Miss J Alexander Is Still 'Healing and Dealing' After Reality Check

"A '90s runway coach who taught supermodels like Naomi Campbell and Kimora Lee Simmons how to walk a catwalk, Alexander shifted careers in 2003 when one of his pupils, Tyra Banks, tapped him to join her on a little UPN show called America's Next Top Model. As a judge and runway coach for a passel of wannabe supermodels, he transformed into "Miss J," bringing drag to the screen at a time when queerness was vanishingly rare on American TV screens."

"As the new Netflix documentary Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model depicts, ANTM started out as an experiment rejected by every major network and grew into a reality-TV behemoth with its own language and lore. Scandal rocked the set; lingo like smize, tooch, and flawsome entered the vernacular; and one particular Banks blowup went viral years before the word viral itself went mainstream."

"Top Model was not without its flaws and detractors, many of which the doc tackles head on - from racist challenges and narrow body standards to manipulative editing. Today, Alexander emphasizes, as he does in the documentary, that his influence over certain things, like challenges, was limited. "If I was there for the meetings," he says, "I would've said, 'Ehhh, you really want to do that?'""

J. Alexander trained supermodels such as Naomi Campbell and Kimora Lee Simmons and joined America's Next Top Model in 2003 after Tyra Banks invited him. He became known as Miss J and brought drag presence to mainstream television during a period of limited queer representation. America's Next Top Model grew from a rejected experiment into a cultural phenomenon with distinctive lingo like smize, tooch, and flawsome while encountering scandals, racist challenges, narrow body standards, and manipulative editing. Alexander reports limited influence over some show elements. In 2022 he survived a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and prompted a lengthy recovery.

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