Janice Dickinson redefines model behavior

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With this new Oxygen series, Janice Dickinson is, for the first time, in control of how the show is produced—and, it follows, how other people perceive her. Filming for this series “wasn’t intrusive,” Janice said in an interview, “because I’m an executive producer. I’m able to turn the camera on and off at whim. … or I edit out what I think is too personal.”

That was important for her, perhaps because the public’s current perception of her has been formed by her two previous reality shows, “Top Model” and “The Surreal Life.” It’s “very important for people to have control over their lives,” Janice said.

Perhaps contradictorily, she insists that “there’s no editing and no bulls---“ and that the new series remains one “of rigorous honesty.”

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On VH1’s “The Surreal Life,” a number of episodes focused on Janice’s near-constant combat with “Apprentice” star Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth. The two reality TV stars shrieked things such as, “I’ll yank your weave off, honey,” and Janice appeared to delight in torturing Omarosa, who relentlessly called Janice a “crackhead.” Fellow cast member Jose Canseco summed up the conflict by saying that Janice and Omarosa’s confrontation was “more scary than jail.”

It was riveting television that did more for VH1’s ratings than it did for Janice’s reputation, which was developed over four seasons on “America’s Next Top Model.” There, she sat in judgment of the models, hurling honesty-fueled verbal fireballs at them.

Surprisingly, two seasons ago Janice was essentially fired and replaced on the panel by the far more demure Twiggy. Janice said at the time that producers no longer wanted her brand of extreme truth-telling on the show, and in an interview, she said that producers ultimately “edited out all the stuff that I was saying that meant something.”

Still, she has appeared four times in the fifth and sixth season of the show, as a photographer and guest judge. Even after firing her, “Top Model” couldn’t divorce itself from Janice Dickinson, just as viewers are both repulsed and drawn in at the same time.

Andy Dehnart is a writer and teacher who publishes reality blurred, a daily summary of reality TV news.

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