The greatest moment in ANTM history

This is not debatable.

Though Tyra never fails to be hypocritical, self-righteous and generally full of shit, no other moment in the history of the show has yet to rival this moment of competely intentional diva glory. Fierce readers, let's revisit this moment from Cycle 4, shall we?



Oh, where to start?

1. As it has been proven to us in many other moments such as Tyra "fainting", Tyra making her own Spanish silent film, and especially in her starring role in Life-Size, Tyra Banks is a great actress. Usually she points this out by telling the girls afterward that they have been fooled by her mad skillz, but in this case, Tyra is trying to fool us more than them and manufacture some show drama. Watch her face at the 0:14 second mark as she begins to summon her fake rage that Tiffany could actually be handling her elimination with, oh, I don't know, humor and maturity instead of tears. ACTING!! If Tyra hasn't made a girl cry by the end of the day, she considers it a day wasted, and god forbid that Tiffany not be sobbing her weave off now that she's lost the opportunity to be on a Wal-Mart billboard. Because Tiffany's emotional reactions must be dictated by Tyra's exact expectations, of course. NOW THAT SHE'S BEEN KICKED OFF THE SHOW. I'm on Tiffany's side: she's no longer required to pretend like she gives a fuck what Tyra thinks, so why should she? Oh, Tyra will tell us why.

2. "Tiffany, I'm extremely disappointed in you...This is a joke to you." Here we go. I love how Tyra prefaces this entire rant by reminding Tiffany that she's been through anger management...before screaming at her. However, before Tyra blows her red weave, Tiffany quite rightly says that she could be hurting on the inside and not showing it on the outside, and that she "can't change it". Before she explains that she means she can't change the fact that she's been kicked off (which again makes perfect sense, but don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to give Tiffany TOO much credit here) Tyra and the panel seem to think she means she can't change her emotional reaction. Stupid Nole Marin (I think) or perhaps his little dog says "Yes, you can" and the rest of them agree: Yes, you CAN weep bitterly in front of us if you so choose!! And Tyra is about to make you do that!!!

3. Then Tyra really gets going. Really, this makes no sense at all. Tiffany says that she's sick of crying about things she can't change and that she's sick of being disappointed. Tyra of course has to contradict her and tell her that if she was sick of being disappointed she would stand up and take control of her destiny. But...you just determined that her destiny is NOT to be American's Next Top Model, so...?

"Did you know that you had a possibility to WIN?" (Only if you decided that for her Tyra, since as we well know, the winner is not actually picked based on performance or talent).

"Did you know that all of America is rooting for YOU?? Do you KNOW that??" Wow, on top of being an expert at eye smiling and a great actress, Tyra is apparently a clairvoyant as well! Because this freak out happened while the show was still filming and hadn't yet aired on television at all, Tyra apparently saw into the future and read the minds and hearts of all of the girls and gays watching the show and saw Tiffany's name emblazoned there in big sparkly letters. Or, this bullshit is entirely intentional and not the genuine product of Tyra's indignant rage.

"You read better than half those girls over there!" Um, no she didn't. If you recall, this was back when the girls had to undergo panel challenges, and in this one, they had to read a teleprompter as if they were commenting on fashions at a red carpet event or something. The script was intentionally filled with "difficult" words and designers' names, and all of them stumbled over the words, especially Tiffany, who totally made up different words to replace the ones she couldn't pronounce. Tyra, I so tire of your LIES.

"I HAVE NEVER IN MY LIFE YELLED AT A GIRL LIKE THIS!!" This is my favorite ANTM quote ever, and that includes all of Jade's floetry.

"WHEN MY MOTHER YELLS AT ME LIKE THIS IT'S BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME!!" Elina, take note.

"WE WERE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU!! HOW DARE YOU!! LEARN SOMETHING FROM THIS!!" Um, maybe she dares because you just FUCKING KICKED HER OFF even though you were rooting for her so hard. Please, Tyra. If you really wanted her to win, she would win, even if she took the worst fucking pictures of the entire cycle. SALEISHA.

"YOU GO TO BED AT NIGHT, YOU LAY THERE AND YOU TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF!" By using condoms?

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE THE HELL I COME FROM! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I BEEN THROUGH! BUT I'M NOT A VICTIM! I GROW FROM IT AND I LEARN!" Um, you come from California, you have loving supportive parents (a fashion manager/NASA photographer [Hilarious. What does that mean, really?] and a computer consultant, according to Wikipedia. How ghetto!) and you were a rich working model by the time you were seventeen, as we goddamn well know. Tiffany was a teen mother who lived with her grandmother in poverty, and you just told us that their lights got shut off so Tiffany's grandmother could buy her a bathing suit for the competition. As usual, I'm weeping for Tyra and her difficult, difficult life.

The icing on the cake is that in her exit interview, Tiffany acted all appreciative of Tyra for yelling at her, because like her mama, Tyra yells because she cares. And Tiffany felt special knowing that someone like Tyra cared about her. Riiiiiiight. Then she totally admitted later in an interview that the producers cajoled her into saying that, and that she actually was pissed about being screamed at. And that's why we call it reality TV.

Oh, Ty-Ty. You were really working hard this episode. First you did a surprise double elimination, and then you gave a performance that even I have to admit could have possibly won you a Daytime Emmy. Because you were ACTING. With a shitty, nonsensical script. And it was so pathetically obvious. Yet hilarious and totally entertaining, so...sigh. You win. Again.

If you would like more information on where the hell Tyra Banks comes from (if only we had a real answer for this mystery) I recommend checking out her bio on her website, which has hilariously elaborate graphics, and lots of photos from her early years, introduced by a tiny video Tyra reading from what apparently is the storybook of her life.

You can learn many interesting facts, such as the name of her high school best friend (Midnight) and see some awesome pictures of little Tyra, including one of her on a schoolbus that says ASS and a really beautiful shot of her with the chicken pox. Which I'm sure was the itchiest case of chicken pox ever known to the world, because no matter what we have suffered, Tyra has suffered more deeply and longer. Also, I said it before and I'll say it again: I'm convinced that she had a nose job, no matter how real those boobs are supposed to be.

http://www.tyrabanks.com/