Earlier than she was an actor on Chicago Med and The Lincoln Lawyer, Yaya DaCosta was a runner-up on Cycle 3 of America’s Subsequent Prime Mannequin, a actuality collection hosted and executive-produced by Tyra Banks. And DaCosta says she and Banks just lately had a regenerative reunion that healed a number of the “actual trauma” of the present.
DaCosta bumped into Banks on the ESSENCE Black Ladies in Hollywood Awards in Los Angeles on February 27, the place Banks accepted the first-ever Luminary Highlight Award.
“I haven’t had an actual interplay with this girl since 2004,” DaCosta stated in an Instagram video on Saturday, March 15. “The story I’d been telling for therefore lengthy was a narrative of trauma.”
DaCosta talked about the controversies and allegations across the present — the problematic modifying, the damaging impression on contestants’ physique dysmorphia and consuming issues, and the present’s use of blackface.
“Sure, there was actual trauma,” DaCosta stated. “And it wasn’t accidentally. It was by design. The objective was leisure over real-world modeling preparation, and particularly over psychological well being.”
However when she noticed Banks on the awards present, DaCosta noticed “an incredible alternative for me to shut that chapter as I’m starting a brand new one and to mannequin grace,” she stated. “I used to be so excited on this second to stroll over to her to succeed in for her palms and to greet her with heat, with gratitude, with love.”
DaCosta agreed with what Banks stated in her acceptance speech that evening — that for all of its issues, Prime Mannequin additionally made strides for onscreen illustration. DaCosta advised Instagram followers the present spotlit “variations of magnificence” by that includes plus-size fashions, trans and homosexual fashions, and female and male fashions.
“Sure, issues change,” she stated. “Like she stated, all of us evolve. Society as a complete is shifting, and so no surprise we as people are shifting. Let’s not fake the present wasn’t wildly profitable, as a result of its viewers was proper up there on the judging desk.”
She went on: “All of us evolve. We’re all doing the very best we will always with the sources that we now have. It doesn’t imply that we settle for abuse, however we all know that everybody is simply attempting to get their human wants met. After I hear this speech, what I hear is braveness. It takes braveness to stand up in entrance of individuals and at last say what’s been on her thoughts and coronary heart for therefore a few years and demand on recognition for the constructive, and never simply the damaging.”
And earlier than she and Banks parted that evening, DaCosta gave the previous Prime Mannequin host what she needed to be a transformative hug. “Y’all, I held that girl,” she stated. “And when it was time for the hug to be over, I held some extra. I took a deep breath as a result of I needed her to really feel what it looks like to completely be forgiven, appreciated, and cherished. And we provide help in hopes that when it’s our flip that, we obtain help, too — when it’s our flip to face up, and whether or not it’s in entrance of 1 individual or tens of millions of individuals, and maintain ourselves accountable, that we’re acquired.”