Australia’s Next Top Model Also Has A Lot To Answer For

The year is 2008. I’m in eighth grade, watching Cycle 4 of Australia’s Next Top Model as it airs. The girls are shooting a campaign for pyjama designer Peter Alexander. Eighteen-year-old Rebecca Jobson steps on set in a garish hot pink nightie. Despite the styling, she’s one of the most striking girls I’ve ever seen. Peter disagrees. “Her stomach isn’t up to scratch. She needs to lose some weight,” the pajamiér snaps before walking off set. The next shot cuts to Rebecca — a tall, long-limbed size 10 — in tears.

At elimination, the panel doubles down on her ‘weight’. Judge Alex Perry produces a measuring tape (why he has one on hand is unclear) and wraps it around her hips. He slides his fingers a few inches down the tape. “You need to be here,” he says. He does the same to another contestant, adding that she needs to “just stop chowing down and get on the treadmill.” After watching, I sneak to the cupboard and retrieve my mother’s sewing kit. She keeps it in an old biscuit tin. I pull out the tape measure and sling it around my thirteen-year-old hips. I run my fingers a few inches down the tape, take my mother’s sewing scissors, and make a small incision. "I need to be here," I say to myself. During the show’s run from 2005-2016, thousands of teenage girls across Australia undoubtedly felt the same.

Over the past few years, there has been growing discourse around the ethics of America’s Next Top Model. Launched in 2003 and hosted by Tyra Banks, the series now feels like a time capsule of the 2000s at its ugliest — when the humiliation of young women was bankable entertainment. While the Australian franchise never reached the same extremes, it definitely drew from the same playbook. The conversation around Top Model intensified last week with Netflix’s documentary Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, which features former contestants recounting experiences of fat-shaming, manipulation, and being pushed to breaking point — including one model being filmed having sex while blackout drunk and unable to consent.

Australia’s Next Top Model may have been more polished than its American counterpart. And to its credit, it did produce legitimate top models: Alice Burdeu (Cycle 3 winner) went on to star in campaigns for Dolce & Gabbana. Cassi Van Den Dungen (Cycle 5 runner-up), a stunning and scrappy teenager with no filter, walked for Miu Miu in Paris. And Duckie Thot, third runner-up of Cycle 8, remains a global fashion fixture over a decade after appearing on the show. But the Australian series was guilty of many of the same critiques the Netflix documentary leveraged against the American show: body shaming, televised humiliation, and a disregard for the mental wellbeing of contestants — many of whom were still teenagers.

And for all its failures, there was one area where the American franchise often excelled: diversity. On this front, Australia consistently fell short. Models of colour were underrepresented throughout the show’s run. In Cycle 3, there were no models of colour at all. One of the series’ darkest storylines unfolded in Cycle 4, when a group of contestants — self-dubbed the “Bitchketeers” — targeted 17-year-old Alamela Rowan. On screen, they poured water over her, hurled water balloons at her and taunted her to the point she broke down and considered leaving the competition. After the show aired, reports surfaced that the bullying was even worse than what was shown on TV. There were condoms filled with mayonnaise left in Rowan’s bed, and chilli mixed into her breakfast. The show failed to meaningfully address the situation. Rowan was simply eliminated not long after she became a target, and Demelza Reveley, widely regarded as the group’s ringleader, was crowned the winner of the cycle.

In interviews following the show, Rowan said there was no one to intervene and no support available — she “just had to take it.” It echoes the central theme of the Netflix documentary: there was no one there to safeguard the girls when they were struggling — but always someone there to film it.

The show also sent mixed messages around consent. During the same Peter Alexander shoot, a 20-year-old contestant is told last-minute that the designer wanted her to “go topless”. The model agrees. The moment is framed as professionalism — proof that she is “easy to work with”. Peter is so pleased with her compliance, he wants to work with her again. If having flexible boundaries is seen as a mark of success, then it implies that upholding boundaries is a liability for your career.

Rewatching the series in 2026, it is jarring to see how casually adults commented on the bodies of young girls under the guise of critique. “Ugh, fatty, piggy boomba,” judge Charlotte Dawson said of a seventeen-year-old up for elimination. Dawson publicly struggled with the toll of online bullying outside of the show. She took her life in 2014.

But by the early 2010s, contestants and the media began pushing back. Eighteen-year-old Alissandra Moone publicly criticised Alex Perry after he likened her body to “overstuffed luggage” (seriously, what a jerk). She later described the comment as not just incorrect, but irresponsible to broadcast to a young audience. The public sided with her. A spokesperson for eating disorder charity The Butterfly Foundation echoed her concerns that the language used by Top Model judges could contribute to eating disorders.

I often returned to my mum’s sewing kit as a young teen. The incision I’d made few inches smaller than my natural measurements was a permanent reminder of ‘where I needed to be’. And that too, was the legacy of Australia’s Next Top Model. Not just the glossy shoots and careers it launched. But its lack of diversity, the way it treated young women on-screen and the way it taught a generation of girls to see themselves.

If you are struggling with your mental health or body image, help is always available. Call Lifeline on 13 11 14, the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 or The Butterfly Foundation (eating disorder helpline) on 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673).