#cycle4ranking

01. Naima Mora

Naima, Naima. Litteraly one of the most beautiful girls to have ever stepped on antm, and probably one of the better winner this show ever crowned. To me, she was the kind of girl that has something special.

During the first half of the show, Naima pretty much flew under the radar, both in terms of editing and performance. She was almost absent from our screens, and her photos varied from good to mediocre, without ever impressing me. It took a long time until the moment she wowed me from the first time, and she might ended up with a quite low call out order average because of that. Her problem was that she often took the concepts to litteraly, and forgot to keep the model extra element in her pictures. In other terms, she was a bit predictable, and lacked the wow factor. Plus, she had the tendency to commit too much to her already edgy look, which would result sometimes in photos off-concept.

Naima eventually made it to the top 7 and managed to avoid elimination until then. And this is precisely the moment when Naima came alive as a model. She learned to tone down her facial expressions and body languages, in order to deliver brilliant photographs and interpretations of the various brief. Her 7 deadly sins shot was amazing, as well as her overall performance on set, because they did show a bit of her film on set, and from what I saw she took stunning pictures after stunning pictures. Right after she kicked things up in South Africa. Aside her average kloofing shot, her pictures all were stunning, and she culminated in her very last photo ; the covergirl campaign. It is rare when a girl’s best photo is the covergirl shot, but in the case of Naima it was just an evidence. I guess it was refreshing to see her producing such an iconic picture for a commercial girly brief, because it totally went against her brand and proved she was capable of anything.

Not only her photos where beautiful, but her presence and look in person were mesmerizing. Every time she would get into the character on set, I would immediatly be drawn to her beauty. Just observe that :

Naima’s beauty was absolutely sensationnal, not many antm girls captivated me as much as she did.

Finally, the ultimate element making Naima the undeniable winner of cycle 4 to me : her walk. Naima probably is one of the best walker this show ever had. She could go over the top and seem a little bit agressive at times, but I absolutely loves that about her. The power she had on the final runway was supernatural, it took my breath away. Poor Kahlen was totally outshined by Naima’s performance. I don’t think that Kahlen « failed her final exam » as Tyra said in the final judging session. To me, Naima just was so good that nobody’s walk could rival hers. It was the final wow moment I needed from Naima to consider her as a good winner : and fortunately she provided it.

08. Brandy Rusher

Why did you felt the need to rub people the wrong way with your attitude Brandy, why ? You had so much potential ! As you can tell, this post is going to talk about FRUSTRATION.

Brandy’s look didn’t wowed me when she first entered the competition ; the red affro thing was quite a mess honestly, and it didn’t read as model at all. However, makeovers happened (and I’m glad it was so early this cycle). After considering doing nothing to Brandy (thanks god things didn’t happened that way), they finally decided to remove it completely, and this is where I started considering her as a true model ; her look was much more striking this way.

Unsurprisingly, I started loving Brandy’s photo right after she received her makeover : her alien photo was fine, but slightly forgettable, while on her 1-800 flowers shot she had such an energy and a presence, and her zodiac sign photo was a gorgeous one. I would have love to see Brandy perform in other photoshoots such as the gas attendent and the ones taking place in South Africa, I honestly believe she would have the potential to build a very strong antm portfolio. All of that leads us to why things didn’t happen that way : her premature elimination in week 3 due to her behavior on set.

Week 1, she let everybody knows that she was upset of waiting her turn to perform the alien photoshoot. And if Nigel called her out on it, she acted like she just couldn’t give a damn about it. Later on during week 1, she openly expressed her annoyance towards her not getting a makeover, and when they finally decided to do something, Brandy was unpleased. Again. Week 3, she still was angry about the make up and styling on the photoshoot. It’s kind of hilarious, because even if Brandy was heavy drama material, she just pissed everybody off, leading the judge to eliminate her because they could not stand her behavior anymore. I am sure that she would have went on to continue the competition much further, because as I said she had a loud and strong personnality, while being a really good and promising model. She destroyed her chances to become a threat in cycle 4 herself, and according to her, just for sake of « being real ». WHY BRANDY !?

02. Kahlen Rondot

My ultimate favourite model from cycle 4 for a very long time. If the elimination order in cycle 4 was pretty fucked up for the most part, at least the judges got their final 2 perfectly right, with Kahlen being one of them.

There is something incredibly confusing about the way Kahlen is received by the fandom. She is seen as an obvious fan favourite from cycle 4, but I didn’t saw THAT MUCH love for her. The main comments I’ve ever seen out there about her was that she was incredibly underrated by the judges and didn’t deserved her spot in the finale. I think that it’s due to the fact that the cycle aired so long ago and that the initial love she encountered quickly faded away, especially after the fans seeing her modelling career not taking off. But my opinion is that people really are harsh on her. I’m convinced that Kahlen was an excellent model, one of the best of her cycle and she would have made a really good winner (honestly she was unlucky to have Naima in front of her in the finale).

