Eva Marcille Says She Was “Gobsmacked” After Watching Explosive Top Model Doc Exposing Shocking Behind the Scenes Secrets [Video]

More than two decades after her breakout win, Eva Marcille is taking a hard look at the show that changed her life.

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The “America’s Next Top Model” Cycle 3 champion spoke on CBS Mornings about Netflix’s new docuseries Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, which revisits controversial moments from the long-running competition series. Watching it, she said, was overwhelming.

I watched it, and after I watched it, I was gobsmacked,” she told Gayle King, Nate Burleson, and Vladimir Duthiers. “I was in awe. … my mouth was wide open. To be a part of a club, and not know what’s going on in the club is crazy.”

Marcille, 41, said she was not contacted to participate in the documentary.

“They didn’t ask me,” she shared. “It was very surprising.”

While the series highlights her success, much of the focus centers on former contestants who allege body-shaming, racially insensitive challenges, and traumatic production experiences. One of the most disturbing accounts involves Cycle 2 runner-up Shandi Sullivan, who now alleges she was sexually assaulted during a filmed night out that previously aired as an apparent cheating scandal.

“Horrible. Horrible,” Marcille said of those revelations.

Although she said she was unaware of behind-the-scenes dynamics at the time, Marcille acknowledged producers played a role in shaping the environment. “That environment could not exist without producers aiding and embedding what was going on,” she said, adding that her later reality TV experience helped her better understand production influence.

Looking back, she sees the show differently than she did at 19. “We were kids trying to find our dreams realized and actualized by a woman who believed could do it for us,” she said. “It was a television show, I learned later, with a competition in it. But it was absolutely a TV show.”

Despite the controversy, Marcille remains grateful. “Thanks to Top Model, though,” she said. “What I will say is I will never fail to thank Tyra.”