‘ANTM’ Model Says Miserable Makeover Left Her in Agony

An America’s Next Top Model contestant recounted her traumatic on-camera dental surgery, exposing questionable practices behind the reality show 20 years ago.

The model, Joanie Sprague (née Dodds), appeared in Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, Netflix’s chart-topping docuseries that explores supermodel Tyra Banks’s popular reality television competition.

Sprague, 44, detailed her experience having several teeth pulled during the “makeover” episode of ANTM Cycle 6, which aired in 2006.

The show’s makeover episodes, known for dramatic changes, evolved in Season 6 when transformations assigned by Banks, 52, included permanent cosmetic procedures. These changes, determined and overseen by Tyra Banks, centralized extreme makeovers as a critical part of the show’s identity.

In the docuseries, Sprague revealed that her ANTM makeover did not go as she expected when she and fellow contestant Danielle “Dani” Evans, now 40, were taken to the dentist.

Sprague recalled staying at a medical office “all night.” A dentist removed four of her teeth and shaved the rest down.

“The next photoshoot we did was actually the one where we were crying. I was like, I am in pain...I was so miserable,” she said in the docuseries.

“It’s f---ed up,” Sprague said.

She continued, “But I was a grown adult woman with teeth I thought I’d never fix, so I felt like I won the lottery, really,” underscoring the mixed emotions and lasting impact the on-camera interventions had on contestants.

How does she feel now? “They did not fix anything,” she told the Reality Check producers, noting that the work was purely cosmetic.

“There were many orthodontic problems that were never fixed. I’ve still got a crazy bite issue, and those issues will never be resolved,” she said.

“I was young and kind of just along for the ride, but I had to sign a separate release right then and there, too. Couldn’t talk to my mom about it. Couldn’t call a lawyer or anything like that.”

Ken Mok, 64, the show’s former executive producer, admitted in the documentary that it was “really intense what Joanie went through.”

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Evans, who had a gap between her two front teeth, initially refused to undergo a procedure to close it because she “loved it.”

“You went to the dentist, but you refused to have your gap closed. Do you really think you could have a CoverGirl contract with a gap in your mouth?” Banks asked Evans, calling her teeth “not marketable.”

In an effort to stay in the competition, Evans eventually relented.

Feeling pressured, she underwent the procedure in the next episode out of fear that she would be sent home if she refused again.

“It’s my life, and it was toyed with...consciously,” Evans said in Reality Check. “And me saying no, and them going against that, it’s invasive.”

Banks said she has since apologized to Evans, though the embattled ANTM host defended her actions in the series.

“There were agents that would tell me she will not work with those teeth, it’s just not going to happen,” Banks said. “That’s what they told me. And again, I could’ve just been quiet and let them handle it, but hindsight is 20/20 for all of us.”

Evans, however, disagreed with this assessment: “Bullf---ing s---,” she said. “Me getting my gap closed is not opening any doors for me. You knew what you were doing for the show. You were making it good for TV, at my expense.”

Sprague would finish the season as a runner-up behind Evans, who was declared the cycle’s “top model” and awarded a $100k contract with CoverGirl, representation with Ford Models, and an editorial shoot published in Elle magazine.

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Evans has since left the modeling industry and is an outspoken advocate for women and girls, often promoting messages of confidence and self-acceptance on her social media.

Three weeks before Reality Check premiered on Netflix, she posted a behind-the-scenes photo on Instagram along with a slightly ominous caption: “I told ya I’d let you know when I’m ready to talk…"

In Season 15, dentists widened contestant Chelsey Hersley’s tooth gap as part of her makeover.