First of all, it doesn’t seem quite obvious since she was outperformed by her competitor on the final runway, but Kahlen actually was an excellent runway walker. She was only third to Rebecca and Naima, but still was really strong in that area and had a very solid walk. She might have a tendency to not knowing what to do with her arms, but she knew how to brought energy to her steps while keeping her composure and not going over the top. Then, her look. Kahlen indeed was a not-so-tall commercial blonde girl upon first glance, but I still think that her look has a certain edge, she wasn’t as typicaly pretty as Brita or Sarah for example and could look very strong in person, unlike the judges tended to say. It was a look that suited commercial modelling as well as more high fashion modelling, as evident by her strong portfolio.

And fortunately she didn’t disapoint when it comes to that aspect of modelling. She was one of the stronger photo models of her cycle, and despite having a few miss during her run, she had many great moments and appeared several times on my top 10 list. Her springbok and kloofing photo were the true gems of her portfolio, and many other pictures such as her zodiac, gas attendant and 7 deadly sins were great as well. What I truly loved about her portfolio is that she could mold to nearly every creative she was asked to ; she could do sexy, high fashion, editorial, commercial (her cover girl shot despite being my least favourite was very convincing, and to me she had the best performance during the commercial).

In the end, we had a model who was a great walker, a great photo model, and a great commercial model, which leads me to think that Kahlen deserves a lot more recognition. But it doesn’t stop there as she had a great personnality. She was the typical shy and insecure girl from antm, but even when she would not felt confortable about a challenge or a photoshoot, she always would commit to it the best that she could, and I honestly was impressed by the fact she performed really well in the 7 deadly sins photoshoot despite loosing a friend a few days early (the judges sure overrated a bit her performance, but it still was a great one). 

03. Tiffany Richardson

As you can see, I honestly would have switched Tiffany and Keenyah on the show keep her until the finale at the very least. And I’m sure she would have reached that point hadn’t she give up the competition about halfway through.

After being a semi-finalist on cycle 3, Tiffany entered back the competition in this cycle and made it to the next round this time. She put in the frontlight her new attitude and her growth as a person since her first appearance on Top Model, and the strong backstory she carried with her certainly gave her an opportunity to make it far. During her time on antm, she has been featured a lot in the editing of her cycle ; she had a prominent role in this season and I’m convinced that things just didn’t happen as producers expected. She couldn’t handle the multiple silly challenges they had to do (especially the ones in panel, a caracteristic of the early cycles), and ultimately gave up in the middle of the a teleprompter reading, which led in the judges being turned off by her and sending her packing. But after making a double elimination including her and Rebecca, Tyra expected such a dramatic TV reality moment, which didn’t happen because Tiffany seemed to feel quite released about it and not too much torne apart. She consequently lost her shit because this wasn’t how she wanted Tiffany to behave, it didn’t fit her supposed storyline and you can tell it really pissed her off ; this is how antm delivered its most iconic and infamous moment out of 24 cycles. Thanks Tiffany !

Besides the obvious favoritism going on for her (I mean, Tyra litteraly said « did you know the possibility for you to win ? », which was pretty translucent of her will to carry her until the end), Tiffany actually was a very strong competitor in my eyes. Her walk might beh er weak point, and even the nit was a decent one. But in terms of look and photo abilities, Tiffany was a diamond in the rough. Her makeover was absolutely stunning and brought out her features wonderfully ; after that, she was one of the only girl to look like a supermodel currently working in the industry. And she would always look the part in her photos ; her beauty just translated on film, and she had such a strong presence on most of them. Her 1-800 Flowers was breathtaking, the star of her short portfolio, and I really liked her Alien, Wonderbra and Got milk ? photos as well. In a cycle of girls eliminated much earlier than they deserve, Tiffany probably is the most frustrating one because she was one of the contestant with the most potential and actually stood a chance of making it until the end. I even think she could have had the original Jaslene storyline and become the first winner of antm returning after ending up semifinalist in a previous cycle.

04. Rebecca Epley

The funny thing about Rebecca is that she is mostly known for standing next to Tiffany when Tyra was yelling at her. In other words, she’s known for being there, which sums up the main problem the judges encounter with her during cycle 4.

