Celebrity
Nearly 11 years later, the former contestant is ready to talk.
Angelea Preston describes the moment she won Season 17 ofAmericas Next Top Model: All Starswith levity.
I just could not believe it was me, she tells me.
I almost ran off the set.
I was like Are you serious?
!, breaking the fourth wall and looking in the camera.
I hugged the other girls, but at the same time I was like, Bye, yall!
I just won, and my life is about to start!
But fans have never seen Prestons victory.
They made me feel like Id be a failure for the rest of my life, Preston says.
Americas Next Top Modelhas cast a long shadow on reality television.
As fans returned to her story, she started writing a memoir.
When you Google my name, the words disqualified or escort pop up, she says.
It annoys me sometimes.
This one moment has been following me for a decade, and people really want to know what happened.
Preston grew up a few miles away on Buffalos East Side, which she lovingly calls the ghetto.
That morning, she was up with the sun for work at a local radio station.
Two seasons later, in 2009, Preston made the cut.
Basically, they said Id go home if I wasnt giving them good TV, Preston recalls now.
I started to realize what thisTop Modelgame was about.
Its about staying on the show as long as you possibly can by playing the game.
In Season 14, she was eliminated in the penultimate round after a fiery, successful sprint.
It started to feel like a joke to me, says Preston, who was 24 at the time.
I would bring my portfolio to an agency, which had all myTop Modelphotos in them.
Thats all I had.
After I said yes, he scoffed and closed my book.
He said, If we like you, well call you.
Preston believes this was partially because of a stigma associated with the show.
I felt like a failure.
She remembers being recognized at a bus stop shortly after Season 14 aired.
Preston told her she lived nearby, and the woman was shocked.
Preston became desperate for work.
He introduced himself as T* and asked Preston if she was a model.
She described him as super attractive, and they exchanged phone numbers.
However, during their early conversations, she felt something was off.
She remembers feeling like she was being recruited for something unrelated to modeling.
And I was like What?
But it all felt kind of playful.
I was very naive.
The women she met were, as Preston remembers, very beautiful.
One had a designer dog in a Louis Vuitton bag.
Both had their hair and nails impeccably done, and wore designer shoes and Rolex watches.
It was too good to be true, but I still went along with it, she says.
T soon flew Preston and the other two women to North Carolina.
She didnt want to go, and used menstrual cramps as a reason to stay behind.
They looked at her.
One woman said, Uh, girl, Ts not going to like that.
At this point, Preston realized she had made a mistake.
Very few people knew where she was.
Shed told the rest she was traveling for a job in real estate.
She wanted to leave, but didnt have money to fly back to New York.
So Preston stayed and accompanied the group to Florida next.
One time, while in a car with T and his cousin, Preston flat-out refused.
[T] told his cousin to get out of the car.
[T] just punched me, and he broke the designer glasses I had on.
Preston alleges that T assaulted her on multiple occasions.
She describes them as out-of-body experiences, and a contributing factor to why she didnt leave.
The modeling industry is notorious for offering inadequate resources and protections for working models.
Moores work looks atanti-trafficking movements, specifically within the fashion and sex work industries.
According to Moore, human traffickers often target thoselacking financial security.
Its the only safety net being available for these people in a particular time of need, she says.
A few weeks after joining T, Prestons friends tried to intervene.
One of Prestons close friends alerted White to the situation.
I was like No, nope, no way.
But he kept asking me if I could get to her.
T wouldnt let her go.
So then it clicked, says White.
White rescheduled her plans with Preston for a few days later.
That time, T accompanied Preston to the car, peeking inside suspiciously.
White drove around the corner to an Applebees parking lot by the Boulevard Mall.
She locked the doors and called Prestons sister on speaker phone.
They sat in the car for a while, all crying, trying to convince Preston to walk away.
They offered to pay for her ticket back home, but she refused.
I wasnt ready to leave with Krista when she tried, Preston says.
I was very delusional, but I wanted to be with him.
A few people responded and offered to do what they could.
As far as White knows, no one ever took any action to help Preston.
There was no way for her to find [modeling] work or take care of herself or anything.
No one was hiring or booking her, she says.
When it came time for her to show up and really help someone, what happened?
About a month later, Preston escaped when the posse traveled to a hotel in Hauppauge on Long Island.
When they arrived in Long Island, T dropped her off at the hotel alone and left.
He didnt tell her where he was going.
Preston immediately called a friend to meet her in Brooklyn, and got on the Long Island Rail Road.
And I was done.
At a McDonalds parking lot in Queens, Preston told T she was done working for him.
She says it was difficult to say no.
According to Preston, she traveled with T for about a month.
White remembers it as definitely longer than that.
She flew out to Los Angeles in April 2011 to meet with supervising talent producer Michelle Mock again.
According to Preston, during their conversation, Mock brought up her stint as an escort.
Were you being pimped?
and Were you doing anything illegal?
Up until this point, I didnt know if Kristas call had even reached anyone, she says.
Preston denied the accusation.
Mock accepted her answer in the moment.
Preston surmised that Mock knew the truth.
It was going to be our little secret.
In Season 17, Prestons arc was tenuous.
She was ganged up on by other contestants and nearly eliminated multiple times.
Still, she made it to the final round in Crete, Greece and then won.
The cast had just been featured inUs Weekly, but the season hadnt premiered on television yet.
The season would still air, but she would not appear as the victor.
All signs of Prestons win would be scrubbed clean.
Preston spent the rest of the meeting sobbing.
But perhaps the most scathing words came from Wong.
You did this to yourself.
A representative from VH1, which airedTop Modelfrom Season 23 onward, declined to comment.)
She didnt pick up.
That very brief time [with T] caused so much chaos and turmoil after the fact.
I didnt know they were going to do anAll Starscycle, she says now.
If I knew, you think I wouldve put myself in that situation?
Preston remembers the drama that circulated online when the Season 17 finale episode finally aired.
I remember everyone on Twitter was like, What happened to Angelea?
I thought that was so funny because the winner, Lisa, [was barely] trending.
But I was trending.
People want to know, Wheres Angelea?
But no one from that show said anything.
And neither did Preston, not for about three years.
(Production assistants known as house moms were allegedly in charge of enforcing these rules.
The complaint alleges that one house mom resigned in protest of the on-set conditions.)
The following year, she took her storyto the British tabloid theDaily Mail.
Three and a half years after filing the suit, Preston dropped the claim in 2018.
I realized I wasnt going to win, Preston says.
I didnt get any money from it.
The only good thing that happened [was that] people knew I was the winner.
She also thinks their actions enforced the message that sex work is immoral.
On a personal note, I thought Angelea was a wonderful addition toANTM.
She was talented and charismatic.
I wish her nothing but the best in her future.
A representative for Banks declined to comment.
Banks addressed the discourse,first on Twitterand lateron theTamron Hall Show.
She has never appeared to publicly comment on anything pertaining to Preston specifically.
Since leaving the modeling industry, Preston graduated in the traditional sense.
She now works as a Sunday host for NPRs WBFO in her hometown.
(She frequently postsreels of her work on Instagram.)
But back then you didnt talk about it because it was shameful, and I felt ashamed.
And [Top Model] made me feel even more ashamed than I already was.
Preston looks down at her plate.
For me, all of that stuff could have really broken me down, she says.
*Name has been changed for the safety of those involved.
Photographer: Katie Addo
Hair & Makeup: Chantelle Nicole
This article was originally published onMarch 31, 2022
