Here are some photos of Tyra Banks at last night’s Time 100 event. Tyra was probably mad because she and Rihanna wore somewhat similar dresses (and Rihanna looked better). Does anyone else look at Tyra and think, “Yes. That’s the face of a woman who has gone mad with power”? As for the actual dress – it’s pretty awful. That butt dust-ruffle doesn’t photograph well, and in some shots it actually makes Tyra’s ass look comically oversized. I can’t find the designer ID for the dress, but I’m guessing that it’s Marchesa. It’s got a Marchesa look (ill-fitting, unflattering, cheap-looking).

Last week, Tyra fired EVERYONE on America’s Next Top Model. Well, she fired all of the scene-stealers who made the show mildly watchable: Miss J (J. Alexander), Jay Manuel and Nigel Barker. Tyra talked about the firings a few days ago:

Tyra Banks shocked America’s Next Top Model fans when she fired her panel of experts — Nigel Barker, Jay Manuel and J. Alexander — but the show’s hostess says cleaning house was a necessary evil.

“We reached a point where [we] feel the show needs a new boost,” Banks, 39, told Access Hollywood at New York City’s Matrix Awards, just days after news broke that she had let her trusted colleagues go.

Photographer Barker, runway coach Alexander and creative director Manuel have been with America’s Next Top Model since its inception in 2003, but Banks confirmed via Facebook Friday that the trio would not return for Cycle 18.

“It’s very difficult because I love my guys — they’re my guys,” Banks told Access, adding that she wouldn’t rule out working with the men in the future. “My partner Ken Mok and I have projects we’re developing, and we’re a family — it doesn’t end.”

[From Us Weekly]

I feel like it would have never occurred to Tyra that ANTM could be in a slump because of Tyra. I feel that way about mass firings on political campaigns too – like, when a candidate “cleans house” and fires half of his or her staff, as if that’s going to really change the problems with the candidate. Tyra is “the face” of ANTM – if the show is in a slump, it’s because of her, you know?

Anyway, Miss J went to Us Weekly after he was fired and said, “After 18 cycles, I found myself in the bottom three and Tyra pulled a surprise triple elimination. I didn’t even get to runway for my life!” So being fired came as a shock to Miss J – but Nigel knew something was up. Nigel told E! News, “It wasn’t a shock. I’m friends with Tyra and the producers. There had been a discussion that ratings were down and that something like this would happen. There had been previous years where discussions about me being eliminated from the show had happened and I had actually survived the chopping block before. We had an incredible run and there aren’t any hard feelings. This isn’t a Tyra thing. This is a network thing. My contract was so exclusive that it was holding me back from other projects.” Nigel will have new projects, I’m sure. But where will Miss J go?

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I haven’t watched America’s Next Top Model since Season 1. I really liked Season 1. From what I’ve seen of everything since then, it doesn’t really seem like quality television, but I understand that it’s still pretty popular – my mom watches it, after all. Well, my mom is going to be super-disappointed. Tyra Banks just fired EVERYONE. Breaking news: Tyra is a monster. She probably thinks she can do it all, too. TYRA ALONE WILL JUDGE EVERYONE. Tyra will single-handedly do this show!!!

Tyra Banks has one photo in her hand . . . and none of them belong to America’s Next Top Model’s Nigel Barker, J. Alexander or Jay Manuel.

Host and producer Banks, 38, has fired her panel of experts, The New York Post’s Page Six reported Friday. They were reportedly informed Thursday morning that their contracts would not be renewed for Cycle 18.

Banks later confirmed that photographer Barker, 39, runway coach Alexander, 53, and creative director Manuel, 39, will be leaving America’s Next Top Model via her official Facebook page.

“To my Nigel Barker, Miss J, and Mr Jay: Thank you for all of our years together on America’s Next Top Model,” Banks wrote. “Working with you is always an absolute pleasure. Excited for what the future holds for us.”

Barker, Alexander and Manuel have been with America’s Next Top Model since its inception in 2003. Previous judges include Janice Dickinson, Kimora Lee Simmons, Twiggy, Paulina Porizkova, Andre Leon Talley, Beau Quillian, Eric Nicholson and Nole Marin. As of Friday, judge Kelly Cutrone is expected to return for Cycle 18.

In a statement, executive producers Bank and Ken Mok tell Us Weekly: “Nigel Barker, Jay Manuel and J. Alexander have been an integral part of the America’s Next Top Model brand and they helped turn this show into the household name it is today. They have been amazing assets to the show and will always be a part of the Top Model family. We will continue to actively work with each of them on future projects.”

