Miss J. Alexander has essentially been the heart and soul of America’s Next Top Model for nearly two decades. He has shown hundreds of young women how to command a room with nothing but a killer stride. However, in the finale of Netflix’s Reality Check, viewers learn that Miss J. has been fighting for his life recently.
On December 27th of last year, Miss J. Alexander suffered a massive stroke that put him in a coma for five weeks. He spent over one and a half years in the hospital. The ‘Queen of the Catwalk’ is learning to live in a wheelchair today.
“I’m the person who has taught models how to walk,” Miss J. says in one of the documentary’s most emotional scenes. “And now I can’t walk. Not yet.”
But Miss J.’s recovery is about far more than just his body. As Jay Manuel hugs Miss J. and Nigel Barker comforts him as he cries in one of Reality Check’s final scenes, one person is noticeably absent: Tyra Banks.
When the producers ask if Tyra has visited her since the stroke, Miss J. quietly says, “No. Not yet.”
Tyra had texted her saying she wanted to visit, but that was years after the stroke, during the filming of the docuseries.
This is an intense moment in the documentary, given that it is executive-produced by Tyra Banks, who says it is about “facing my past mistakes and holding myself accountable.”
If Tyra Banks is indeed turning over a new leaf and wants to prove it in Cycle 25 of the docuseries, the question is, why has she not tried to repair one of the relationships she damaged along the way?
While Tyra Banks is thinking of the future of the catwalk, there is bitter irony in the fact that she seems distant from the person who helped define it. For many fans of the docuseries, the “reality check” is not just about the past, but about the current state of the relationships.
