Jay Manuel is revisiting the apex of his career. The former creative director of "America's Next Top Model" has had the chance to reflect on his time with the show following the release of Netflix's "Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model," and looking back on it now, he has one regret.
"I wish that I could have done in general was draw better boundaries," Jay shared during a Feb. 19 Q&A for his 2020 novel "The Wig, the Bitch and the Meltdown," according to People. "And had the fortitude to really kind of even push back and flex back on production that was really coming down on me."
"Because the most important thing in those photo shoots was to make sure that the girls had a safe space," he continued. "Ultimately, my job should have been creating a safer space, and I should have pushed back on certain things a lot harder than I did."
The 53-year-old also shared that when he first joined the show as host Tyra Banks' makeup artist, he was doing it for her. "[A] Black model in this industry who fought her way to the top," Jay explained. "Black models are underpaid, they're poorly treated, they're discarded, and so this opportunity to do the show after every network said no and only UPN said yes, I said to her, 'Yes, I'm going to do this for you. I'm going to stand here and support you.'"
He added, "We all went into it with great intentions." But Jay admitted that "along the way, things started to go a little crazy," with the former reality star sharing just how much he had trouble drawing "those boundaries clearly" while on the show.
And while he had creative control over the models' photoshoots in the beginning, there was a shift after cycle four because of all the sponsors they'd acquired. "The show was a hit, and so now there was a group of people that were determining it and we had sponsors," Jay said, explaining that one shoot he did not have control of was the poorly regarded "race-swapping photo shoot."
As Jay shared in the Netflix documentary, he reached a point after cycle eight of the show when he decided it was time for him to leave. But when it came time to tell Tyra, she didn't have the response he was hoping for.
"It should've been the opportunity to have a heart-to-heart," Jay explained on the series, "but that did not happen." And when he was asked to return for cycle nine, he was afraid about being "blacklisted" if he didn't agree. When production on the season started, Jay recalled that Tyra "wouldn't speak with me" except during filming.
"So, on camera we learned to play, laugh," Jay said, "but it was clear I was not allowed to speak with her outside of that."
