America's Next Top Model All Star: Recap cycle 17

Here are the big three!

First is... Allison Harvard

Allison Harvard definitely deserved to be named “America’s Next Top Model All Star.” She always seemed aware that the whole thing was ridiculous — One-word branding? Bath tub perfume ads? Pot Ledom?! I am Tookie?! — and stayed above it without mocking the whole thing or taking it much too seriously. For sure, she is my favorite model. She is so stunning with her beautiful big eyes. I dissapointed just because she was the runner up. So far, all her photoshoot and act are so purrrrrr-fect.


Second is... Lisa D'amato

Lissa D'amato is tottaly the craziest model ever. She has a strong personality and dedicated to win. I love her so much. She is really show herself naturally. She wild and always looks so gorgeous and FAB!

Third is... Angelea Preston

Angelea Preston was an answering service operator before she appeared on the show for the first time. She is currently living in Queens, New York, but is originally from Buffalo, New York. She is 25 years old. She took everything way too seriously. This was her Hunger Games and it brought out all of her emotions —good and bad, but mostly bad. And then something happened to disqualify Angelea, after the final runway show, right when the panel was about to judge the winner.

As Nigel put it: “It turns out that after shooting was wrapped, our production team and the network learned information from Angelea that disqualifies her from the competition.” 

From Mr. Jay's timeline:

What went on with Angelea? They didn’t say. It was frustratingly cryptic, especially since Angelea was so into the competition up to this point. However, everyone said they wished Angelea the best so she couldn’t have done anything too awful.

According to comments below, as well as other reports, Angelea supposedly posted some finale spoilers on Facebook and that got her dumped.

Anyway, the finale came down to two girls after all: Allison vs. Lisa D’Amato.

Lisa grew on me as the cycle progressed. I came to love the wild child. But really? She’s ANTM’s first All Star?

She just doesn’t fit the high fashion mold as much as Allison. She also reads a little “old” to me — model “old” not real-life old. Both Lisa and Angelea are a little more commercial, which fits with the “Extra” correspondent part of the competition, but not the pure modeling part.

Allison actually matched her branding term — unique — which automatically set her up to win, in my eyes, since that’s what they were looking for to begin with. Lisa was given “daring” and Angelea had “persistence” and neither one had the same ring.

Plus, Allison at least kept pace with her previous season, even if she didn’t improve on it. (I don’t think anyone really improved.) She took gorgeous photos and managed to turn her I-can’t-look-into-the-sun issues into assets, since it made her eyes tear up and look stunning. She also came out of her shell a lot more and showed her personality, which seemed to include a dry wit and natural gift for random goth music videos.

On that note, I got sick of hearing about her supposed lack of personality — as if being more reserved than the crazies is the same thing as having no personality. It isn’t. Just like being loud and overconfident does not equal a personality.  To me, it just equals obnoxious. Allison may be reserved but she’s great on camera and if she’s interviewing someone she might actually let the interview be about the subject.

As they said during the finale, she’s one of the  most popular past contestants and even The Game fell in love with her. Tyson Beckford wasn’t as into her, but that’s probably because she failed to worship him as much as Angelea.

I like Lisa well enough — and I think she’ll do well with the “Extra” interviews — but Allison was the real star of this season. Maybe they can keep bringing her back until they get it right?