[From Us Weekly]

I’m not going to get into every single little detail about who Tyra has fired and how all of her ex-employees say she’s terrible, and a void of narcissism and drama. Let’s just say that she has a long history of alienating everyone, from audiences to employees, and that most people would rather cut off a limb than have to deal with her. So while it sounds like Nigel, Jay Manuel and J. Alexander just had their asses handed to them, I’m sure all three are probably a little bit happy that they don’t have to deal with Tyra anymore.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I’m not a big fan of making fun of someone’s overly-large forehead, because seriously, they can’t help it. Plus, I’m so opposed to bangs, I much rather see an adult woman’s forehead than have to look at some bangs trauma. In Tyra Banks’s case, I will admit that she generally looks better with a “softer” hairstyle, anything less severe than this Croydon Facelift she was working at last night’s Keep A Child Alive Black Ball. Incidentally, most attendees wore white and black… but not TYRA. Of course not. She wore this cheap-looking purple gown and worked her forehead like a Kardashian. That’s who Ty-Ty reminds me of here – Kim Kardashian. Neither woman should wear their hair pulled back this tight EVER. It makes Tyra look like a Disney villainess.

I’m also including some photos of Alicia Keys, who was the hostess of the event, and Swizz Beatz, who is still playing the dutiful husband (in public, but in private it’s a mess). I don’t even know what ‘Licia is wearing.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

A couple of years ago we were contacted by a woman who was a guest on the Tyra Banks show. The woman claimed that she and her 11 -year-old daughter were invited on to the show under the pretense of getting her daughter, a big “Top Mode” fan, modeling advice from Tyra. While she signed the contract and prior to her appearance our source insisted that she was given no indication that Tyra would be anything but positive with her daughter. However when she got on the show Tyra was accusatory and negative, and even had on a pedophile via satellite to explain how some bikini photos of her daughter, which were posed online anonymously, were bait for predators. The woman and her daughter were basically humiliated and were victims of a bait and switch. The little girl cried all the way home and was subject to bullying and taunting at school.

That wasn’t the only guest that had an issue with their treatment on Tyra’s show. We also ran a story from the Enquirer, one of several in the tabloid, in which a former Tyra guest, a cancer victim, described how awful her “makeover” experience was.

So when I heard this latest story, that the now gratefully-over Tyra show is being sued, I wasn’t surprised. Apparently Tyra had on a 15 year-old girl who swore she was a “sex addict,” only no one at the Tyra show got permission from the minor girl’s parents to have her on. What a mess this show was:

Tyra Banks may be the next top litigated.

Georgia mom Beverly McClendon filed the complaint against Banks, Warner Bros. Entertainment and executive producers for $3 million last week, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

She claims her 15-year-old daughter, Jewel Ciera Washington, responded to an open call on the show’s website for self-proclaimed sex addicts in October 2009. After being selected, she flew alone to New York the following month, was picked up by a limo and put up in a hotel.

“This show undoubtedly was watched by sexual deviants, perverts and pedophiles alike,” McClendon argued in the complaint, according to ABC News.

She is arguing the producers broke Georgia state labor laws by not alerting her about her daughter’s scheduled appearance.

Warner Bros. Television did not respond to requests seeking comment.

The family also wants a ban on any future repeats of the episode.

[From The NY Daily News]

This seems completely likely given all we know about the Tyra show, and it’s unbelievably stupid. How could they have an underage kid on without getting permission from her parents first? I couldn’t stand this show when it was on, and I can’t stand that sanctimonious piece of work Tyra. I hope that notoriously cheap Tyra has to personally pay up for this. She ran a very lousy show, and she should be held responsible for it.

Photos are from 9/29/10 and 9/30/10. Credit: WENN.com

It’s like Tyra Banks thinks she’s Lady Gaga now. In Tyra’s delusional, narcissistic mind, she probably thinks she started every single dumb trend, ever. So this is Tyra in Paris yesterday. You know she thinks she looks so high-fashion, when she just looks like a Wes Craven monster. Tyra tweeted and told fashion reporters about how she achieved this look – “cheap FISHNET stockings I got n crazy store n Paris! I cut em up n made it y’all.” It looks crazy dumb, y’all. And I think Tyra’s (weave) fishnet mask is pulled too tight, because Tyra looks like her false eyelashes are catching on the DIY mask.

Tyra Banks was in a DIY mood for Thursday’s Roberto Cavalli at French Vogue’s 90th Anniversary Party in Paris.

The model and TV host, 36, paired her tight black gown with a bizarre accessory: a netted mask pulled tightly over her head.

