Disgraced America's Next Top Model winner Angelea Preston has alleged that producers knew she worked as an escort when they allowed her to enter the 2011 All Stars season, then disqualified her and pretended it was a shock when another contestant reported her for it.
Preston won the 2011 season and was due to sign a $100,000 contract with Covergirl cosmetics but she was stripped of her title and scrubbed from the finale episode after another unnamed contestant reported to Tyra Banks and the show that she had worked previously as an escort.
The episode that did air saw Banks address the controversy cryptically.
'We're back in Los Angeles on the Top Model set and we're here for a special finale that's being conducted under unusual circumstances,' she said.
'It turns out that after shooting was wrapped, our production team and the network learned information from Angelea that disqualifies her from the competition,' co-judge Nigel Barker added somberly.
Runner-up Lisa D'Amato was crowned the winner instead. In 2014, Preston sued the show for breach of contract. She later told DailyMail.com exclusively how she and other contestants were starved and deprived of water for hours while filming.
Now, Preston and another former ANTM contestant Krista White are claiming that the show's producers were fully aware of her sex work when they invited her to compete in the season, then pretended to be shocked by it after filming wrapped.
They stripped her of the title and a $100,000 CoverGirl contract which she said she was relying on.
'It was already traumatic going through the sex-work stuff, and now to add insult to injury, they were punishing me for the rest of my life. I was gutted. Back then you didn't talk about [sex work] because it was shameful, and I felt ashamed. And [Top Model] made me feel even more ashamed than I already was,' she told Scroll down for video
Angelea Preston won the 2011 All Stars season of America's Next Top Model but was stripped of the title because she had worked as an escort şişli. Producers claimed it was news to them that emerged after filming wrapped but Preston (right in 2015) now says they knew all along
The finale episode that aired showed Banks and other judges talking about the 'unusual circumstances' that led to Angelea being disqualified
Preston alleges that casting producer Michelle Mock even quizzed her about it, asking: 'Were you being pimped?' before asking her to sign on in 2011.
'It was going to be our little secret,' she said in her interview with Bustle.
Mock did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's inquiries on Monday.
Preston has told in the past how she was portrayed as the 'broke one' on the show. She had a young son and had also mourned the loss of a daughter.