Jay Manuel Tyra Banks Top Model Drama Details in Mr. Jay Book: Read Now

By newadmin / Published on Tuesday, 17 Feb 2026 19:14 PM / No Comments / 0 views

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America’s Next Top Model is back in the spotlight thanks to a buzzy new Netflix docuseries that is pulling back the curtain on Tyra Banks‘ successful reality competition series and television franchise.

Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model premiered Feb. 16 and featured all new interviews with former contestants and crew members, along with a sit-down with Banks herself. Also featured in the documentary are former ANTM judges J. Alexander (a.k.a. Miss J), photographer Nigel Barker, and Jay Manuel, who was a judge and creative director on the series. The series revisits some of the show’s scandals and controversies over its 24-season run, while exposing new headlines that have come to light since.

While the new Netflix doc alleges details of backstage fights, producer manipulation and an increasingly out of touch and erratic Banks, Manuel seems to have alluded to the Top Model drama in his 2020 novel, The Wig, the Bitch and the Meltdown.

The Wig, the Bitch and the Meltdown

Available through Amazon on paperback, for Kindle and as an audiobook, the book was seen by many as a thinly-veiled dig at Banks, from the title of the book (in ANTM-inspired font, natch) to the statuesque red haired vixen on the cover (Banks famously sported red hair for a couple of the show’s cycles). The tagline on the cover: “The Devil also wears cheap shoes!” Ouch.

For his part, Manuel has said that the book was purely a work of satire, though the novel seems to corroborate many of the things the television personality shares in the Netflix doc. The Wig, The Bitch & The Meltdown follows the fictitious supermodel Keisha Kash as she launches a modeling competition show called “Model Muse.” Known for her “ruthless” and cunning ways, Kash will stop at nothing to ensure that her TV show is a hit, even if it’s at the expense of her supposed best friend Pablo Michael (presumably Manuel), who is described as “the heart of the production in the helter-skelter world of Model Muse.”

The book opens with an anecdote about Kash berating an assistant for calling her an Uber rather than beckoning for her private car from Michael Kors. The supermodel angrily grabs her assistant’s cell phone and stomps on it (perhaps referencing another famous model outburst?). Subsequent chapters feature titles like “Script Change,” “Twisted Vanity,” “Shitstorm,” and ultimately, “Damage Control,” with the book casting Michael as the man caught in the middle between doing the right thing or staying loyal to his supposed friend.”

“As the ‘The Fixer,’ Pablo is the man everyone turns to in a crisis,” reads a book description. “Struggling to hold the fledgling production together, he juggles his duties to his ‘BFF,’ the ruthless and vulnerable antihero Keisha Kash, his Supermodel boss and to his soul.”

In a recent Instagram post, Manuel alluded to spilling salacious details in his book, posting a photo of The Wig, The Bitch & The Meltdown along with the caption, “Three days until Netflix tells its version. Mine’s been out for a while.”