And Banks didn’t get the look through an avant-garde designer. “It’s homemade,” she Tweeted.

After fans incorrectly guessed that the mask was underwear, a hair net, curtains and a “wig cap,” Banks explained, “mask is [some] cheap FISHNET stockings I got n crazy store n Paris! I cut em up n made it y’all.”

Banks added: “[I] did my own hair n makeup.”

[From US Weekly]

God she’s dumb. The fact that anyone considers her some kind of style, fashion or modeling icon is a f-cking joke. But we’re talking about her, so she got what she wanted. It’s ALL ABOUT TYRA!!!! Can we start calling her Fivehead Fishnet Face now?

Tyra on Sept. 30, 2010. Credit: WENN.

Tyra Banks is still around despite the failure of her self-centered exploitative talk show. She’s still doing “America’s Top Model” on the CW Network and the new season premieres this fall. In a promo video for the show, Tyra gushes over a 6’2″ would-be model with a scary small waist. When people called Tyra out for it, she of course denied responsibility for the video, said it was “misconstrued” and made it all about her. She did have some nice things to say about body image and self esteem, but it comes with so much self righteousness that it’s hard to stomach.

Tyra Banks is finally responding to a growing controversy surrounding an America’s Next Top Model promo featuring a 6’2″ model with a shockingly small waist.

“In an effort to create a fun and entertaining sneak peek of the upcoming cycle, America’s Next Top Model released a trailer that was edited in way that misconstrued our overarching message,” Banks says in an exclusive statement to PEOPLE.

“As a leader in celebrating and promoting healthy body image, I must admit that I regrettably didn’t see this clip before it was released to the public, (with multiple Top Model departments, it’s just impossible to review everything) but on behalf of the Top Model team, these were not the intentions, and we truly apologize for any confusion, anger or disappointment it may have caused,” the statement continues.

“The passionate response the trailer has evoked proves that the message to promote and celebrate all different — healthy and natural –- body types has resonated with our viewers and I’m so proud of every one of you who voiced your opinion and participated in this conversation. I have experienced body image scrutiny from one extreme to the next –- as an awkward, extremely thin pre-teen who couldn’t gain weight no matter what I did, to later being slammed by the media for my fuller, curvier frame,” continues Banks, who was the victim of body bullying in 2006 after unflattering beach shots were splashed across the Internet.

“Driven by these personal experiences,” she says, “I am committed to expanding the definition of beauty which includes ALL shapes, sizes and proportions, from skinny to curvy and everything in between. It’s about women telling the world to KISS their –- skinny, wide, droopy, flat, cellulite-covered or FAT -– you know what!”

“Through Top Model and my other platforms, I am able to connect with women directly,” says Banks, an executive producer on the show. “During this season of Top Model, you will see that Ann (the woman featured in the trailer) provided another opportunity for me to support a young woman struggling with her own body image issues (she’s 6’2″; and is the receiver of countless stares and ridicule). Helping young ladies, like Ann and countless others that have confided in me, furthers and supports my core mission.” –Tim Nudd and Michelle Tan

[From People]

Tyra’s statement on her website has more, including the detail that the trailer has been removed from The CW.

On one hand I feel for this girl, because who are we to judge whether or not she has an eating disorder? There’s something obviously disturbing though about Tyra praising such a frail-looking woman while Jay Manuel quips that the other judge, J. Alexander, will starve himself to look like her. On the other hand, if she was 20 pounds heavier (and still thin) she probably wouldn’t have made it to this level of the show. Tyra wants ratings, whether it’s in the form of a transsexual contestant a model of more normal proportions or a preternaturally thin person. She can shriek about how we don’t understand and make a bunch of grandiose statements about body image, but there’s nothing empowering about a model competition show where catfights, drama and controversy drive programming decisions.

Call me crazy, but I’ve never really taken a side on the whole Tyra Banks-Janice Dickinson feud. I think Janice is crazy (like a fox) and mean as a snake. Meanwhile, I think Tyra is crazy too, although in a very different way from Janice. Tyra is, like, Oprah-crazy. Like, Tyra thinks she’s some television goddess, just like Oprah. Tyra thinks she needs to educate us on everything, even though Tyra’s not the brightest bulb either. Still, Tyra is pretty smart businesswoman who has a flourishing career, and Janice is still some crazy has-been.

One thing Janice is smart about is still getting press. She knows just what to say to get the most press hits. This time, Janice told a radio interviewer that she (not Tyra) made America’s Next Top Model a hit, and that Tyra is “huge” in person. So “huge” in fact that Janice claims she “used to think she was a man, I kept looking for… I was always looking, thinking, ‘Something isn’t right here’.”

