Before boarding the cruise vessel SS Adventure, wherever thirty-three America’s Next Top Model hopefuls would beryllium whittled down to thirteen, the declaration the amusement had sent maine seemed huge. There were hundreds of pages of legalese that I hardly understood. But by the clip we docked successful Saint Martin, it felt similar an albatross.
A fewer days in, the radiance had worn disconnected a little, and the amusement started to consciousness similar a cult, from the undisclosed filming locations successful planetary waters to not being allowed to talk for days astatine a time. The connection that they hammered into america implicit and implicit again urged america to beryllium grateful for this opportunity. And the world is… it was a cult. I got suckered into a cult.
Negotiating ne'er adjacent occurred to me. But if it had, each the lawyers I interviewed for this publication agreed: It’s not an option. Either you motion oregon you don’t. You’re successful oregon you’re out. “You are not going to get power implicit however you are represented” nether immoderate circumstances, said 1 lawyer. And yet we each signed it. I didn’t attraction however I was represented arsenic agelong arsenic I was represented connected TV.
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Early successful the greeting connected our archetypal afloat time aboard the cruise ship, we were led into immoderate benignant of league country and told to hold for 5 minutes, which turned into hours. The country was edifice fancy: a batch of shiny fake wood paneling and inoffensive carpeting. It was a stark ocular opposition to our tropical cruise wear: jean shorts, espadrilles, and spaghetti strap vessel tops. We shivered successful the harsh air-conditioning.
There weren’t capable chairs, truthful immoderate of america sat connected the ground. We started upright and alert, trying to blend into the professional-looking background, but arsenic the minutes dragged on, we dilatory drooped and slouched toward the crushed similar neglected houseplants.
I didn’t attraction however I was represented arsenic agelong arsenic I was represented connected TV.Finally, a squad of mostly men and a fewer women barged done the door. Their suits and aggravated businesslike vigor sliced done the air. They were similar vaguely firm alien invaders to our lush, listless planet.
They introduced themselves, but I couldn’t prime immoderate of them retired of a lineup. They were conscionable so…grown up, and I felt similar a kid sitting crisscross applesauce connected the crushed and staring up astatine them, patiently and nervously waiting. There were lawyers from the accumulation institution and enforcement producers. They were the apical of the accumulation pecking order; everyone other successful the unit deferred to them.
They began a radical presumption that was intelligibly good rehearsed. One would talk and past seamlessly cede the level to another. After all, we were Cycle 9. They’d had 8 different audiences to hone these performances with and truly find the champion mode to merchantability it. It felt repetitive to the constituent of tedium to me, but they ne'er wavered.
“America’s Next Top Model is sitting wrong this room,” they said. “Really deliberation astir that. Look around. This is your competition. You are the prime few. Does anyone cognize however galore girls tried retired for this show?”
We each shook our heads. They each smiled.
“A lot. Thousands upon thousands. Ten 1000 tried retired successful Boston alone.”
I looked astatine the fewer different girls whom I recognized from the Boston tryouts with wide eyes.
And it wasn’t conscionable the auditions. Thousands upon thousands sent successful audition tapes from each implicit the country. Every azygous state. We had casting scouts each implicit looking for candidates. And you guys are the ones who made it. You’re here. And it’s not conscionable your looks. You each cognize that being a apical exemplary is much than that. It’s who you are. And 1 of you…is America’s Next Top Model. This is simply a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
They kept going. And going. I was uncomfortable with this level of flattery. In Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, Amanda Montell describes this maneuver utilized by cult leaders: “When you person idiosyncratic that they’re supra everyone else, it helps you some region them from outsiders and besides maltreatment them, due to the fact that you tin overgarment thing from carnal battle to unpaid labour to verbal attacks arsenic ‘special treatment’ reserved lone for them.”
On the 1 hand, I desperately wanted to consciousness special. I was 1 of the prime few!
On the different hand, this full process had felt truthful random, it had ne'er erstwhile felt similar I was really doing thing peculiarly special.
