Shandi Sullivan didn’t appear to be a TV personality when viewers first saw her on America’s Next Top Model. She looked less like a future model and more like a retail employee who had taken a wrong turn as she stood clumsily in the casting room under fluorescent lights, her shoulders slightly bent inward. She was, in fact, a Kansas City Walgreens clerk who had fallen into a cultural machine she was still unable to fully comprehend.
Transformation stories were in high demand in the early 2000s, and reality television was ready to provide them. Her appearance was swiftly altered by producers, who bleached her hair platinum blonde and trimmed her posture to create a version of her that was both recognizable and oddly different. Now that I’ve seen those makeover scenes, I get the impression that the show wasn’t merely tracking her development. It was steering it, meticulously crafting a story it could market.
Surprisingly, she flourished. She went far in the competition and made it to the finals despite having virtually no modeling experience. She appeared both excited and vulnerable as she passed historic stone structures and winding streets worn smooth by centuries of traffic in Milan. She might have gained a fleeting confidence based more on escape than certainty as a result of the separation from her everyday life. Milan, however, changed completely.
After many hours of filming and drinking, cameras captured footage one night that would define her public persona for years to come. It was portrayed on the show at the time as a cheating scandal involving her domestic partner. However, Sullivan later claimed that she was too drunk to fully recall or give her consent to what had transpired. Nevertheless, the video was broadcast, transformed into poignant television that viewers eagerly watched. Seldom does reality TV stop to consider who bears the emotional cost.
She sobbed while sitting on the floor during a phone conversation with her boyfriend in one of the most awkward moments, while millions of people watched her fall apart. The white walls and hardwood floors of the apartment increased the feeling of openness and loneliness. As you watch it now, you can’t help but wonder if the people behind the camera understood the distinction between exploitation and storytelling.
That season, she came in third. It appeared to be a success on paper. However, success didn’t feel like it should have. When she later returned to New York, she encountered unfamiliar people who knew her and frequently called her derogatory names associated with that one incident. It turns out that fame can be selective, keeping only the parts that garner attention and throwing away everything else. Her modeling career didn’t last as long as anticipated.
She tried to establish a career in fashion by going to castings and events. However, the show’s shadow followed her everywhere. One gets the impression that reality TV, particularly in its early years, struggled to let go of its characters after defining them.
She eventually moved away. Her life changed to focus on more subdued pursuits like jewelry, music, and animals. For a while, she worked as a DJ, playing in dark places where fame wasn’t important. She appeared to be deliberately choosing to remain anonymous, as if she were taking back control of how much of herself the public saw.
She hardly talked about her experience in public for years.
With the publication of a documentary reexamining the show’s legacy, that changed recently. There is a discernible difference when viewing her interviews now that she is older and more collected. She conveys distance and unresolved emotion in her voice. It’s still unclear if telling her story resolves the issue or merely reopens a wound that never completely healed.
Even reality TV has evolved. Contemporary viewers are more dubious and conscious of the ways in which stories are constructed behind the scenes. Things that used to be amusing now seem more serious, posing moral dilemmas that weren’t widely addressed in 2004. It’s difficult to ignore how the industry changed only after competitors like her faced the repercussions.
She now resides in Brooklyn. Running her jewelry business, taking care of her pets, and hosting a podcast about horror movies are some of her quieter daily activities. It’s a stark contrast to her previous life. She chooses what is shared rather than having cameras record every reaction.
The connection still exists, though. Every time the show is brought up, her name keeps coming up, permanently linked to a moment she never truly owned. People’s cultural memories have a way of immobilizing them even as their actual lives go on.
There’s a lingering feeling that her story goes beyond modeling and TV as you watch this unfold from a distance. It explores what occurs when regular people are transformed into fictional characters in stories they did not write. And if they ever really get away from them.