Netflix fired back in its ongoing legal battle with model and TV personality Tyra Banks over the streamer’s ANTM documentary.
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The 52-year-old America’s Next Top Model host filed a lawsuit against Netflix back in June. The veteran supermodel took issue with the streamer’s docuseries Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model. Banks alleged the show edited her segments in a way that portrayed her as “false and defamatory.”
However, in an Aug. 14 filing obtained by PEOPLE, Netflix is asking for the lawsuit to be thrown out. In the court docs, the streamer called the Coyote Ugly actress’s grievances “about ordinary editorial decisions.”
After the interview, [Banks] signed an agreement granting the filmmakers the right to edit her interview footage, acknowledging she had ‘no right to review or approve’ the finished documentary, and releasing claims arising from it — including for defamation and false light,” the streamer’s motion explained.
“She now alleges the documentary… defames her,” Netflix’s motion continues, “not because it says anything false about her, but because she wanted advance notice of what another interviewee would say, more of her interview included, and her perspective presented differently.”
Netflix and EverWonder Studio also shot back with an anti-SLAPP motion. According to PEOPLE, it’s a legal precedent used to terminate hollow lawsuits.
Netflix Further Defends ANTM Documentary
In a statement to PEOPLE, Netflix further defended its ANTM docuseries.
“Directors Daniel Sivan and Mor Loushy are respected documentarians who thoroughly interviewed the people behind America’s Next Top Model,” Netflix explained. “Tyra Banks was given the opportunity to speak openly about her experience. The creators fairly presented her perspective alongside those of every other participant shown in this documentary.”
“We stand behind Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model and will continue to vigorously defend it,” the statement concluded.
PEOPLE, citing sources close to the production, also reports that the docuseries production team was always open about the tone of the project to Banks.