Something even more hilarious was the context of her sudden fainting during the second panel. I mean, that wasn’t funny in itself, I would be as scared as the other girls were if I were there. But the guest lady in the judging panel was actually telling her that she needed to work on her presence because she didn’t have a strong one, and instantly, Rebecca’s presence indeed completely faded away. But as much as the show wanted to portray her as a vacant/forgettable individual, I am forced to point out - once again - the astounding ammount of bullshit in the reasonning of the judges for eliminating such a strong model.

I could understand where their warning about her not standing out enough came from, but they bragged that in her face way too early on. By the time they used that motive to justify her elimination, she still was one of the strongest model from the bunch and deserved to continue much further. Maybe they could have said the same critique once overseas, when she really would have needed to step up her game in order to knock down the competition (with Kahlen and Naima culminating towards that stage of the cycle), but she still was ahead of the back by the time she was eliminated, so that felt sort of ridiculous to me. And it’s even more annoying since they completely sabotaged her on her last photoshoot in order to prepare her departure.

That leads us as to why I think Rebecca deserved to stay longer. She was a strong model for sure, but she most of all was the most complete one out of remaining girls to that point. She already encounter success in various photoshoot (eventually earning a first call out from me – and on the show as well), was the strongest walker of the cycle (winning by the way the challenge of the runway week), and if her look wasn’t the most outstanding, she still looked like a model in person to me. It’s even more frustrating since as I just said, the judges themselves openly admitted her completeness by awarding her of challenges and photoshoots win. I just don’t get how they got rid of her like they did for the sake of not being as loud as Brittany.

05. Michelle Deighton

The funny thing about Michelle is that she was a contestant that I didn’t like at all during my first watch, and then became a contestant that I loved during my rewatch. I don’t remember where the dislike came from, and why my impression of her changed that much.

Back in cycle 4, Michelle was a tough competitor when it came down to photos. I even think she is the photo model of that season. While every other girlswere hit or miss, or just didn’t stayed long enough to prove their talent in those areas, Michelle only had one massive hit, which was her 7 deadly sins photo. It was such a big flop, but other than that, she was constantly bringing it out on the set of the photoshoots. Every single other photos in her portfolio varied from good to amazing. I truly loved her zodiac photo, and seriously considered her gas attendent shot as one of the top 10 of the cycle (If the late cycles weren’t that poor in terms of good photographs, I think I would make top 15 or 20 lists to be honest). She was eliminated after her zebra photograph, which annoyed me a lot the second time arround as it was a lot better than half of the models still competing. I would have loved to see her perform the kloofing and african dance photoshoots instead of Christina or Keenyah for example.

However, Michelle was pretty much like Brittany in terms of inconsistency. She was a great photo model, but her walk was one of the worst of the cast, and her massive lack of confidence definitely brought her down a lot the impression various clients would have of her. I still appreciate the fact that she was always taking the numerous challenges seriously and always committed to it in an enthusiastic manner. Michelle really was a positive individual who was pleasant to watch during her journey on antm (and for that I think she deserves to rank above Brittany).

Speaking of her confidence, it was clearly put to the test during her time on the show. She had several breakdown and panic attack during the show, as well as being the center of the « flesh eating bacteria issue », which was really agravated by the reactions of the other girls. It wasn’t smart at all  from them to make such a big deal about it, and isolating Michelle from the group. Flesh eating bacteria actually is a pretty damn scary thing, and I can’t imagine how Michelle must have fell after those questionnable rumors were spread by Noelle. In order to boost that lack of confidence, the judges decided to give her a platnum blonde dye job, and that makeover stressed the hell out of me. First of all, she was in extreme pain while they were bleaching her hair, and then they looked completely destroyed every time Michelle would pop on the screen. Why not letting her keep her natural hair colour ? It wasn’t that pleasant to watch.

06. Brittany Brower

What a character. Brittany was the original antm crazy party girl (sorry Lisa), and left a strong impression on the viewers during her time on the show. In fact, I think she was the kind of girl to leave a strong impression on pretty much everybody she would met (even the passers-by on the street when she showed her butt by the window of the limo).

As a photo model, Brittany probably is one of the most hit or miss contestant this show had ever known. She took absolutely atrocious photos and absolutely stunning ones that both made the history of ANTM. Her first two photographs ? An utter disaster, where her natural sexiness was completely overpowering the whole picture and resulting in them looking incredibly porny and unflattering for her body and features. But the gas attendent or the kloofing photographs ? They were absolutely breathtaking and earnt her two well deserved first call out from me. What is interesting though, is to see that the bad photos were taken near the beginning of the competition, while the excellent one were taken towards the end. So if Brittany had been inconsistent, she went on to progress, rather than dicreasing throughout her stay (which is the main reason why she ranked above Keenyah, let alone her crazily gorgeous kloofing photograph).