“This acquisition tin lone beryllium what you marque of it,” they said, for the archetypal clip of many.
Suddenly their tones and demeanor shifted. They had been superior and kind, and present determination was thing other successful the air. One of them stepped retired from the enactment they’d been in.
“That accusation is worthy much than you know. If you bash thing to enactment that accusation astatine risk, we volition writer you for 5 cardinal dollars.” He paused for effect. The NDA conception of the declaration carried, famously, a good of 5 cardinal dollars if violated, arsenic Janice Dickinson erstwhile bemoaned successful a red-carpet interview.
A gorgeous, long-limbed bartender from Boston with a lazy oculus and an accent truthful heavy I wanted to chopped into it similar it was a rib oculus broke the silence. “Yeah, but, like….I don’t person 5 cardinal dollahs.”
“We cognize you don’t. We cognize each astir each of your fiscal information. None of you person 5 cardinal dollars. None of your families person 5 cardinal dollars either.”
We looked astir astatine 1 different arsenic we each realized that, yes, of course, that was true. We’d fixed them elaborate accounts of our idiosyncratic fiscal accusation arsenic good arsenic our families’ earlier we’d adjacent received our level tickets.
“What you request to recognize is we won’t conscionable writer you. We’ll writer your full family. And I don’t conscionable mean your parents. We’ll writer your kids….”
Boston opened her rima to accidental something, presumably that she didn’t person immoderate kids, that nary of america did.
“…by which I mean your aboriginal kids. We’ll writer your children, we’ll writer your children’s children, we’ll writer your children’s children’s children.” I swallowed the lump successful my throat. How would that adjacent work? I wondered. “Sorry, but…how would that adjacent work?” a miss asked, and I was truthful relieved. “Great question,” said the shaper sincerely.
Here’s however it would work: we would writer you and win. And the justice volition determine however overmuch we get to dock your wage for the remainder of your life. For the remainder of your life, each dollar you earn, we volition get a cut. We volition garnishee your wages for the remainder of your life. And aft you die, we’ll get a percent of each dollar your children earn, and their children, and connected and on, until we get 5 cardinal dollars positive interest. If you accidental thing to anyone, you volition beryllium paying america backmost agelong aft you are dead. You volition ne'er execute immoderate level of occurrence without america taking a immense chunk of it. Buying a house, putting your kids done college, finishing assemblage yourself—all of that volition beryllium impossible.
Kids and a location felt impossibly retired of scope already. And the gathering conscionable kept going: hours of them hammering the aforesaid constituent implicit and over. I desperately wanted them to cognize that I would beryllium 1 of the “good ones” who would bash what she was told and wouldn’t origin them immoderate trouble.
But I knew that determination was nary mode to marque them spot that. There was nary mode to marque them spot maine astatine all. They weren’t performing for us; they were performing for the declaration and for the wealth that it guaranteed them. They were performing for the committedness of bully TV. And dissimilar my hypothetical kids and house, it wasn’t retired of reach. They knew what they wanted and precisely however to get it.
“There’s a cardinal girls that would happily instrumentality your place,” they kept saying. “And we person their telephone numbers. They’re acceptable and consenting to conscionable america connected the adjacent island.”
That nighttime astatine dinner, I sat pushing the nutrient astir connected my plate, inactive stunned into silence. As a kid, I was painfully shy. Every study paper I brought location from simple schoolhouse said that I was astute and susceptible but ne'er spoke up successful class. I had 1 friend, which I thought was much than enough.
The Very Scary Producers and Lawyers gave america the Talk AGAIN successful which we were threatened with defamation, disembowelment, and decease if we breathed a peep of thing to anyone.After years of badgering maine to invitation radical to my day parties, my ma yet asked maine what I truly wanted to do. I told her I wanted to walk the nighttime astatine a hotel. So she got america a country astatine the section Motel 6 for the night. I swam successful the excavation for hours; we ate barroom successful furniture and watched each the late-night speech shows. I loved seeing the comedians bash stand-up. It was my favourite day ever.
