I had the opportunity to chat with Kelly Cutrone, founder of People’s Revolution and judge on America’s Next Top Model. After seeing her in her own reality show, and at New York Fashion Week, I felt I already knew her, but I didn’t know how funny she could really be. She was open to just about any question we asked her, which made it comfortable to shoot away!
When asked what makes this season different, she laughed, “Well obviously, there will be men joining the girls the show so it will be quite different!” She told us it didn’t really matter that there were both sexes because they are looking for that “great shot” and it can be from a guy or a girl. She noticed in the challenges (which were all unisex, and never girls vs. the guys), the guys seemed to forget about the challenge and the girls were more competitive. She also told us, “There were some hook-ups and making out, and I don’t think that happened before! You put a bunch of hot people in a house, so what do you expect?” Sounds more like ‘The Bachelor’, right?
Kelly went on to say, “The guys overall may have been too sweet. The girls used flirting in a cold and espionage killer way. I even told them ‘The girls are working you and going to bring you down,’ but they wouldn’t listen me to me.”
I asked if she could tell us what she thinks about Tyra Banks. Kelly said “Well, she has this amazing derrière… that I look at all day long” and she laughed. (When she said that I had a quick visual of where the judges sit on the show behind Tyra.) She went on to say “She is a very lovely woman, a great model, she is driven and busy, she has her assistants, and she is my boss! She is super smart, she doesn’t use cue cards and she gets it in all one take!” Then she made us laugh again, “Her body is sic. I went to a beach with Tyra in Jamaica and I was like ‘This is the last time I go to the beach with you!’ We were getting massages on the beach and a women who worked there thought she recognized her and said ‘You look like that woman on that model show…and she looks like that mean one who’s always with her!'”
I asked Kelly if there were any models on the show that you can’t really tell if they are male or female, and she said, “Yes, there is one very sweet and shy guy who has a very androgynous look.” However she told us that is not a look that is easy to sell. She went on to say, “We are looking for fashion models, not swim models or athletic models. Look at ads for Dolce & Gabbana, Gap and Abercrombie … the models are more sexy than androgynous.”
Kelly commented that both the guys and girls had different strengths and weaknesses. She was surprised that sometimes it was the women who did better with the more physical challenges, and the men fell apart. But then overall the women were more emotional. It looks like it will be a very interesting season! Don’t miss the premier next Friday.
America’s Next Top Model Guys and Girls premieres August 2nd at 8PM ET/PT on The CW.
– Carol Calacci
