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Next Top Model Stars Who Look Much Different Today

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Seven ANTM alumni traded runway strobes for restaurants, newsrooms and a Citigroup office.

America’s Next Top Model has run more than 300 episodes and produced its share of viral runway meltdowns since Tyra Banks launched it in 2003, but the show’s real afterlife is what happened once the cameras stopped rolling. A new Nicki Swift breakdown tracks seven contestants — from Cycle 2 winner Yoanna House to Cycle 18’s Sophie Sumner — and shows just how far some of them wandered from high fashion.

• Analeigh Tipton placed third in Cycle 11 (2008) before landing a role in ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’ alongside Steve Carell and later starring in ‘Manhattan Love Story’ (2014).
• Yaya DaCosta was Cycle 3’s runner-up in 2004, then went on to play Whitney Houston in Lifetime’s ‘Whitney’ (2015) and now stars as April Sexton on NBC’s ‘Chicago Med’.
• Whitney Thompson became ANTM’s first plus-size winner in Cycle 10 (2008) and has since shifted into running a restaurant in Florida.

The Early Cycles: Yoanna House and Kim Stolz

Yoanna House won Cycle 2 back in 2004 on the strength of her pixie cut and a bone structure the judges couldn’t stop talking about. She’s stayed in front of cameras since, moving into television fashion correspondent and hosting work rather than chasing runway bookings. Her look barely resembles the severe, editorial edge she brought to the competition table read fifteen years ago.

Kim Stolz, from Cycle 5, was one of the show’s first openly gay contestants and spent years afterward working fashion gigs and as an MTV News correspondent. She eventually walked away from media entirely, becoming a vice president at Citigroup and publishing a book — a pivot that has nothing to do with modeling and everything to do with reinvention. Readers curious how other franchise winners aged out of the spotlight can compare notes with what the winners of America’s Next Top Model look like today.

Cycle 11’s Split Paths: Tipton and Sullivan

Analeigh Tipton and McKey Sullivan both came out of Cycle 11 in 2008, but their careers went in opposite directions. Tipton took third place and used it as a launchpad into Hollywood, eventually sharing scenes with Steve Carell in ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’ and headlining ‘Manhattan Love Story’ in 2014. Sullivan actually won the cycle, sporting one of the show’s more memorable edgy makeovers during her run, but largely stepped back from high-fashion work afterward to start a family.

Whitney Thompson made history as ANTM’s first plus-size winner in 2008 — then traded the runway for a Florida kitchen.

DaCosta’s Leap Into Prestige TV

No cycle produced a more surprising second act than Yaya DaCosta’s. She finished as Cycle 3’s runner-up in 2004, and more than a decade later she was cast as Whitney Houston in Lifetime’s ‘Whitney’ biopic, released in 2015. She’s since built a steady network-TV career playing April Sexton on ‘Chicago Med,’ proof that a runner-up finish doesn’t cap a career the way it might’ve looked back in 2004. For a wider survey of contestants who parlayed the show into real staying power, see America’s Next Top Model contestants who actually made it.

Thompson and Sumner’s Post-Runway Reinventions

Whitney Thompson’s Cycle 10 win in 2008 was historic on its own — she remains ANTM’s first plus-size champion — but her current chapter is entirely culinary, running a restaurant in Florida rather than booking editorial shoots. Sophie Sumner, who’d already finished runner-up on ‘Britain’s Next Top Model’ before winning ANTM’s 2012 “British Invasion” cycle, built her identity around a signature blonde-and-pink hairstyle and has since moved into lifestyle hosting work.

Seven contestants, seven completely different second careers — a med drama, a Citigroup title, a Florida dining room, a Hollywood rom-com credit. That’s the real afterlife of ANTM: the runway walk was never the whole story, just the audition tape for whatever came next.