Jay Manuel is feeling a little defensive of the Top Model franchise.

"The problem is viewing public looks at the Top Model shows and says, 'I don't see any of those girls on the cover of magazines,'" he says.

As the creative director of America's Next Top Model and the host and executive producer of Canada's Next Top Model, Manuel frequently has to justify the reality modeling competitions. But it's even more of an issue now that recently fired America's Next Top Model judge Paulina Porizkova has made several public comments that the show does more harm than good for the aspiring models who appear on it. Manuel believes that there isn't anything wrong with the show, but with the modeling industry itself.

"Models in the '90s, where they're constantly being supported with major campaigns and covers and what-have-you - that doesn't exist anymore because they use Hollywood actresses," explains the native Torontonian. "Right now, the world is so fascinated with celebrity that if you look at all fashion magazines, they're all celebrity-based covers. There's still a place for models and modeling, it's just that we're so celebrity-driven that it's hard to pull these girls right out of these competitions into supermodel positions because they just don't exist for models in general."

Luckily for Manuel, Canada's Next Top Model has a slightly better track record than its American counterpart. While the first season was a bit of a wash (winner Andrea Muizelaar announced she wanted to quit modeling before her Top Model contract was even up), Season 2 winner Rebecca Hardy has cultivated a respectable career as a runway and print model in Canada and Europe.

"I believe the Canadian version of Top Model is a little more rooted in high fashion and I think we're a little more successful with the girls we're pulling up here," Manuel says. "So Rebecca Hardy hasn't been on the cover of Vogue; however, she is a working model. She is supporting herself with modeling and, to me, that means she's successful. She's gone out, she's gone to Europe, she has an agent in Europe – she's working."

After taking two years off (due to the CTV-CHUM merger), Canada's Next Top Model finally returns on May 26 with Season 3, with Manuel and his panel of delightfully catty judges searching for the next Rebecca Hardy.

"Now that the show is on CTV, it was important to me we really represented the country as a whole, when you look at the cast of girls and you see where they're from," he says. "Not only where they're physically from but they're also so ethnically diverse and the stories that we're telling are great."

As for what happens on the show, Manuel is predictably coy, though he does offer a few (admittedly vague) tidbits on the new season.

"One of the storylines we're doing this cycle hasn't even played out on the American show before," he says. "And none of the international formats of Model have ever travelled, and I wanted to honour the format just like we do on the American show, so the girls do travel internationally, not just once but twice."

Furthermore, he insists that viewers won't be able to predict the winner.

"You don't want the obvious competition, where you say, 'Well, it's one of these three girls and the rest will just go at some point.' You don't want that," says Manuel. "This cycle of Canada's Next Top Model, all 11 girls that you see have such incredible potential. The judges said this to me at the end of our first judging: 'Oh my gosh, who are we going to send home?' And that's the good thing! That's what you want."

But even after surviving the competition and beating out the other ten girls for the title of Canada's Next Top Model, the winner will have to work just as hard, if not harder, to make it in the fashion industry. Still, Manuel says, Top Model gives their contestants an advantage they wouldn't otherwise have.

"I think what it does do is it kind of gives them the opportunity to get their foot in the backdoor of an industry that's really hard to break into. It was hard to break into before, but it's very, very hard to break into now," he explains. "If you're a good working model and you can continue to model with what the business has to offer right now, then you're being successful."


Canada's Next Top Model airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on CTV.

Related Links:
• Inside the Canada's Next Top Model Auditions
• Paulina Porizkova Booted from Top Model for Tyra's Bad Behaviour
• Top Model Melee Ends in Tears, Arrests

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