America's Next Top Model
News (Page 8)

America's Next Top Model returns to New York City for season 10. Among the contestants vying for this year's top prize?

Marvita (pictured below), a semi-finalist during season nine; she was eliminated right before the finalists went to the house. Here's a rundown of other contestants on season 1o of America's Next Top Model, premiering February 20:

Aimee
Age: 18
Occupation: Hostess
Hometown: Spanaway, Washington

Allison
Age: 19
Occupation: Hostess
Hometown: Waunakee, Wisconsin

Amy (a.k.a. "Amis")
Age: 20
Occupation: Waitress
Hometown: Bartlesville, Oklahoma

Anya
Age: 19
Occupation: Retail Sales
Hometown: Honolulu, Hawaii

Atalya
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York

Claire
Age: 24
Occupation: Production Coordinator
Hometown: New York, New York

Continue Reading...

We're guessing Saleisha Stowers is excited to be famous and wear lots of designer clothing.

But the ninth winner of America's Next Top Model says her most important challenge will be to act as a role mode.

"I've gone through a lot of things that every little girl will probably go through. Just trying to find yourself, trying to feel loved, trying to know what's your purpose in life," Stowers told reporters during a Thursday conference call.

"I think that I can be a great role model and just help girls out... I can show young girls what I've been through, and how it's okay to be scared, but you can still overcome that fear. It doesn't matter how insecure you are. One day, you'll look inside yourself and realize you're a beautiful person. You can be that confident girl who's on the runway; you don't have to hate yourself because you're not."

As for the future, Stowers said she currently intends to stay in L.A. for a while and "take it one day at a time."

"Top Model was a great door opener for me, so now I'm ready for many doors to open and just go out there and show everyone how successful I can be and just prove my career to the world... I just can't wait to see what else is in store for me."

Saleisha Stowers was crowned America's Next Top Model's ninth-season champ during last night's finale.

Following the victory, the beauty said:

"When I was younger I was just weird. I had low self esteem. I just wasn't happy with my life. I've grown into a strong young woman. I'm so happy with myself right now. This is what I dreamed of. I fought for this so hard and I was so determined. I have it now and I'm not going to let it slip out."

The 21-year-old receptionist from Los Angeles received the show's grand prize package of a management deal with Elite Model Management; a $100,000 contract with cosmetics company CoverGirl; and a cover story and six-page fashion spread in an issue of Seventeen magazine.

Congratulations!

Sarah Hartshorne was eliminated from America's Next Top Model a few weeks ago.

Her fans - those who appreciated the fact that she wasn't a typically super-skinny model, and wished that Tyra Banks would back up her talk of considering various body types - were disappointed.

Fortunately, though, viewers will get a chance to see more of Hartshorne in the near future.

She's joining The Boston Babydolls, a burlesque performing group based out of Boston, Ma. Her burlesque persona is named Vita Lightly, and on December 15, she'll be performing in "Brrrrlesque" with the group at The Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline.

The Boston Babydolls describe themselves as a troupe of performers devoted to burlesque both classic and modern and variety acts. Our members include fan dancers, sword swallowers, jugglers, tassle twirlers, and many more."

The America's Next Top Model star will be performing two solo spots in the show. It looks like she's taking seriously her final episode comments to heart:

"I want to make it clear that it is OK for someone my size to be dressed like that! I don't want girls to see that and say, 'Oh, gee, she's uncomfortable, so I should be uncomfortable,' too. I felt gorgeous! It was really fun and kind of a great role to get into, this dominatrix vampire."

Look out, Tyra Banks, a fellow panel member is after your spotlight!

America's Next Top Model judge - and former British supermodel - Twiggy has agreed to a six-figure deal to write a style guide for women over 40.

The 58-year-old model and actress is writing "Those Fab Forties, Fifties and Sixties," a book offering advice to older women about updating their image with the proper makeup and skin care.

Louise Moore, managing director of Penguin's Michael Joseph imprint, predicts the book will be a best-seller when it is released next June.

"Twiggy is as beautiful a woman in her 50s as she was in her 20s, and has been at the forefront of the fashion industry since she was a 1960s supermodel," Moore said.

"This book will act as a practical, essential, indispensable guide to how to rethink your style and carry it through the decades, find what suits you best, source new skincare and makeup tricks, and incorporates Twiggy's in-depth philosophy on what makes women truly stylish."

Jael Strauss, a former America's Next Top Model finalist, has filed an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against two men, including her former talent agent, who allegedly published racy photographs of her without her permission.

According to the lawsuit, the pictures were taken when Strauss was 16 and ended up in a book called Beautiful: Nudes by Marc Baptiste. Some of the shots that originally ended up on the cutting room floor were posted on the Internet and their distribution was enhanced once Strauss made it onto the hit CW reality series, the suit alleges.

Baptiste, who is also responsible for the 2003 tome Intimate: Nudes by Marc Baptiste, photographed Strauss in 2000 at locales in Inglewood and at Malibu's Surf Rider Beach. The Detroit native was as naked in some of the shots as Heidi Klum nude in Arena magazine.

Strauss, who finished fifth earlier this year on Top Model's eighth cycle after Tyra Banks decided that her looks couldn't compensate for her brash personality, alleges that her ex-agent, Christopher Donahue, allowed fellow plaintiff Baptiste to take erotic photos of the then-teenager and then signed off on the book without asking for permission from Strauss' parents.

