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What The Winners Of America’s Next Top Model Look Like Today

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Tyra Banks promised every winner a CoverGirl contract and a spot in the fashion pages — some cashed that check, and some walked straight out of the industry entirely.

“America’s Next Top Model” ran for 24 cycles between 2003 and 2018, jumping from UPN to The CW to VH1 while crowning 24 champions and spawning more than 50 international spinoffs. Created by Tyra Banks and Ken Mok, the show turned “smize” into a household verb, but the winners who actually walked away with the title didn’t all end up where the finale promised. A Nicki Swift video feature checks in on where the franchise’s most notable champions landed, and the split between the early Cycle winners and the later, more diverse crop is stark.

• Cycle 1 winner Adrianne Curry parlayed her win into VH1’s “My Fair Brady” before settling in Montana with husband Matthew Rhode and running a lifestyle blog.
• Cycle 21’s Keith Carlos became the franchise’s first male champion, going from the NFL to Nike and Diesel campaigns and a spot in Cardi B’s “Be Careful” video.
• Cycle 22 winner Nyle DiMarco, the show’s first Deaf contestant and champion, went on to win Season 22 of “Dancing with the Stars” in 2016 and founded the Nyle DiMarco Foundation.

The Early Champions Who Stuck With Fame

Adrianne Curry’s Cycle 1 win in 2003 turned into a genuine reality TV career rather than a modeling one. She landed on VH1’s “My Fair Brady” alongside then-husband Christopher Knight before eventually stepping out of the spotlight, marrying Matthew Rhode, and relocating to Montana, where she now runs a lifestyle blog far removed from the runway.

Eva Pigford, Cycle 3’s champion, took a different route into acting. She became a fixture on “The Young and the Restless” under the name Eva Marcille before landing on Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” giving her one of the longest-running post-“Top Model” media presences of any winner. Cycle 9 winner Saleisha Stowers followed a similar arc, moving into soap operas and later appearing on Tyler Perry’s “Sistas,” proof that for some champions the show was less a modeling launchpad than an acting audition tape. Readers curious about how other contestants — not just winners — fared after the show can dig into the contestants who actually made it in modeling after leaving the competition.

Walking Away From Fashion Entirely

Not every winner stayed anywhere near a camera. Cycle 11 champion McKey Sullivan married MMA fighter Sam Alvey and pivoted into midwifery, a full 180 from runway shows and CoverGirl ads. Cycle 20’s Jourdan Miller took a rockier path, working through bankruptcy before launching her own platform, “Love, Jourdan,” rebuilding her public presence on her own terms rather than the industry’s.

The Male Winners Who Changed the Format

The franchise didn’t open the competition to men until Cycle 21, and Keith Carlos made the most of it. A former NFL player, Carlos went from the football field to campaigns for Nike and Diesel, then landed a visible placement in Cardi B’s “Be Careful” music video — a level of crossover most “Top Model” winners never reached.

Cycle 22 produced the franchise’s most prominent breakout star in Nyle DiMarco, the show’s first Deaf contestant and champion. DiMarco didn’t stop at modeling for high-profile designers; he took his visibility straight into mainstream television.

Nyle DiMarco didn’t just win Cycle 22 of “America’s Next Top Model” — he came back and won Season 22 of “Dancing with the Stars” in 2016.

Beyond the ballroom trophy, DiMarco established the Nyle DiMarco Foundation to advocate for Deaf culture and bilingual education, turning his “Top Model” win into a platform that outlasted the show itself.

Two Very Different Definitions of Success

Line up Adrianne Curry’s Montana blog against Nyle DiMarco’s foundation work and Keith Carlos’s Cardi B cameo, and it’s clear “winning” “America’s Next Top Model” never meant one fixed outcome. Some champions took Tyra’s runway promises and ran with them into acting and reality TV; others, like McKey Sullivan, took the title and walked in the opposite direction entirely — straight into midwifery.