America’s Next Top Model runway coach Miss J Alexander has revealed that Tyra Banks did not visit him in the hospital after he experienced a stroke that left him unable to walk.
Speaking on the third episode of the tell-all Netflix series Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, Alexander revealed that he had a stroke in December 2022 and spent five weeks in a coma.
Alexander, 67, who famously mentored Banks in her teens and coached the ANTM contestants on their catwalk skills, said his former co-stars, including the show’s former creative director Jay Manuel and fashion photographer Nigel Barker, had visited him, but Banks — the show’s creator and long-running host — did not.
Asked whether Banks had been to see him, Alexander rolled his eyes and said, “No, not yet.” He added that Banks had reached out via text to say she wanted to visit him.
Reflecting on his health scare, he said, “I couldn’t walk. And I couldn’t talk. And I thought to myself, what was I going to do?”
He added that he misses “being the queen of the runway” since his health ordeal, but he is “determined” to recover fully.
“I’m the person who taught models how to walk. And now I can’t walk … Not yet,” he said. “I’m sure you’re gonna see me again, I’m sure. It’s not over for me yet.”
When Alexander was reunited with Barker and Manuel on the show, Barker said that seeing his friend in the hospital was “a terrible shock.”
Manuel then recalled “how upset” Alexander was when he visited, adding, “I can only imagine where he was in his mind.”
Barker marvelled at Alexander’s recovery, adding, “When we first saw you in that hospital, you could hardly move, hardly talk. Now you’re sitting up doing an interview, chatting, talking, rolling your eyes and making us laugh.”
Alexander served as the runway coach from the very beginning of the show and was made a judge in cycle five. He was let go from the show in 2012.
Elsewhere in the documentary, which looks back on the show’s toxic culture more than two decades after its 2003 inception, Banks reflected on her infamous on-air clash with contestant Tiffany Richardson.
Banks admitted she “lost it” over Richardson’s reaction to being eliminated from the competition, when she unleashed an infamous on-air tirade, accusing the model of having a “bad attitude” and not taking the competition seriously.
The confrontation produced one of reality TV’s most enduring memes, as Banks shouted: “I was rooting for you! We were all rooting for you. How dare you!”
During a confessional interview for the new Netflix series, Banks admitted she was angry at Richardson for “kind of giving up” on the competition, after they worked to get her on the show.
“I went too far. I lost it,” Banks confessed. “It was probably bigger than her. It was family, friends, society, Black girls, all the challenges that we have. So many people saying that we’re not good enough. I think all that was in that moment. That’s some Black girl stuff that goes real deep inside of me. But I knew I went too far.”
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