Tyra Banks

Early life

Tyra Lynne Banks was born in Inglewood, California on December 4, 1973. Her mother, Carolyn London (now London-Johnson), is a medical photographer, and her father, Donald Banks, is a computer consultant. She has a brother, Devin, who is five years older. In 1979, when Banks was six years old, her parents divorced. She attended John Burroughs Middle School and graduated in 1991 from Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles. Banks said that while growing up, she was teased for her appearance and considered an "ugly duckling"; when she was 11 years old, she grew three inches and lost 30 pounds in three months. On America's Next Top Model, Banks discussed the results of an Ancestry.com genealogical DNA test saying that she is "79% African, 14% British, and 6% Native American." In an interview, she added that she is also "1% Finnish", saying: "I'm 14% British, 6% Native American, 1% Finnish, and all the rest African." In February 2012, Banks completed a nine-week course in Harvard University's Owner/President Management non-degree extension program.

Modeling career

When Banks was 15 years old, she started modeling while attending Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles. She was rejected by four modeling agencies before she was signed by L.A. Models. She switched to Elite Model Management at age 16. When she got the opportunity to model in Europe, she moved to Milan. In her first runway season, she booked 25 shows in the 1991 Paris Fashion Week. She appeared in editorials for American, Italian, French, and Spanish Vogue; American, French, German, and Spanish Elle; American, German, and Malaysian Harper's Bazaar; V; W, and Vanity Fair.

She appeared on the covers of magazines including Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Spanish Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Seventeen. She walked in fashion shows for Chanel, Oscar de la Renta, Yves Saint Laurent, Anna Sui, Christian Dior, Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, Perry Ellis, Marc Jacobs, Givenchy, Herve Leger, Valentino, Fendi, Isaac Mizrahi, Giorgio Armani, Sonia Rykiel, Michael Kors, and others. She appeared in advertising campaigns for Yves Saint Laurent, Dolce & Gabbana, Escada, Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Halston, H&M, XOXO, Swatch, Versace, Christian Lacroix, Victoria's Secret, Got Milk?, Pepsi, and Nike. In 1993, Banks signed a contract with CoverGirl cosmetics, launching advertising campaigns for the cosmetics company. She was one of only a few Black models to achieve supermodel status. In the mid-1990s, Banks returned to the U.S. to do commercial modeling.

Banks was the first Black woman on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and the first African-American woman on the cover of GQ. In 1997, she received the VH1 award for "Supermodel of the Year". Also in 1997, she was the first African American chosen for the cover of the Victoria's Secret catalog and became a Victoria's Secret Angel. In 2010, she re-signed with her former modeling agency IMG Models. Banks is a contributor of the Vogue Italia website. In 2013, she transformed herself into looking like 15 supermodels, in collaboration with fashion photographer Udo Spreitzenbarth.

In 2019, Banks came out of modeling retirement posing for one of the three 2019 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue covers; the other cover models being Camille Kostek and Alex Morgan. It was her third cover for the publication, 22 years after her first. She announced that she would go by the modeling name BanX, she no longer uses BanX. In 2024, she returned from runway retirement and walked for the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show as the closing model.

Television and film career

Banks's television career began on the fourth season of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, in which she played lead character Will Smith's old friend Jackie Ames. She made seven appearances in the series. Other TV credits include Felicity, All That, MADtv, Nick Cannon's Wild 'n Out (ishe was a special guest host and team captain) and The Price Is Right (guest-starring as a "Barker's Beauty"). She appeared as a guest in the animated talk show Space Ghost Coast to Coast in an episode entitled "Chinatown".

Banks began a production company, "Ty Ty Baby Productions"—soon changed to Bankable Productions—which produced The Tyra Banks Show, America's Next Top Model and the 2008 movie The Clique. She is the executive producer and former presenter and judge of America's Next Top Model. In addition, she hosted The Tyra Banks Show, a daytime talk show aimed at younger women, which premiered on September 12, 2005 and ran until May 28, 2010.

In 2008, Banks won the Daytime Emmy Award for her work and production on The Tyra Banks Show, and won for the second time in a row for outstanding, informative talkshow in 2009. Her first big screen role came in 1994, when she co-starred in the drama Higher Learning. She then co-starred with Lindsay Lohan in the Disney film Life-Size, playing a doll named Eve who comes to life. Other films she has starred in include Love Stinks (1999), Love & Basketball (2000), Coyote Ugly (2000), Halloween: Resurrection (2002), and Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009). Banks appeared in the fourth episode of the third season of Gossip Girl playing Ursula Nyquist, a larger-than-life actress. She appeared on the Disney Channel show Shake It Up as a school librarian.

In 2012, Deadline Hollywood reported that Banks would co-create and produce an ABC comedy series based on her teenage years titled Fivehead. In 2015, she starred in the roundtable lineup talk show FABLife alongside model Chrissy Teigen, fashion stylist Joe Zee, interior designer Lauren Makk, and YouTube personality Leah Ashley. Banks quit the series after less than three months to focus on her cosmetics company. In 2018, she returned to acting for her starring role in Life-Size 2, which premiered on Freeform on December 2. She will star and executive produce Beauty, a documentary series for Quibi. In 2018, she signed a deal with Universal Television. In July 2020, it was announced that Banks would be the new host of Dancing with the Stars. In August 2020, she signed a deal with ABC Signature. In March 2023, she decided to leave the show after three seasons and focus on business commitments.

