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Adrianne Curry claims she is the only America’s Next Top Model winner who received no prize money for her 2003 victory. During Bethenny Frankel’s podcast on June 3, the 42-year-old stated:
"There was no money in my win. I got a title... I was the only winner that won no money. Zero dollars," Adrianne revealed during the podcast.
Adrianne Curry alleged during the Just B With Bethenny Frankel podcast that producers dangled a Revlon campaign during filming but removed references to it before season 1 aired, leaving contestants unaware that the sole prize was the title.
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She referenced this discrepancy in incentives:
"[Tyra Banks] was telling us we’re gonna be this huge Revlon-like superstar... I don’t think any of us would have fought as hard for what the prize really was," Curry said.
Adrianne Curry noted in a 2023 Entertainment Weekly interview that she later received $15,000 from Revlon in 2023 but called the experience "humiliating".
She revealed that after her victory, she was invited to a corporate “backroom” by Revlon to get her makeup done, that too for a small audience.
Adrianne Curry said about Tyra Banks:
"If anyone has a right to be mad at her, it’s me," she told Frankel. "I’m over it... What she taught me was the truth of entertainment."
The model characterized reality TV as "cutthroat," adding that Tyra Banks used ANTM to "propel herself" after her modeling career. She also implicated viewers in the show’s problematic legacy.
Curry believes that while everyone was busy pointing fingers at Tyra Banks, the fans who watched the show were also accountable, since that's what resulted in the show's popularity.
The prize discrepancy and industry realities revealed by Adrianne Curry
Adrianne Curry’s account threw light on the contractual divide between ANTM’s inaugural season and subsequent cycles.
Curry’s Revlon compensation occured two decades post-victory and she framed the ANTM experience as educational about entertainment industry deception.
"You can’t trust everybody, and everyone is lying to you," Curry said during the podcast.
Adrianne said that the main reason behind everyone putting up a fight during the show was because they were promised to be a "huge Revlon-like superstar".
She continued that people ask her whether she still calls herself "America’s Next Top Model?" to which she replies:
"I’m like, ‘It’s the only f---ing thing I won.’ I’m gonna put it on my tombstone.”
Later in the podcast, Adrianne Curry talked about the change that the modeling industry has gone through since she first got into it. She was told that she needed to tone down and just do her job.
Thus, she leaned towards reality TV and appeared on The Surreal Life. She was part of season 4 of the show in 2005, which she said she did for monetory reasons.
ANTM season 1’s prize structure differed from later cycles. In the later seasons, winners usually won a feature in a renowned fashion magazine and a modelling agency contract.
ANTM had a run of 15 years, from 2003 to 2018. As per an Entertainment Weekly exclusive report, Tyra Banks will participate in an upcoming documentary about ANTM by Netflix.