Also named in the suit are the Millennium Agency, where Donahue works, and Rizzoli/Universe. Strauss is seeking unspecified restitution, as well as punitive and compensatory damages.

In addition to invasion of privacy, Strauss claims that she wasn't paid for the use of her pictures and is also suing for theft of image and unjust enrichment. The aspiring catwalker also accuses Baptiste of trying to seduce her after a photo session.

Continue Reading...

If former America's Next Top Model winner and radio host Adrianne Curry, a.k.a. Mrs. Peter Brady, ever decides on a career change, she's apparently got a knack for pole dancing. Hey, it could be worse.

The celebrity gossip site TMZ spotted the lovely Adrienne Curry grinding away on a stripper pole this weekend at the Giantto and Von Dutch Watch Showcase party at Light Nightclub at the Bellagio in Las Vegas...

She's a natural! Let's see Jaslene Gonzalez do that!

In the hit show's 8th season, America's Next Top Model competitor (and the eventual champion) Jaslene Gonzalez impressed the judges with her spirit.

But an abusive relationship earlier in her life nearly crushed the model's confidence, she reveals in a new interview.

"Before I got into that relationship, I had a good head on my shoulders and walked with my head up high," Gonzalez says in the new issue of Seventeen.

"But during that relationship, things went down little by little. It was such a dark moment in my life. It was horrible!"

Because of her situation, "I wasn't having my rest or eating the food I wanted to eat. So I mentally gave up, but I still did what I had to do. I think perseverance is the key to success. There were so many roadblocks for me, but I overcame them all."

The 21-year-old Jaslene, who edged Natasha Galkina for the crown on the season finale, appears on the cover and in a six-page fashion and beauty layout in the magazine â€" part of her winnings, which also included a contract with Elite modeling agency and a $100,000 deal with CoverGirl.

Should others find themselves in an abusive relationship, Jaslene says:

"I can give so much advice, but it starts within yourself. You need to get help. Talk to somebody, because once you talk about it, you hear it, and then you understand what you're going through. That's what it took for me to let go."

Jaslene Gonzalez, who last week attended The CW's upfronts in New York City, says she gained self-worth from her sometimes challenging experience on America's Next Top Model:

"I couldn't believe how mature, strong, and confident I've grown. I definitely broke down along the way though."

No doubt that Tyra Banks and the rest of the judges saw that growth in Jaslene, who didn't make the top 12 when she auditioned for the previous cycle.

Each week, America's Next Top Model winner Jaslene Gonzalez had to brave crazy photo shoots with full hair and makeup, TV cameras capturing her every move 24/7, and a notoriously tough judging panel.

In the end, the show's judges, including executive producer Tyra Banks, selected the Chicago native to take the top prize.

And deservedly so. After she edged out Natasha Galkina, Us Weekly caught up with America's newest CoverGirl during her recent press tour in New York City.

Us: Who is the first person you called right after you won the show?
Jaslene Gonzalez: Definitely my mom. Once I told her, she told everybody.

Us: What was it like standing in front of the America's Next Top Model judging panel each week?
Jaslene Gonzalez: You're under so much pressure. You think one day you're doing so well and then you're going to the panel room and they critique you so harshly it puts you down. In the middle of the competition I fell off a little bit.

Us: You also auditioned for the show last season but were cut.
Jaslene Gonzalez: I think it prepared me a lot more this time around.

Us: You said Miss J (a.k.a. J. Alexander) is your favorite judge. Who would win in a walk-off between you two?
Jaslene Gonzalez: He lived for my walk. He was in love with me and I was in love with him. He's a queen and I'm a queen, so we have so much in common.

Natasha Galkina, the most controversial and dramatic contestant on America's Next Top Model, was ecstatic to make it as far as she did, but is glad that it's finally over, she tell BuddyTV.

After almost being eliminated in the second week, Natasha proved to herself and the judges that she had what it took as her personality and hard work earned her a spot in the final two, along with eventual winner Jaslene Gonzalez.

Although Natasha didn't become America's Next Top Model, she received all the exposure she could ask for and is more than satisfied to be runner-up.

Natasha sat down with BuddyTV last week to talk about everything that went down on the show and wasn't afraid to hold anything back: good, bad, and ugly.

Q: Can you start off by telling us how you got to be on America's Next Top Model? How did it all start for you?

Natasha: Gosh it's a long story, do you have time? Well, becoming a model was always a dream and I love America's Next Top Model. I always wanted to be on the show and they would never have the casting calls in Dallas when I lived there. So the closest one was 100 hundred miles away on the border of Oklahoma and Texas and I decided to go there because I didn't have anything to do, it was the middle of August.

So I just drove a 100 there and I came and I was like, "Oh my God, so many girls showed up. No way I'm going to be chosen, you know?" So I tried and I went back home and I received the call and they said, "You are the winner! So come on up here again and you have an interview with us." So I was very excited to go there, and I met so many so people from CW and they were very, very nice to me. So when I came up there, I was like, "Where are the other girls? The other winners?" And they're like, "There's no, you are the only one." And it was just so exciting and that's just a little story.

Q: Did you think you were going to make it as far as you did in this competition?

Natasha: I was always hoping to make it as far as possible. I tried to work as hard as possible and learn and I really would try to remember what every judge would say about me and what they tried to correct and work on. And I think that the judges saw it and I think that they saw that I was improving and that's why I made it so far.

Q: You looked shocked when Tyra Banks pulled your picture and you advanced to the final two with Jaslene. What was going through your mind at this time?

Continue reading the full interview here ...