Banks appeared in the 2025 reboot of the game show Hollywood Squares. In May 2025, it was revealed that Banks will star in a Netflix documentary about ANTM.

Other ventures

Cosmetics

In 2014, Banks founded the cosmetics brand Tyra Beauty, which she completed a non-degree certificate program at Harvard Business School specifically for. Tyra Beauty uses a multi-level marketing system to recruit sales distributors, who are called "beautytainers" by the company. She held a casting call to find faces for her line, eventually selecting Melody Parra, Monique Hayward, Katy Harvey and Top Model Norge contestant Marita Gomsrud as the cosmetic line's original beauty models. In March 2011, Banks launched her fashion and beauty website called "typeF.com", which she co-created with Demand Media. In 2015, she launched "tyra.com", an interactive cosmetic e-commerce site.

Music

Banks has appeared in several music videos including Michael Jackson's "Black or White", Mobb Deep's "Trife Life", Tina Turner's "Love Thing", George Michael's "Too Funky" (with models Linda Evangelista, Estelle Lefébure, Emma Sjoberg, and Nadja Auermann), and Lionel Richie's "Don't Wanna Lose You". In 2004, she recorded her first single, "Shake Ya Body", with a music video featuring contestants from cycle 2 of America's Next Top Model. The video premiered on UPN. Banks released a single with NBA player Kobe Bryant, entitled "K.O.B.E.", which was performed on NBA TV. She also had a single on the Life-Size (2000) soundtrack called "Be a Star". She recorded a song with musician Todrick Hall for his 2021 album Femuline, entitled "Fashón".

Writing

In 1998, Banks co-authored a book entitled Tyra's Beauty, Inside and Out. She announced in May 2010 that she would be writing a novel, Modelland, loosely based on her own modelling experience. It was published in September 2011, intended to be the first of a planned three-part series; Modelland topped The New York Times Best Seller list in October 2011. In 2018, Banks and her mother, Carolyn London, co-authored a book entitled "Perfect is Boring".

Teaching

In August 2016, Banks was a personal branding guest lecturer at Stanford University.

Smize & Dream

Banks founded Smize & Dream (SMiZe Cream), a boutique ice cream brand, in 2020. The shop was inspired by Banks' childhood memories of having ice cream with her mother Carolyn on Friday nights. SMiZe first sold package ice cream in California. It has opened pop-up ice cream shops in Los Angeles, Dubai, Washington, D.C., and one permanent location in Sydney.

Personal life

Banks dated Norwegian photographer Erik Asla during the 2010s. She struggled with infertility; her and Asla's attempts to conceive through in vitro fertilisation were unsuccessful. In January 2016, their son York Banks Asla was born via gestational surrogacy. Banks said that she tends to avoid drinking and has never used recreational drugs.

She has spoken out about abusive relationships in her past. In 2005, when asked about her relationship history, she said, "I won't be using a lot of names on the show, but a specific relationship had not just cheating but emotional abuse. It was really bad, but that made me strong." In 2009, she opened up about her past relationships when she made a guest appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, hosting alongside Oprah Winfrey. The episode was dedicated to dating violence in response to the assault of Rihanna by Chris Brown.

In January 2025, Banks' home in Los Angeles was destroyed in the Palisades Fire. She and her boyfriend, Louis Bélanger-Martinwas, were in Australia at the time.

Education

In 2012, Banks completed Harvard Business School's Owner/President Management Program (OPM), a nine-week executive education course. After she mentioned that she was attending Harvard in an interview, many news publications published articles clarifying the difference between the OPM program and the widely-known Harvard MBA program. In 2012, Harvard professor Rohit Deshpande was preparing a case study on Banks's company, Bankable Productions, for use in future coursework in the OPM program.

Philanthropy

Banks established the TZONE program, which emphasized leadership and life skills development. She established the Tyra Banks Scholarship, a fund aimed at providing African-American girls the opportunity to attend her alma mater, Immaculate Heart High School. In 2005, TZONE went from being a camp to a public charity, the Tyra Banks TZONE.

Filmography

Film

Television

Music videos

Discography

; Singles

• 2000: "Be A Star"
• 2004: "Shake Ya Body"
• 2018: "Be A Star 2" (featuring New Fear's Eve)
• 2025: "Santa SMiZE, Santa SMiZE" (Tyra Banks as Santa SMiZE, featuring Tyra Banks)

; Guest appearances

• 1999: "K.O.B.E." (Kobe Bryant featuring Tyra Banks)
• 2021: "FASHÓN" (Todrick Hall featuring Tyra Banks)
• 2021: "I Want That Smize Cream" (DJ Splitz featuring Tyra Banks and STORi)

Bibliography

• {{Cite book
• {{Cite book | title-link = Modelland
• {{Cite book

Awards and nominations

References

References

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