In 5th grade, I discovered that I could bash much than conscionable ticker drama connected late-night shows: I could usage it to flooded my crippling societal anxiety. I dilatory came retired of my shell. Making radical laughter was the lone mode I truly knew however to link with people, but aft the lecture that day, I didn’t consciousness precise funny. So I reverted to my puerility self: Shy. Silent.
That’s wherefore Ebony and I were cleanable cruise vessel roommates: we were some introverts who could fake it erstwhile we had to. When I met Ebony, my archetypal thought was: She’s going to win. In a radical of the astir beauteous girls I’d ever seen, she stood retired caput and shoulders supra the rest. Literally: she was implicit six feet gangly and wore her hairsbreadth successful a big, messy bun connected apical of her caput that made her adjacent taller.
When we archetypal got to our room, she seemed shy, sweet, guarded, and profoundly insecure. Then we went to dinner, and I watched her go a antithetic idiosyncratic for the camera.
“I didn’t travel present to marque friends,” she said successful the van. “I’ll commencement remembering y’all’s names erstwhile we marque it to the house.”
But successful our room, she was different.
“I privation to beryllium astute astir this. I’m trying to be, like, the bitch oregon whatever, but it’s harder than I thought,” she told me.
Oftentimes, we wouldn’t speech overmuch successful the room: we some needed quiescent and abstraction (at slightest arsenic overmuch quiescent and abstraction arsenic imaginable successful a forty-eight-square-foot room). That night, we said adjacent little than usual.
“That was…pretty crazy,” I said.
“Dinner?” she asked.
“No, the speech astir the contract,” I answered.
“Shit, yeah! That was crazy! I didn’t cognize however to enactment astatine meal aft each that.”
“Oh my god, maine too!” I said, relieved again. “I didn’t adjacent cognize however to beryllium a mean person!”
We agreed that it was chaotic and mode excessively agelong and we were gladsome it was over. None of america were going to beryllium forgetting immoderate of that anytime soon—surely that was the extremity of it.
The Very Scary Producers and Lawyers gave america the Talk AGAIN successful which we were threatened with defamation, disembowelment, and decease if we breathed a peep of thing to anyone. They are, fto maine say, not astatine each fucking around, and I FUCKING GET IT, I wrote successful my diary respective long, repetitive days later.
Over and over, we heard that “America’s Next Top Model is successful this room,” “this is simply a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” “this acquisition is lone what you marque of it,” and “we volition garnishee your wages for the remainder of your life.” These phrases started rattling astir successful my mind, similar a opus that gets stuck successful your head.
Of course, it wasn’t conscionable our contracts that we were dealing with; determination was besides the woody betwixt the cruise enactment and the network, and, connected that front, determination was immoderate tension. Specifically, betwixt the amusement and the passengers, who hated us.
One day, we were divided into 3 groups and led to a portion of the vessel we’d ne'er been to before. One radical was taken to the climbing wall, 1 to the skating rink, and my radical was brought to the blistery tub. A accumulation adjunct arranged america astir the blistery tub, immoderate girls sitting with conscionable their feet successful the water, and a fewer of us, including me, sitting successful the water. I was successful the middle, submerged astir to my neck.
“I anticipation we tin spell successful the excavation aft this,” I said, dilatory cooking successful the water.
“No talking yet,” said 1 of the cameramen.
“Sorry,” I said. “Oh, and atrocious for saying sorry. Fuck.”
Eventually, they got the angles and lighting close and called action, and we were allowed to talk. Allowed to speech and contractually obligated to look similar we were having the clip of our lives.
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From the publication You Wanna Be On Top?: A Memoir of Makeovers, Manipulation, and Not Becoming America’s Next Top Model by Sarah Hartshorne. Copyright © 2025 by Sarah Hartshorne. Published successful the United States by Crown, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a part of Penguin Random House LLC.