There must be some pretty big beef between former supermodels Janice Dickinson and Tyra Banks, if Janice’s latest outburst is anything to go by.

The motor-mouthed model-turned-TV personality doesn’t appear to have got over being axed from the America’s Next Top Model judging panel in 2005.

Speaking on Alan Carr’s Chatty Man, the catty woman said: “I made that show a hit. Can you imagine for five seasons just sitting next to Miss Tyra Banks and listening to her go off?

“You could land a helicopter on her forehead. It’s huge.”

Janice admitted she got the boot from the show after calling Tyra “fat”.

She continued: “She was huge! [Her legs] are huge. Well, she’s a big woman.

“I used to think she was a man, I kept looking for… I was always looking, thinking, ‘Something isn’t right here’.”

Meow!

[From AOL UK News]

Ugh. That’s kind of over-the-top bitchy even for me. It’s one thing to say “Tyra isn’t all that” or “I don’t like her face” but damn, bitch. You don’t have to be all “I think she’s hidin’ a little something in her drawers.” Of course, I do that with Lady Gaga, but Gaga did that to herself when she flashed us that time and we didn’t know what we were looking at! I feel confident saying that I believe Tyra has a vadge. I just don’t want to see it, and I don’t want the vadge authenticated in public in any way.

Remember Tyra Banks’ sudden announcement that this current year of her talk show would be her last? She announced it on Monday, on her website and through an exclusive statement to People Magazine. Unfortunately, Tyra didn’t tell every staff member of The Tyra Banks Show that she was hanging up her spurs to go be fierce somewhere else. This has caused some angst, anger and in-fighting among the staffers, and a few of them took to the NYDN’s Gatecrasher to bitch about Tyra and her “brutal” methods:

“The Tyra Banks Show” may be over, but her former employees have only just begun to spill about what it was really like to work on the CW gabfest. And we hate to break it to you TyTy, but it’s not all good.

“There had been high turnover of employees for years,” a past crew member says, insisting that many people quit after just a few months because it was “pretty difficult to work for Tyra.”

“She and the higher-ups on the production staff could be extremely brutal,” the source says. “She really is a diva.”

An industry source who has worked on the show agreed, adding, “Everything had to be done Tyra’s way.”

But to her credit, Miz Banks isn’t the only one who thinks that her way is the right way: the show earned two Daytime Emmys over its relatively short five-season span. And another former staffer who worked closely with Banks says the 36-year-old indeed knows how to make good TV.

“Honestly, I don’t know how it would be to work under her,” says the snitch, who served in a high-level position. “But for me, it was a good experience. Tyra just knows how she likes things done. And as for her ‘diva-ness,’ well, it sells.”

So why stop now?

Banks released a statement this week insisting she wants to focus on launching her film company, Bankable Studios, which she says will bring “positive images of women to the big screen.”

But it may be her own image that needs polishing. Reports surfaced yesterday that Banks told the press that her show was coming to an end before she even alerted her staff – and according to some past employees, that’s more than likely.

“It wouldn’t be surprising,” our first source says. “When the show moved from L.A. to New York, several staffers weren’t even directly told about the change – they heard through the grapevine that it was going to move locations. Even so, a lot of those people gave up their lives on the West Coast so they could continue working for the show. Now they’re out of luck.”

Reps for the show didn’t respond to calls for comment by deadline.

[From Gatecrasher]

On one side, I think that the way Tyra is being described – brutal, diva, difficult – are just misogynistic code words for “having a female boss and getting your panties in a twist over her.” On the other side, you couldn’t pay me to work for Tyra, because I have absolutely no doubt she’s a pill. I can totally believe that Tyra treated her employees like dirt, and I think Tyra’s unprofessional behavior was probably the catalyst for her employees’ unprofessional behavior, in bitching about her to the tabloids. And not telling them that they’ve only got jobs for a few more months? That does make her a bitch, in my book.

I’m kind of “meh” on this story, probably because Tyra Banks plucks my last nerve, and thus, I avoid anything with her. So, Tyra announced today that this current season of The Tyra Banks Show (Tyra’s daytime talk show) will be her last. Tyra will now spend her time concentrating on “reaching more women and young girls to help us all feel as fierce as we truly are.” Really? Tyra is going to help me be fierce? No thank you, I don’t want an ugly weave. Also, what about her dream of becoming the next Oprah? Doesn’t Tyra need to spend several more years telling people to kiss her ass and focusing on the oft-ignored problem of baby-daddy drama?

