Trailer: Dirty Rotten Scandals Coming Soon To E! Entertainment
In 2011, Angelea Preston got to be on top. For about three weeks.
“When they called me to do All-Stars, I just wanted another chance,” the Buffalo, N.Y., resident explains in the E! special Dirty Rotten Scandals: America’s Next Top Model, premiering March 11 at 9 p.m. “Then I won the show, couldn’t believe it, like, ‘Oh my god, I’m going to be able to take this opportunity and live out my dreams.'”
Instead, as she details in the two-part docuseries, which explores ANTM‘s checkered legacy, she was informed several weeks after being crowned the winner of Cycle 17 that the episode would not air. Because, Preston recalls being told, she had been disqualified for “engaging in sex work,” a violation of the morality clause in her contract.
The finale was reshot, with Lisa D’Amato named the winner over runner-up Allison Harvard.
“At the time, it hurt like hell,” Angelea told E! News in an exclusive interview ahead of the Dirty Rotten Scandals premiere, recalling her “very, very painful” experience. But, “I’m on a path now where, in a sense, thank God y’all took it from me.”
Now a broadcast journalist and mother of a 13-year-old son, she explained that she wanted to share her story—”really put it out there”—in case it could help anyone who might need to hear it.
“I told things I was kind of nervous to put out there because a part of me was still ashamed to vocalize certain parts of my past,” Preston said. “But I was like, ‘You know what, we are in the age of accountability. That’s not where I’m at now.'”
“Why not share my story,” she continued, “because it may help somebody else that feels like they’re burdened by their past, or like they’re a prisoner of their past, or judged because of something that they did 10, 15 years ago, and feel like there may not be a path forward.”
Courtesy of E!
As for anyone who may question her intentions—”I know people are probably like, ‘Oh, she’s just bitter'”—Angelea stressed that staying silent wasn’t an option for her.
“Like I’m going to just go back to anonymity,” she said. “I did for awhile [after being stripped of her title]. I had a regular 9 to 5 job—I still have a 9-to-5 job—but my spirit was down. I feel like my voice was silenced, that the big guy won, and they just chewed me up and spit me out.”
She alleges in the E! series that at least someone from the production knew before she was confirmed to join the all-star cycle that she’d fallen on tough times and “didn’t make the best choice” after competing on Cycle 14 in 2010, finishing an episode shy of the finale.
E! News reached out to ANTM host and creator Tyra Banks—who declined to comment for Dirty Rotten Scandals—and executive producer Ken Mok for comment but has not yet heard back.
Mok told Bustle in 2022, in response to Preston’s account of how she was treated by the production, “There’s really nothing I can add to Angelea’s story as this happened 10 years ago and it has already been reported on extensively. On a personal note, I thought Angelea was a wonderful addition to ANTM. She was talented and charismatic…I wish her nothing but the best in her future.”
But even if her fate had ultimately been the same—that she couldn’t have won in the long run because of a contract violation—Preston feels as if ANTM could have handled it differently.
Patrick McMullan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
When she made it to the original show finale in Greece, she got sick enough to need a trip to the hospital, she recalled, “and they could have used me getting sick [to explain her absence]…and nobody would have questioned it.”
When the reshot finale aired, there was no mention of Preston having won. Rather, judge Nigel Barker told finalists D’Amato and Harvard that “our production team and the network learned information from Angelea that disqualifies her from the competition.” No further explanation was offered, leaving the world to speculate.
As Preston remembered it, “I wasn’t good enough to win your show, but what happened to me was good enough to further your agenda to increase ratings and chatter for the next cycle—which was crazy to me, and hurtful. And I was pissed when I saw it.”
But it’s not as if she didn’t take away anything positive from her time on ANTM, Preston lighting up in her interview with E! News when she recalled getting on a plane for the first time as part of the show and the friendships she formed with fellow contestants.
“It is a sisterhood,” she said. “I remember the fandom, thousands of girls auditioning, and—as much as bad things have happened—we are the lucky few to have participated in such an iconic show.”
Courtesy of E!
And while Preston never felt much of a kinship with Banks—”We weren’t friends,” she noted—nor does she feel the need to put the photo-wielding host on blast for what happened on Cycle 17, or any other cycle.
“I’m just not in that space,” she explained. And if she had a chance to talk to Banks for the first time in 15 years, all Preston would say is, “Look at me now.”
Tune in for parts one and two of Dirty Rotten Scandals: America’s Next Top Model on Wednesday, March 11, at 9 ET/PT, only on E!
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