When the world first met Ebony Haith as a contestant on the primary cycle of “America’s Subsequent Prime Mannequin” in 2003, she was offered because the “offended Black girl,” an outline she says took years to completely unpack and heal from.
Netflix’s new docuseries, “Actuality Examine: Inside America’s Subsequent Prime Mannequin,” which premiered Monday, Feb. 16, revisits her tumultuous expertise on the present as a part of its three-part deep dive into the franchise’s legacy and controversies.
“It took me a very long time to essentially heal totally [over] the misdirection of my character and the reality of who I really am,” she informed Individuals journal in a latest interview.
Through the debut season, Haith, a New York Metropolis native, says she was regularly singled out and ridiculed about her pores and skin and hair. The present additionally outed her at a time when being brazenly homosexual felt particularly unsafe. As a part of the sequence’ signature makeover episode, she obtained a haircut from somebody inexperienced together with her texture, which left her with bald spots. Wanting again, Haith believes the remedy she endured fed right into a broader narrative that framed her because the stereotypical offended Black girl among the many contestants.
Watching the episodes after they aired, she mentioned, “saddened” her as a result of she felt she was by no means given a good shot. On the identical time, she got here to grasp the mechanics behind what was unfolding.
“That is about scores. And that for me actually woke me up in that second,” she mentioned of her realization.
“Wanting on the entire narrative of making the offended Black woman, I additionally felt prefer it was creating one thing that was proving that I had a motive to be offended,” Haith continued. “And I believe that got here from that stage of remedy after which coping with the conduct of the dishonesty and attempting to push a story.”
Within the years since she appeared on the present, Haith continued modeling and performing and is at the moment engaged on getting funding for a one-woman present.
