Tyra’s Back! – Essence | Essence

Tyra Banks feels at home on set. It’s hard to imagine feeling centered when there’s a stylist swirling around you, your hair is whipping to and fro, and you also happen to be suffering from food poisoning. But Banks, 51, is comforted by the chaos surrounding her. In a studio in Sydney, Australia, she’s shooting her fourth ESSENCE cover, and she finds that slipping into supermodel mode is much simpler than being the boss. “Being an entrepreneur is extremely stressful,” says the Inglewood, California, native. “I don’t sleep. I’m hot-flashing now, so I wake up in the middle of the night many times—and I just work, because I’m jolted awake. It’s entrepreneurship: boom, boom, boom, constantly. But when I’m on a set, it’s almost Zen, because I’m not in charge.”

These days, Banks particularly welcomes the respite, as her recent stressors go well beyond the demands of entrepreneurship. In the weeks before she spoke to me, she lost her Los Angeles home to the devastating fires that ravaged more than 15,000 structures and left 29 people dead. She had been spending some time in ­Australia for business, along with her 9-year-old son York and her boyfriend, Louis Bélanger-Martin, a French Canadian business exec—but she’d maintained her residence in California. She hasn’t been back to see her former home since the fire. I understand. My own home was lost in a fire two years ago, and I’ve only revisited the site once since then. Seeing it makes it real. 

“I have these moments of thinking my house is still there, because my memory is the house,” Banks admits over Zoom from Sydney. “I haven’t been able to connect reality with my memory. They’re separate right now. Of course, I’ve seen pictures of the devastation, and I’ve seen pictures of our home site—but because I haven’t seen it in person, it is a strange psychological thing.” 

One of the hardest parts was breaking the news to York, her son from a previous relationship with Norwegian photographer Erik Asla. “I wasn’t sure how to tell my son that the house was gone, his school was gone, everywhere we used to go, the yogurt shop, just gone,” she says. She took a few days to deliberate, then ­channeled her own mother’s truth telling. As expected, York “took it hard,” but he rebounded faster than Banks thought he would. 

I remember how quickly my own daughter moved through the day when I told her about our home being destroyed by fire. It’s impossible for it to not matter, but the merciful resilience of youth kicks in.

Banks has exhibited her own measure of resilience. Over 20 years ago, she branched out from modeling—working as an actress in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Higher Learning and Love & Basketball. But perhaps her best-known role wasn’t a character of someone else’s imagining. From 2003 until 2015, and for one season in 2018, she was the personality-driven host of the TV megahit ­America’s Next Top Model, which she cocreated; it was the CW network’s longest-running reality show. And her long list of receipts continues to unfurl: Banks was the first Black woman to appear solo on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s coveted swimsuit issue, the first Black woman to cover GQ and the first Black woman to grace the cover of the Victoria’s Secret catalog. Also, starting in 2020, she served three years as executive producer and host of ­Dancing with the Stars. 

The tide does turn, however, and the fashion industry has a history of pushing women over a certain age to the side. The youth-obsessed nature of modeling means that it’s always on to the next; only the savvy survive. In a 2008 Ebony profile, Banks posed with Iman, Alek Wek and Kimora Lee Simmons—women who were all toggling between fabulous modeling careers, as the faces of high fashion, and new options, in case the world of struts ever turned a cold shoulder. 

“Tyra was always very smart, in the sense that she really understood the business,” says pioneer and supermodel Beverly Johnson. Banks and Johnson have a loving relationship that started when Banks was so young that she traveled with her mother, Carolyn ­London, a former medical photographer, who was her manager. Johnson—who now has her own wig collection, fittingly called Legendary—was the first Black woman on the cover of American Vogue. She herself had been received with open arms by her predecessor Naomi Sims, and she decided to pay it forward. She would give Banks advice, not wanting to encourage any cattiness on the catwalk. 

It’s no secret that people think women can’t get along. Feuds kick off, regardless of the field, because of a limiting belief that there’s not enough room for more than one person to shine. When it comes to multigenerational interactions, given fashion’s preoccupation with teens—Banks started her career at 15, Johnson at 19, Naomi Campbell at 15 and Simmons at only 13—there can be a culture of hating on whoever comes next. But Banks says that’s not her style. “I know sometimes people my age, they look at a younger generation and they get jealous of their youth, their vitality, and that they have so much ahead of them,” she reflects. “But I don’t look at the younger generation and get jealous of that, because I was once that. I experienced that. I don’t have that inside of me.”

Banks has privately mentored up-and-comers who’ve gone on to achieve stardom—she’s classy, so she won’t say who. Publicly, she ushered in dozens of would-be models on America’s Next Top Model— and gave the watching world the down-low on what it’s like when you “wanna be on top.” For the past several years, clips from the show have circulated on TikTok and X—with certain viewers admonishing Banks for some of her views about the modeling industry. She’s been criticized for urging one model to close a gap in her teeth and for body-shaming other contestants. Banks says these critics are looking at the show from a modern perspective. “Sometimes history can be a little bit revised, and people don’t understand that there’s a timeline when it comes to change,” she explains. 

Top Model did make a flurry of Black women household names. Eva Marcille, Yaya DaCosta and Tocarra Jones all appeared on season three of the show, in 2005. Marcille and DaCosta went on to lead high-profile brand campaigns and have successful acting careers; Jones was featured in the Black Issue of Vogue Italia, which was so popular that Conde Nast had to hurriedly print 40,000 more copies to meet the demand. Isis King, the first trans contestant, and Winnie Harlow, who has vitiligo, also got their start on the show. It’s arguable that without it, they may not have gotten the visibility they were afforded. 

