Top Model Recap: What Would Stam Do?

This week’s Top Model brought out the tough questions: Will Tyra acknowledge Gemma Ward? Is the entire contest rigged? And – most important – why is Jay Manuel considered a “style guru�?

Bemused, confused, and dizzied by The Evil Renée’s resemblance to Jessica Stam, we phoned our Top Model expert, former contestant Brooke Miller.

Her reaction?

“They botched the photo shoot –again.�

Alas, like Jael’s junkie monologues, that’s become a running theme.

Let’s start at the beginning. The Evil Renée is now playing her remorseful card. It’s the editing, too. They’re setting her up for a big finish – there’s no way she won’t be in the top three now. She could even win. She looks so much like Stam…

I know, it’s a bummer. And do you know what’s weird? Three of the contestants this season have babies! I didn’t know that – do you think Cover Girl will allow a teen mom to win? I hope so. From a business point of view, I can understand how they’d want someone unattached, in every sense, but in the real world, mamas can be beautiful, too! Seriously, maybe there’s a market there – maybe young moms are all over Cover Girl...

Wikipedia told us this week that Dionne would win and Jael would be runner up. Is it lying? They were pretty close with their predictions last season!... But I’ll be really disappointed Jael is the runner up! She’s so… stoned!...I hate that they’ve kept her around.

Which leads to the big question. Do girls really get kicked off according to modeling potential? Well…

Did you know you were going home on the week that you did? I really had no clue when it was my turn to go. And a lot of the other girls felt the exact same way. The editing that went into the show and made it seem like I had such a terrible week, and I was just struggling, and I couldn’t keep up with the other girls? In actuality, that was so false. I felt I’d had my strongest week ever. All during my phtoo shoot, Jay kept saying “Oh you’re really maturing!� But when I sat down with the producers, they said, what would you think if you got kicked off the week of your graduation?�

Are you kidding? I was like, “Oh no chance! I did so well this week!� I did not expect it at all!

Looking back, does that strike you as a weird question? I thought they just asked it because of my graduation – but looking back, I can see how they were setting it up, because then it became part of the story. I got kicked off because of my graduation.

This week was the infamous “acting challenge.� Does it seem to you like there’s a Top Model curse – whenever a girl says they’ll win the acting challenge, they do the worst? Oh completely! When we had our broadcast journalism forte, we had to do those fake interviews [for Entertainment Tonight]. I already had it in my mind that I wanted to be a broadcast journalist, so I was so excited! So sure enough, they hounded me: “Oh you’re so fake; oh you have so much work to do!� It’s all because I pre-declared myself. That was a mistake.
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Do you think the guest judges running the challenges are prepared beforehand about each contestant? Oh completely. This is my opinion, I don’t know this for a fact, but I think the people running the challenges are sat down beforehand like, “This is what you need to say; this is what you need to acknowledge.�

We think so too. How did you feel about former Top Model contestants returning for this show? I thought it was amazing! It was such a fun idea, but once again, they botched the photo shoot by turning it into that horrible comic strip layout. They were such beautiful pictures, and they were ruined!

Were you sad not to be there? No, it’s okay! And it was nice to see the twins. They’re so wonderfully awkward and so high fashion. I thought they’d be the first to be signed after the contest because their look is amazing, so beautiful.

We had a hot debate on Fashionista this week because of the Karl Lagerfeld quote, saying that Top Model will never discover another Gemma Ward. What do you think? There’s girls that have seen success from Top Model, absolutely. Shannon from Cycle One is still successful. There have definitely been working girls, but will we see Gemma? Probably not. It’s too American Pop Culture to be taken seriously… even though, didn’t Gemma get discovered on an Australian reality show?!

She did. Do you think Tyra will mention Gemma next week in Australia? It’s a probability… but she’ll probably say Elle MacPherson, since that’s more from Tyra’s era.

Tell us your prediction for the winner? Renée, Brittany, and Dionne will be the Top Three. I can’t pick a winner right now.

. But what if Wikipedia was right and Jael is the runner up? Then I will be done with Top Model forever!