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Adrianne Curry claims that her America’s Next Top Model makeover “permanently damaged” her hair.
The season 1 winner of the modeling competition series, now 43, shared a video discussing the lasting effects of the hair transformation she underwent on the show.
Early on in each season, host and former supermodel Tyra Banks would decide on a new hairstyle for each of the finalists that she felt would enhance their overall look. The infamous episode usually involved dramatic transformations that sometimes ended in tears.
On the reality show’s first season, which aired in 2003, Banks instructed the hairstylists to install a weave in Curry’s hair. Typically used in Black hairstyles, a weave features either natural or synthetic hair that is sewn into a person’s hair, per Indique Hair.
In her video, shared to Instagram on Friday, Oct, 31, Curry claimed that the weave she was given resulted in permanent hair growth issues.
“I wanted to discuss why I am partially bald right here and there,” she says in the clip, gesturing to two areas around her temples where the hair is shorter and sparse. “Like, hair doesn’t grow anymore.”
The former model said that the hairstylists expressed concern when Banks, 51, wanted to give her a weave, but the host insisted on proceeding.
“The Black stylists that were putting it in pulled her aside, and I heard them tell her, ‘This white chick’s hair is too fragile for this.’ And she was like, ‘Oh, no, no … just do it,'” she claimed. “Fast forward halfway through the show, I had oozing wounds from the braids. Half my hair had been ripped out here.”
A rep for Banks did not respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Curry said that the weave wasn’t taken out when the show ended, so she went to a Black hair salon in her hometown of Joliet, Ill., after filming wrapped.
“I will never forget because all the hairstylists came around and one girl was like, ‘Who the hell put this in your white head?'” she recalled, adding that she didn’t explain the situation because she was under an NDA. “It took hours and hours for them to get it out. I was left with a horrific mullet, scabs all over my head.”
She further explained that the hair around her temples has “never grown” and claimed her scalp is “permanently damaged from that weave.”
“I think most of those makeovers were done just to torture us, honestly,” Curry added.
The former reality star also recalled being confused about her makeover, since her hair was cut into a bob for a photo shoot on the first episode.
“They made my hair look awesome and then they were like, ‘You need a makeover,’ and I was like, ‘Wait a minute, you just cut five, six inches off my hair, what do you mean I need a makeover?'” she said. “And then they put that weave in and it was awful. It was so bad and it felt so validating to be in that salon with all those women who were just like, ‘Who would do this to you?’ And I’m like, ‘Her name is Tyra.'”
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After winning ANTM, Curry went on to star in other reality shows like The Surreal Life and My Fair Brady. However, she’s since left the entertainment industry and lives a quiet life in Montana.
In an interview with PEOPLE in 2024, Curry said she felt “betrayed and lied to by the show.”
“They told us every day whoever was going to win was going to be a big Revlon model, and then they dubbed over voiceovers when it aired on TV because they never intended that,” she recalled. “They lied to us because none of us would’ve fought as hard as we did for some half-ass prize. We’d be like, that’s stupid.”
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“That’s the industry. That is what it is. It is cutthroat. It is lying. It is predatory,” she continued.
In hindsight, Curry says she’s glad that things didn’t work out for her as a model.
“I’m grateful that things didn’t pan out the way they were supposed to because I don’t think I would be a very good person if I had found major success in modeling,” she explained. “I just don’t think my young brain would’ve been able to wrap itself around that in a good way.”
