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TheTVObserver presents Tyra Banks. Despite how much people have to say about this former model turned tv-producer and talk-show host. Ms Tyra, affectionately known by her fans, has evolved into a power-house TV star. Hate her or love her, Tyra has created mainstream prime-time modeling content through America's Next Top Model which is now in its 12th season with 150 episodes in the volt.

By all standards Tyra Banks' Top Model show is a MEGA-HIT. Can any one scream “Bloody Rich Ms. Tyra” Hello!. Yes, sometimes she could be a lot to take on, but do YOU have a show which has been on-air for over 12seasons with franchises in over 40 countries around the world?, AND......do you also have your own talk-show, boring as it maybe, on national tv? She is annoying but she is BANKING money in the process. Holla! Holla Holla! Her creation America;s Next Top Model, is successful show because its her life. Hence every teenager worldwide wants to the Next Top Model.

TheTVObserver's StarSpread presents Ms Tyra Banks. At 11, a growth spurt turns Banks into "this tall beanpole freak all the girls would laugh at." She tells PEOPLE, "I wasn't just skinny and tall; I was sick looking. If anybody called me skinny, I would just smile, then run into my room and burst out crying. It was a really unhappy time."


A 17-year-old Banks begins making the model agency rounds while at L.A.'s Immaculate Heart High School. ''The market for black models was not very good,'' Banks' mom Carolyn, who shot her daughter's portfolio, tells PEOPLE. Banks is told her look is "too ethnic." After graduation, she plans to enroll at L.A.'s Loyola Marymount University, but weeks before the start of her freshman year, things turn around. A French modeling scout spots Banks and offers her a chance to model in the Paris couture shows.

''My ankles would shake, and I would bend my knees and stick my lips out,'' Banks tells PEOPLE of her first model walks. But within a week, she accumulates 25 bookings. Model Niki Taylor says, ''She can work a runway like you would not believe.'' Designer Todd Oldman adds, ''She reminds me of an antelope. She was just born with grace.''

Black supermodel Naomi Campbell takes notice of rising 19-year-old star Banks and reportedly persuades Karl Lagerfeld to ban the so-called new Naomi Campbell from Chanel's catwalk. "Why do I have to knock Naomi out to be successful?" Banks asks PEOPLE. "With white models, they don't do that."


In the spring of 1993, Banks meets Boyz N the Hood director John Singleton, 25, through mutual friends, and they start dating. ''Tyra brings out the silly side in me, which no one else is allowed to see,'' Singleton tells PEOPLE. Banks counters, "I like that he's very intelligent but not nerdy."

In the fall of 1993, In her first recurring television role, Banks plays Will Smith's sassy girlfriend Jackie on NBC's Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. ''When people know me as a model, they back off," she tells PEOPLE. "They have trouble relating to the image they see in the magazines. But when they recognize me from television, they relate to me as this chill-out girl." Banks also makes guest appearances on television shows Soul Food, Felicity and American Dreams.
January 11th 1995 - Banks lands the part of track runner Deja opposite Omar Epps in Higher Learning. "Tyra is good,'' says the film's director and her boyfriend John Singleton, who calms her worries of favoritism by assuring her she wouldn't have the part if she wasn't right. ''She adds a lot of flavor to what could have been a throwaway role.'' She follows up with films Love & Basketball and Coyote Ugly.

In 1996, After splitting up with Singleton in spring, Banks, 22, shows up with pop singer Seal, 33, at the Essence Awards. Their low-key romance ends in October.


February 21st, 1997 She has a Cover Girl makeup contract and is a regular in magazines and on runways, but the 23-year-old Banks makes history with a triple achievement in 1996. She is the first African-American woman to pose on the covers of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue (with model Valeria Mazza), GQ (February 1996) and the Victoria's Secret catalogue (1996). On Feb. 21, 1997, she'll grace the cover of Sports Illustrated for the second year in a row – this time, by herself.

In 1998 The model releases her first book, Tyra's Beauty Inside & Out, with her thoughts on self-esteem and step-by-step makeup advice. "It's not the cosmetics, not the swimsuits, not the magazine covers," makeup artist Sam Fine tells PEOPLE. "The beauty of Tyra is her natural side, the child in her." Banks is also upfront about her looks: "I'm not ugly, but my beauty is a total creation."
In the summer of 2001, Banks establishes Tzone, a Southern California camp aimed at building self-esteem in teenage girls. "I'm just 'BBQ' [her camp nickname], a girl like them," Banks tells PEOPLE. "It's important for me to let young girls know how much of it is smoke and mirrors. I still go to work and see people, my peers that make me feel insecure. I talk about that. I shed tears about that. It breaks down barriers."

November 13th of the same year the confident catwalker appears in the first-ever broadcast of the Victoria's Secret show, which makes waves as the lingerie-clad models incite indecency complaints to the FCC. Four years later, Banks will announce her retirement from modeling and make the glitzy event her last runway show.


In 2003 her success continues with the launch of her girls-go-high-fashion reality show, America's Next Top Model, on which women vie for a modeling contract. With the show still going strong for more than 11 seasons, Banks tells PEOPLE, "It makes me really proud that there can be a healthy model out there to show you don't have to resort to crazy means to get the type of figure you desire."

In May of 2004, Banks releases a hip-hop-flavored music video, "Shake Your Body," which features dancing by contestants from the second season of Top Model. She pays the $30,000 production costs herself, hoping the video leads to a record deal. It gets some airplay on MTV2, but the single never makes it to radio. "That was a dream," she tells Forbes in 2006. "I sounded decent, but you shouldn't ever do something just because you're only decent at it."

In Sepetember of 2005 six years after being a youth correspondent on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Banks, 31, pulls double-duty as host and executive producer of her own talk show. It is on The Tyra Banks Show that she faces rival supermodel Naomi Campbell. "One of the reasons I wanted to do this show is because sisterhood is so important to me," she says during their discussion.


In May of 2006 Time names Banks one of the Most Influential People in the World, where Heidi Klum calls her a "whip-smart business mogul." She makes the list again the following year, with famed feminist Naomi Wolf writing, "What I love about Tyra Banks is that she is taking action. She has used her own weight gain…as a teachable moment to confront the culture and speak out to girls and young women about embracing their bodies in all sizes."

After tabloids and blogs run photos mocking Banks for looking heavier, she tells PEOPLE she's happy with her present figure, which is 30 lbs. heavier than her 2005 pre-retirement weight, in January of 2007. Posing on the cover of PEOPLE, an empowered Banks says, "I still feel hot." Weeks later, with tears in her eyes and rage in her voice, Banks tells critics on her talk show, "Kiss my fat a--!" After launching her "So What" campaign that promotes positive body images, Banks is listed as one of PEOPLE's 100 Most Beautiful.

February 2008 After moving her talk show to New York, Banks opens up to Essence about the lonely life she leads at the top. "I'd go to work and women would be crying in my arms on the talk show," she says. "But then I'd go home and put my key in my door and ... nothing: no friends, no husband, no children. I feel so full when I'm at work but so empty when I come home." While Essence reports the buzz that she's involved with investment banker John Utendahl, 50, Banks keeps mum on relationship rumors.


In June the 20th of 2008, Banks, 34, wins her first Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Informative Talk Show. "I want to thank Oprah Winfrey for her inspiration," Banks says. "She is the queen and will always be the queen." Using her winning moment to silence her detractors, she adds, "When you have a dream, there are going to be many people that tell you that you cannot do it, that you are not good enough. And I want you to tell them to kiss your dimply, flat, juicy, bootylicious, skinny, jiggly, saggy, fat a--!"

By TheTVObserver on TVSA

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