Banks herself rose through the ranks in the early 1990s, when Black high-fashion models on the runway and in magazines were still a rarity. Her goal was to deepen the talent pool’s diversity—whether in regard to race, ability (she mentions that the show’s 2015 winner, Nyle DiMarco, had a hearing impairment), body type or socioeconomic status. Behind the scenes, her efforts were not always well-received. “The industry did not like me having diversity in the way that I did on the show,” she says. “I would hear, ‘Oh, you got these girls from the ’hood on your show.’ Like, all of that. You have no idea.” 

Johnson credits the show with unveiling the raw interior of the business. “I think when Tyra started to get into television, America’s Next Top Model was everything,” she says. “I mean, that was how the modeling industry was really exposed. Other than that, it was a closed culture.” 

It’s tough to be humble and proud and not have one outweigh the other, but Banks strikes the perfect balance when she’s talking about the show that assured her permanence. She knows she didn’t always get it right. “There’s so many things that we would change,” she says. “But at the time, you’re operating with the information that you have, on a show that is hugely popular. So we’re all experiencing this together.” Banks has had unique media opportunities to address mistakes. “There are so many things in my whole career that I would do differently,” she says. “Lots of things. But the crazy thing is, I had a talk show for five years. There were things on Top Model that we did, and I’m like, ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’ Y’all let me know that was whack. I would mention it on the talk show, and apologize. Or I wrote a book, and in it, I talked about it: ‘Oh, I said this on Top Model,’ and ‘I shouldn’t have done this, even though it would have hurt their career.’” 

The fires in Los Angeles came on the heels of Banks’s big comeback: the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, held in October 2024. It was a reintroduction in more ways than one—the brand’s first show in the six years since the revelation of its controversial casting methods, visible in a conspicuous scarcity of models of color and plus-size models. The lingerie business has fresh players since Banks retired two decades ago. Celebrity-backed brands—like Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty and Skims, cofounded by Kim Kardashian (who personally dialed up Banks and convinced her to appear in a 2022 campaign)— are the new heavyweights. 

When Banks got word that Victoria’s Secret wanted her trademark strut, she did what she so often does when she has to make a tough decision: She called her mama. “My mama said, ‘You’re not just walking for you this time,’ ” Banks recalls. “ ‘You’re 50. You’re walking for so many people. You’re walking for Black women. You’re walking for older women.’ ” Feeling a sense of purpose, Banks agreed. 

Her closing walk was the highlight of the event. If you watch the show, which has been viewed upward of 27 million times on YouTube (Banks’s standalone portion brought over 7 million views on her personal Instagram), you’ll see Queen Latifah in the front row, camera out, smiling wide, unable to believe what she’s witnessing. Heidi Klum and some of Banks’s protégés—Marcille, Jones and King—later sang Banks’s praises in her comment section. 

“I had no idea it was gonna blow up in the way that it did,” Banks says. “So now I am going to model again, officially.” I ask if we’ll see her walking again as soon as this year. “Probably,” she says. She wants to work globally: “I’m gonna sign with an agency in Sydney. I’m gonna have agencies in Paris. I’m going to be in New York. Like, I’m just gonna do this.”

[Editor’s note: Banks also recently launched her own business venture, SMiZE & DREAM—her playfully named, Australian-based ice cream brand. The company was conceived as an endearing tribute to her mother, with whom she shared memorable ice cream dates as a child. With her current beau, Bélanger-Martin, serving as the brand’s chief financial officer, SMiZE & DREAM’s unconventional flavors include Banks’s favorite, which features salted caramel butter and butter-roasted pecans in salted sweet cream.] 

In addition, Banks has a movie idea up her sleeve. She reveals that her favorite role was Eve from Life-Size and its sequel, Life-Size 2, the continuing story of a doll that comes to life. Though technically perfect, the doll-turned-woman still has quite a bit to learn about being human. It was like Barbie, before Barbie. Now Banks wants to bring the film back for a third installment. “I want another Black girl for the third one,” she says. “I was talking to somebody very famous recently, about her starring in it.” Her lips are sealed when it comes to who that “very famous” somebody is, but she will say that “a couple of other girls are calling now, too.”

There are offers to bring back Top Model, as well, but it’s complicated. The show ended earlier than she’d wanted, effectively casing it in amber. “We’re getting a lot of interest,” she confirms, but there are business considerations. “I don’t control 100 percent of that show.”

I show Banks a photo of herself from the October 1991 Yves Saint Laurent show. It was her first Paris Fashion Week. In the pic, her hands are on her hips, her hair is pulled back by a thick pink headband, and there’s a smile on her face that can’t be mistaken for anything other than a teen in wonder and disbelief that she’s walking into her dream. 

I ask Banks what she’d say to that girl. “I would say, ‘It’s going to be okay,” she replies thoughtfully. “I would say, you have tunnel vision, you’re super focused, and it’s going to pay off.” 

Did it ever. 

The confetti falling to the floor, and the army of smizing models walking behind her during the Victoria’s Secret show, was a long-awaited homecoming. It was the manifestation of the door she broke down—and of how hard she tried to keep it open for anyone walking behind her. If we let her, she’ll keep ushering us in.

CREDITS:

Photographed by Kenny Germé 
Styled by Edem Dossou 
Written by Brooklyn White 
Hair: Richi Grisillo using Moroccanoil 
Makeup: Justin Henry using Patrick Ta 
Nails: Cindy Vellis 
Set Design: Mariska Lowri 
Tailor: Juli Herlihy 
Photography Assistants: Nick Shaw, Daryl Orillaza, Toby Wilkinson 
Digital Technician: David Deas 
Fashion Assistants: Alvin Darmawan & Angelica Cueva 
Set Assistant: Alice Joel 
Post Production: One Hundred Berlin 
Executive Production: The Morrison Group 
Local Production: CC Production 
Production Assistant: Zac Panyar 
Location: Baker Street Studios