Now I look crazy because I have two comments that are almost exactly alike.
@ jo “mama” besser: maybe it’s your evil twin posting? my evil twin makes me eat ben & jerry’s chunky monkey.
Tyra is notoriously cheap in her personal life, and frankly, considering how most “celebrities” spend money like fools, I can’t fault her for that. However, it’s quite possible that the SHOW goes over budget consistently, and that’s really a team problem.
I do fault her for her six-head, her weaves, and her big mouth.
My ‘evil twin’ of is ploughing through a bag of Ruffles right now. I call him Rossiter.
I loathe Tyra Banks with the passion of 10,000 burning nuns. I worked on her show one day (filling in in production) and she was a complete and utter tyrant. Screaming at people and being a diva. One of the regular PAs looked at me and said “and this is a good day,”
There is something not right about Tyra Banks. She is just not right….
Lynn is she really scared of dolphins? Dolphins are harmless, sweet creatures who do not hurt humans, they protect them. To be scared of dolphins? Something aint right!!!!!!
dolphins have also been known to be somewhat sexually inappropriate with humans.
Well now, a dolphin is an animal, so to say that it has been inappropriate by human standards is rather unfair to the dolphin. And unlike the great apes, they have never raped a human that I have ever heard of.
Oh! Tyra?! Oh yeah – One thought about the disappearing child is that perhaps her mother was away when she scarpered. Not that that is really a great excuse – mom should be paying closer attention than that.
Jo Mama, tell Rossiter to pass the chips please.
I think that while Tyra and her show come off terribly in this, that mother sounds like no prize. As others have pointed out, how the hell did she not know that her child had traveled out of state for that length of time. If my teenager where gone for more than an hour or two unaccounted for, I would have called the police. Maybe she did, I don’t know but it doesn’t sound like it.
I guess the lack of oversight for this child kind of explains how she can be a nymphomaniac.
I think Tyra’s show was terrible, and I find her to be annoying.
But this case is BS.
Not buying it.
While in HS, I lived in a ritzy beach town that was basically Hollywood’s playground. (Ever see It’s Complicated? That’s my hometown!)
One day Tyra Banks came into the clothing store where I worked. All the other shopgirls went APESH!T over her. I was alerted to her presence and, being the ignorant punkabilly out-of-the-fashion-loop girl I was, asked my manager in what I *thought* was a quiet voice:
”Who the f*ck is Tyra Banks?”
…I wasn’t sure if the woman was about to kill me or explode. I escaped into the stockroom, not willing to find out.
Ever since that day, my coworkers referred to me as ‘She Who Shut Down Tyra Banks’. I was very proud.
@ Ashley “I cant stand that big fat blk judge so I quit it.” Wow! Racist much?
People who are bashing the mother: she called the police and filed a missing persons report when her daughter didn’t come home from school.
And the law says you have a couple of years before you sue. Maybe mom’s lawyers were trying to settle it out of court, and Tyra’s lawyers were jerking them around so they had to file in court.
I’m totally team anti-Tyra.
Wow, this is a news story that is Very Timely and I believe it HIGHLIGHTS how dangerous a trend it is to EXPLOIT children in the same of TV.
Tyra is in the wrong here, and this lawsuit may very well help other parents who find, through difficult life circumstances, that their errant teen has had a “run-in” with showbusiness, and that run-in is MORE TRAUMATIC than the problems that are being discussed on the air—and that is child manipulation that is predator in nature. Tyra was the predator to a troubled teen.
Please follow this story. I feel for the mom and the child who was exploited in too many ways.