After five seasons, two Daytime Emmy awards and too many girl-power episodes to count, Tyra Banks is announcing the end of The Tyra Show.

“This will be the last season of The Tyra Show,” Banks tells PEOPLE exclusively. “I’ve been loving having fun, coming into your living rooms, bedrooms, hair salons for the past 5 years.”

Wrapping at the end of its fifth season in the spring of 2010, it will be lights out for the show that brought viewers memorable weave-exposing, cellulite-revealing and tear-jerking moments.

Banks will focus on the launch of Bankable Studios, a N.Y.-based film production company currently reviewing possible projects. Sticking to her mission, Banks aims to bring “positive images of women to the big screen,” says an industry insider.

“My next huge steps will allow me to reach more women and young girls to help us all feel as fierce as we truly are,” Banks says.

Adds the insider: “Tyra is sad because she’ll be missing so much of the daily connection to her viewers, but excited at the same time to be taking on a new challenge.”

With encouragement from filmmaker Tyler Perry and longtime mentor Oprah Winfrey, Banks is “redefining beauty for women in film,” adds the source. “With Oprah’s big announcement this year, I think that gave Tyra the confidence to get out there and follow her longtime dream of film producing.”

But fashion fiends worry not. America’s Next Top Model is slated to return for its 15th season in February along with Banks’s ABC show True Beauty.

“There’s a lot cooking right now and a lot of fire burning in my heart,” Banks writes in an open letter on her Web site. “And I salute you my amazing family of viewers; without you there never would have been a Tyra Show. I really love you all.”

[From People Magazine]

See? Isn’t it kind of “meh”? Then again, I don’t watch daytime television. Sniff! But seriously, I can’t say I’ve ever really caught a Tyra show, I’ve only seen clips on Talk Soup and online. I’m aware that Tyra has tried to do some Oprah-type things with her show, like interviewing Hillary Clinton and that kind of stuff, but isn’t the show basically like a slightly more highbrow Jerry Springer show?

Halle Berry was on the Tyra Banks show yesterday promoting her new perfume, Halle. She told a story about how a woman at an acquarium recognized her daughter Nahla, 19 months, and how upsetting that was to her. Berry takes pains to keep her privacy, and filed a complaint last year against a photographer who trespassed on her property in an attempt to get the first photos of her daughter, Nahla. For Nahla’s debut, Berry took her daughter to the zoo and happily posed with her when she was four months old. Many celebrities sell the first photos of their babies but Berry decided to let multiple paparazzi get the first shots so that they wouldn’t be worth a fortune. She’s had minor altercations with the paparazzi since, and has told them to back off when she’s out with her daughter.

Berry says that the paparazzi need to stop hunting down kids and that “children should not be subjected to this kind of scrutiny” or “be objectified.”

Halle Berry stops by to chat with Tyra about her new perfume, “Halle” on Wednesday, November 11th’s “The Tyra Show.” The Academy Award winning actress also shares with Tyra how she deals with maintaining privacy for herself and her family.

Tyra admits even she’s only seen Nahla because of a paparazzi photo.

Halle Berry: “That part of it has become horrifying. We were at the San Diego aquarium and a woman comes up and my daughter is playing with her daughter and the lady said, ‘Wait a minute, Is that Nahla?’ and I looked at the woman and she goes, ‘Oh my God and you’re Halle Berry, but I recognized your daughter first.’ And I wanted to melt, I was so distraught.”

Halle Berry: “The paparazzi now they have no sense, it’s crazy and what there [sic] doing to children, it’s just not right. I know nobody has a lot of sympathy for celebrity because we are blessed in so many ways, but these children should not be subjected to this kind of scrutiny, be objectified, be hunted down, its just flat out wrong.”

Halle also shares contrary to popular belief Nahla is not named after “The Lion King,” but after Halle’s African heritage.

The Tyra Show airs at 4:00 PM on The CW!

[From The Tyra Banks Show, received via e-mail]

Jennifer Garner has also spoken out about the paparazzi targeting her children and shouting rude things at them to try and get a reaction. There may be some relief for celebrity parents soon. A new law will go into effect in California in January that “makes it a crime to take and sell unauthorized photos of celebrities in ‘personal or familial activity.’” This probably means that Jennifer Garner can call the cops if she gets harassed outside her daughter’s school, and that Halle Berry will have some protection from photographers bothering her when she’s out with her daughter.

Halle Berry is shown at an event for the March of Dimes on 11/7/09. Credit: Getty. We won’t post photos of Nahla here as it’s obviously upsetting to Berry. I’m not sure if this will be permanent or not, but it’s the least we can do in this story