Jay Manuel’s professional relationship with Tyra Banks never fully ‘recovered’ post ‘ANTM’

Jay Manuel’s professional relationship with Tyra Banks has always been a fan favorite and ever since his exit from America's Next Top Model, the makeup artist has remained tightlipped about what led to the rift.

Recently all that came to pass during an episode of Just the Sip, Manuel touched upon his professional relationship with Tyra.

Manuel claimed that even though he had the title of creative director on the show, no creative decisions were run by him. One such incident highlighted his lack of control on set and it was during Cycle 4 when Manuel claimed that he was extremely uncomfortable over Tyra asking him to judge a segment where the actresses swapped races.

Even when Manuel told Tyra, "I can't do this shoot” he was shrugged off and told I had to do that shoot and show up.” Not only that, “they said, 'don’t worry we'll cover you in the edit. We'll make sure you're not, kind of, dragged for it.'"

Even though he was extremely uncomfortable about shooting the segment, he had to stay on because he had "a network contract for several cycles” in a place that promoted a culture of fear.

Manuel went on to say, "On Top Model, there was a bit of this fear culture, so I kind of had to go along with it."

"I was free and clear to do whatever I wanted to do. And they wanted to renegotiate for more cycles, and I reached out to Tyra first because she always asked me to speak with her first. And I said, 'Unfortunately, I can't come back to the show…I feel like I've given all I can to the show and I'm going to work on other things.'"

Since Tyra was first and foremost a businesswoman, Manuel thought "thought for sure she'd understand" his decision, but it did not end up being the case, unfortunately.

"She just had two words for me, 'I'm disappointed.' And that was it, that was the end of the discussion."