American model and television personality Tyra Banks has filed a defamation lawsuit against Netflix and the directors of its docuseries Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, alleging that producers manipulated interview footage to create a false narrative about her role on the reality competition show.

The lawsuit, filed Saturday in Los Angeles federal court, alleges that Banks, who created and hosted America’s Next Top Model (ANTM), participated in a three-and-a-half-hour interview for the documentary in which she took responsibility for some of the show's controversial decisions.

According to the complaint, those interviews were edited down to 16 minutes and manipulated “to support a false and defamatory narrative unrelated to what she actually expressed”.

“The accountability Ms. Banks took ended up on the cutting room floor. It was there, but viewers were never given the opportunity to see it,” her lawyers wrote in the lawsuit.

Banks is seeking damages from Netflix, directors Daniel Sivan and Mor Loushy, and EverWonder Studio. She is also seeking an injunction to prevent the use of her image in connection with the docuseries’ soundtrack album.

The lawsuit alleges that the documentary’s producers used “selective editing, deliberate omission, and surgical manipulation of continuous footage” to construct a narrative suggesting Banks allowed a contestant to be sexually assaulted on the show, exploited the contestant’s trauma for ratings and later failed to remember the incident during interviews.

“Defendants edited the Netflix Series to make it appear that Ms. Banks knew she was being asked about a sexual assault and was intentionally trying to evade the topic,” the lawsuit stated.

According to the complaint, Banks was neither informed nor questioned about the alleged assault during her interview.

The lawsuit further claims Banks was not permitted to review the documentary until one day before its February 16 release. It alleges that producers did not contact her for fact-checking following her interviews and did not provide an opportunity to respond to allegations made by other participants.

The complaint also states that former judges from the show, including one whom Banks’ lawyers claim holds a grudge against her, served as consultants on the documentary.

“Had Ms. Banks known these individuals were so deeply involved in the formulation of the Netflix Series, also serving as consultants shaping the editorial direction, and that she had been excluded from such a role, it would have raised a red flag,” the lawsuit read. “She would have known she was being set up. She would not have participated.”

Banks’ attorneys said they requested access to the full footage of her interviews from Netflix in March, but that Netflix and EverWonder denied the request.

The lawsuit says public reaction following the release of the documentary has been “swift, harsh, and directed squarely at Ms. Banks,” adding that even SMiZE & DREAM, her ice cream shop in Sydney, Australia, has been targeted by negative Google reviews.

America’s Next Top Model premiered in 2003 and ran for 24 seasons.