Issue 23.
America’s Next Top Maniac, Randy Andy’s Prison Party, Sydney’s new ‘poor door’ trend & a new Shallow section launch
Message from me! (Voice note below if you’re game enough)
Thank you all SO much for taking the time to fill out my questionnaire the other week and for giving me such thoughtful, helpful feedback. I really appreciate it!
As this little corner of the internet grows, I want to make sure I’m building a brand that’s sharp, fun and worth your time.
Which brings me to… the launch of Shallow’s newest section! Say hello to ‘By the way…’
I’ve been wanting to create a space that lets me bring you more Shallow stories in a tighter, more scrollable format. A place for all the (skin) deep happenings I can’t justify turning into full essays but absolutely refuse to ignore.
I hope you love it. And if you’d like the director’s commentary version, I’ve recorded a voice note above explaining a little more.
Can’t wait to hear what you think.
Harriet xx
America’s Next Top Egomaniac
Armchair psychologists on TikTok with a mini mic clip and a ring light talking about “main character energy” owe Tyra Banks a debt of gratitude. She deserves a commission every time the term leaves someone’s mouth.
After inhaling all three episodes of Netflix’s addictive Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model in one sitting — the couch still bears my bum imprint — one thing stood out.
Not the camp, corny, mind-boggling photo shoots. Honestly? I loved them (for the most part). Give me models posing with live fish, pigeons on shoulders, zombies and missing teeth over an influencer in a beige bikini and cowboy hat any day.
Not even the early-2000s fat shaming, models having multiple teeth removed as part of a “makeover,” models being hit by gigantic gold balls or the bitchy judges who masked cruelty as mentorship. At least that era gave us something chaotic to revisit! What will the 2020s offer for retrospective outrage? Everything is now so safe, sanitary and dull we’ll be left analysing why Bluey wasn’t called Rainbow and how exclusionary that’s been for animated animals worldwide.
No. What stood out was Tyra.
For over twenty years, we’ve had a front row to the self-serving, ego-driven behaviour that’s defined her public presence. Yes, she also has underrated comic skills — the famous Top Model scene where she pretends to faint? Academy Award–winning.
However, from the outset it was clear we weren’t getting contrition from the creator, executive producer and former host of ANTM. Not because she was withholding, but because she doesn’t appear to interpret events through a lens that requires any personal reflection or accountability.
I’m not waiting for a tearful, cringey apology tour, I don’t want one! I don’t need Tyra crying on a podcast, talking about her growth. The main character spectacle only works because she never wavers. The unshakable confidence. The commitment. The sheer arrogance and audacity of believing you’re always right. In a perverse way, it’s almost impressive.
“Hindsight is 20/20 for all of us,” Banks says in the documentary. “It just so happens that a lot of the things that are 20/20 for me happened in front of the world.”
Dressed like Inspector Gadget with an ever-present, slightly smug smile, Banks moves through the documentary in a state of elegant deflection.
When asked about the Season Two scandal involving a 21-year-old Shandi Sullivan who appeared intoxicated on camera — filmed cheating on her boyfriend and forced to process the fallout on camera — Banks responds: “That was production’s territory, not mine.”
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Then there’s Jay Manuel, her former close friend and colleague. After over a decade working together — she created his Creative Director role on the show in 2003 — he told her he wanted to leave. Her response? “I am disappointed”.
She never spoke to him again, unless it was on camera, something he described in the documentary as “psychological torture.”
He was fired from the show in 2012 alongside judges Nigel Barker and J. Alexander. According to Banks, the decision to fire her “three hearts,” who had been there from the start, came from “higher ups.”
When asked directly whether she wanted to talk about what happened between her and Jay, her response is swift: “Nah. I should call Jay. I don’t want to do this here.”
And then there’s Tiffany Richardson.
If you are a millennial and have never received a meme of Tyra screaming “WE WERE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU,” I worry about your internet literacy.
Rewatching the infamous Cycle 4 confrontation, what’s striking isn’t just the ferocity of Banks’ tirade. It’s how Tiffany’s perceived lack of visible devastation seemed to wound Tyra personally. The eruption reads less like a fed-up mentor and more like ego injury cosplaying as tough love.
Banks’ retrospective summary?
“That was very tough for me.”
You have to admire the consistency.
There is something strangely aspirational about living so securely inside your own narrative. It must be peaceful. I’m picturing spa music, dim lighting and a lavender diffuser humming in the background of perpetual self-justification.
Still, credit where it’s due: Banks showed up and participated in the documentary — Janice Dickinson, we see you — and did so without editorial control or payment. She saw the final edit when we did.
Maybe there’s hope for the ultimate main character yet.
Randy Andy’s Royal Arrest
My October prediction that the stripping of royal titles from Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor meant he was about to enter his Rob Kardashian era and embrace a life in exile has come up short.
Not even Kris Jenner could have orchestrated a birthday police arrest and backseat mug shot that made the eighth-in-line look like the grandfather of the “thumb guy” who went viral in the early 2010s.
Accompanied by reports that when Randy Andy was booted from Royal Lodge earlier this year he went kicking and screaming, “I’m the Queen’s second son, you can’t do this to me.” Even at his lowest ebb (yet again), Andrew really is the David Brent of royals.
