Netflix‘s move today against Tyra Banks‘ defamation suit probably will not see the former America’s Next Top Model host SMIZE.
Two months after supermodel Banks hit the streamer with a legal action over her depiction in the docuseries Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, the Greg Sarando- and Greg Peters-run Netflix has hit the court catwalk with an anti-SLAPP motion to toss the whole thing out.
“These are complaints about ordinary editorial decisions,” the motion filed Friday in L.A. Superior Court exclaims (read it here).
Aiming for an October 30 hearing on its anti-SLAPP and dismissal motion, Netflix’s attorneys at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher skewer Banks’ June 13 filing with Anna Wintour precision.
Friday’s motion adds: “Documentary filmmakers decide whom to interview, what to ask, which answers to include, how to sequence competing accounts, and what to leave on the cutting-room floor. Banks expressly agreed those decisions belonged to the filmmakers. Dissatisfaction with editorial judgments is not actionable defamation.”
In case you’re missing the point Netflix is making about Banks’ complaint, the motion lays it out with unadorned clarity.
“Strip away the Complaint’s rhetoric of ‘manipulation’ and ‘surgical editing,’ and Banks’s theory reduces to a request for more airtime and an edit more to her liking,” the 28-page motion says. “Defamation law does not permit that result, and courts do not second-guess editorial judgments merely because an interview subject would have preferred different ones.”
In a direct statement to Deadline, Netflix reiterated its opposition to Banks’ suit as well as its determination to not only defend Reality Check and its directors (who are named as defendant’s in the model’s suit).
“Directors Daniel Sivan and Mor Loushy are respected documentarians who thoroughly interviewed the people behind America’s Next Top Model,” a Netflix spokesperson told Deadline on Friday. “Tyra Banks was given the opportunity to speak openly about her experience and the creators fairly presented her perspective alongside those of every other participant shown in this documentary. We stand behind Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model and will continue to vigorously defend it.”
Erik Pedersen contributed to this report.