But Brittany’s inconsistency showed mostly on her overall body of works as a model. If she went on to excel in the photoshoots, she performed a lot more poorly in the other areas. Her walk wasn’t that good, and the way she presented herself just was… Not quite flattering for her. It’s totally okay to enjoy life and having fun, but she litteraly was 24/7 in this mood. She greatly lacked professionalism in front of the clients , and it always seemed like she didn’t take anybody or anything seriously on this show. And despite her great height, her look felt incredibly common to me, or at least when she didn’t presented herself correctly (as evident by her obvious photogenism in many shoots, she has the potential to look stunning in person). Overall, Brittany didn’t always read as a model to me, and that’s the main issue I had with her.

Her attitude wasn’t the best one as well. I didn’t appreciate at all the way she would talk down to Michelle because she could act awkward, or the way she suddenly turned against Keenyah after the Mandela’s cell incident, implying she said things she actually didn’t, and that she was overreacting when she cried during the visit. I mean, you don’t necessarily have to feel the way Keenyah felt back then, but it’s not because you don’t that you have to discredit others. It kinda rubbed me up the wrong way. I also think Kahlen raised a good point when she stated that she was giving off a bad impression of the top model group whenever she ended up drunk and was loud everytime the girls would go out.

07. Keenyah Hill

When I started reading numerous antm rankings and discovered the fandom about a year ago, I was surprised to observe how much Keenyah was deeply disliked by many people. And if the reasons for that partly are her being carried by the judges much further than she deserved, there was a lot going on about her behavior and personnality on the show.

I initially remembered Keenyah as the girl who made it to the final 3 despite being weaker than a lot of the other models, which led me in my first watch in being extremely frustrated by her. We all know this bitter feeling when a mediocre model ju is saved on multiple occasions over more deserving contestants. Keenyah was that model this cycle, and that’s why I originally wasn’t a fan of her. However, my rewatch of the cycle made me understand why the judges were so invested in her. Unlike many other contestants who are carried through for the sake of having potential, Keenyah did show a lot of promise during the first half of the season.

If her alien shot was subpar, she had a series of very strong photos after that poor performance, remaining in my top 3 for 3 weeks in a row. She eventually culminated in the got milk photoshoot, and if that concept didn’t involve the black face, her photo would have been one of my top 10 photos for this cycle (Her picture almost is the unique reason why I decided to not boycott that shoot, as I really loved it). What was even moreamazing about her early portfolio is that she always nailed the concept while bringing something different and unexpected. And because of her strong walk (despite not being in the top walkers of the cycle), as well as her ability to present herself well to the clients (she won a challenge where they had to make a good impression at a covergirl meeting), Keenyah was easily a top 3 contestant of this cycle for the 4 first weeks. Unfortunately she let herself down about halfway through the competition. Her posing were weak, lacking energy and she lost the sparkle she had in her photos. After a couple of bad performance, she always remained in the bottom half of my rankings, somehow escaping elimination every week, and never impressed me again (or maybe until her covergirl photo which was really good). That leaves us with a rather average overall portfolio, and the fact her skills only dicreased during her run is one of the explanation about why I was frustrated by her entering the top 3 of her cycle.

There was a second reason why she was disliked so much by the fanbase, which was nothing else than her attitude in general. First of all, I noticed that the majority of the drama in which Keenyah was involved took place in South Africa, only arround week 9 or 10. By the time, she had been screwed up by the judges on several photoshoots because of her weight gain, and I think that this treatement made her realise that her performance was going downhill. She consequently decided to kick things up and became a lot more competitive, but in a kind of agressive manner, which showed in the go-sees challenge for example. I could understand why she would have rubbed people the wrong way with that attitude, but to me it wasn’t deliberated nastiness or selfishness. The other big issue about Keenyah’s personnality was her supposed comments about Naima openning Nelson Mandela’s cell. Well, major spoiler alert : after replaying over and over this episode, I noticed that Keenyah NEVER said that Naima « wasn’t black enough to open Nelson Mandela’s cell ». Brittany implied she said that, but we never saw it coming out of Keenyah’s mouth. And at that point, the show wanted to portray her as a villain so badly that they would have certainly showed us her saying that (had she really said it). She actually made a questionnable comment about « not seeing a black woman in Naima », which could have totally been taken out of context, but even though it’s not as ignorant and disrepectful as stating that someone isn’t black enough to do something. I’m not denying that Keenyah might have crossed the line about Naima’s ethnicity, but her words have been agravated to the extreme (thanks to Brittany by the way). And even if she didn’t know that much about Mandela, there is absolutely nothing wrong about getting emotionnal about the guide explained the girls what all of that really meant.