Selfishly, I could watch this saga play out 24/7. Rob Kardashian sitting in a beige pool house in Calabasas eating Doritos and choosing sock designs with Kris’s EA doesn’t cut it in the disgraced-son entertainment category.
Phil Noble, the photographer who snapped the photo of Andrew above, could easily pivot his long lens into a short-lived reality series: Randy Andy Goes to Jail.
Of course zero percent of the profits would line Andrew’s grubby pockets, but it might even give Prince Harry and Meghan Markle the hit they’ve been chasing for Netflix!
Meghan harvesting sap from a tree trunk doesn’t quite raise the pulse like Andrew ranting in a 6x8 cell about how unflattering the orange jumpsuit is and asking why no one has arranged his bears across the mattress on the floor.
Some of the commentary following the arrest — the first senior royal to go to jail since King Charles I in 1647 — has been amusing, if entirely predictable. Cue the “end of the monarchy” discourse. Cue the “this will be the King’s downfall” hysteria.
Anyone reaching for that script should consider that this is a family that has survived wars, abdications, Nazi associations, tragic early deaths, beheadings and treason. Andrew may be the modern monarchy’s most grotesque liability, but the institution is well practised in strategic distancing — evidenced by the King’s deliberately sterile and removed statement about his brother’s arrest.
The monarchy has always understood one thing: scandal is survivable.
3 bed, 2 bath, 1 poor door
In one of the most shameful yet quintessentially Sydney plot twists imaginable, property developers — apparently bored of overcharging for soulless, identical -looking apartments that look like someone typed “modern coastal luxury” into ChatGPT — have unveiled a new innovation: residential buildings with two separate entrances.
A proposed apartment development in Mosman on Sydney’s North Shore will feature one entrance for residents of its 34 premium apartments, and another for the ten affordable housing units reserved for tenants paying below market rent.
It’s not even the first. Last year it was revealed that One Sydney Harbour, a waterfront development in Barangaroo, makes residents of its affordable housing component enter via a separate door and they’re not allowed to use the building’s swimming pool and gym.
What is this, Titanic 2.0?!
Do these tenants at least have windows in their apartments? Access to fresh air, or just a tiny air hole? Proper plumbing? Or are they fetching water from a well beside the reserved car park where the concierge parks his car?!
The justification for the door division is financial. Developers — building affordable housing components to comply with NSW’s housing mandate — say it simplifies strata fees, so affordable housing residents aren’t paying toward amenities like the pool, gym and concierge.
What’s next? “Poor Door Hour” at the pool? Separate intercom tones? I’m almost afraid to ask.
In the absence of a new Nancy Meyers film for over a decade, her daughter Annie Meyer Shyer’s impeccable interiors taste and house renovation journey, documented via @thisoakhouse has filled the rattan-and-white-linen-shaped hole in my heart. Now she’s launching a coffee table book inspired by it.
New network, who dis? Former RHONY stars have a new home and a new show. I wonder if the trend of Housewives defecting from Bravo to other networks becomes a wider shift…
One of London’s top restaurateurs has banned influencers from his restaurants. Radical or inevitable? If it means we’re not all subject to a photo shoot and the flash from birds eye food shots before an entrée, works for me!
Seeing eBay in a headline makes me feel like it’s 2001. They’ve just acquired Depop in a billion-dollar deal.
If you liked my Vogue succession piece from last week, you’ll love The New Garde with Alyssa Vingan’s thoughtful analysis of the Chloé and Anna interview and what might be holding the brand back from growth… besides Anna.
I don’t love cheesy merch, but this is smart marketing. Fashion brands, take notes. This is how you stand out in a crowded market. Reformation has tapped celebrity divorce lawyer Laura Wasser, whose clients include Angelina Jolie, Britney Spears, Johnny Depp and Kim K, as the face of a new divorce-themed campaign.
“Don’t call them ‘the twins’ or ‘the girls’ in front of clients.” Working for the CIA sounds less intense than being on the shop floor at The Row. An anonymous former employee told Amy Odell’s Back Row:
“When people spend $5,000 on a bag at Chanel, it’s because it has a Chanel logo on it. At The Row, you need to convince them why this bag is worth $5,000. So you tell them it’s the same leather as Hermès.”Who isn’t obsessed with Love Story? For those of us who have scoured every Reddit thread and TikTok, sink your teeth into the story of JFK Jr. and Daryl Hannah.
BYO cowboy hats, aviator sunglasses and plastic bolt-on boobs: Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos are this year’s Met Gala lead sponsors and honorary chairs. Money really can buy “taste.” The theme is ‘Fashion Is Art’, but a fitting way to honour the pair might be to change it to ‘Tacky and Try-Hard.’
Nostalgia Instagram accounts are thriving and I’m not mad about it! This one takes a trip down memory lane through Sydney’s nightlife (remember that?!) from 1980 to 2000. Kylie does not age.
Naomi Watts and Kylie Minogue with friends back in the day. Image: @sydneynightlifebackinthedays
Love love love all your commentary! Tyra had me screaming, Randy Andy had me LOLing
I watched it religiously and I don’t remember, at the time being outraged about it all. Shamefully