Many have suspected that the show is fixed and certain contestants have had bad photos from their photoshoot put forward to panel, in a bid to get them bad critiques and then eliminated. In a May 2020 Instagram livestream, Jay Manuel seemed to confirm these rumours, saying that after every photoshoot, as the creative director, he would choose the "top 4" photos from each girls' photoshoot, and then "put a heart" on one he believed to be the best. He explained that he gave those photos to Tyra and he used to talk to Tyra Banks about the photoshoot. However, he alleged that he was often "surprised" when Tyra often didn't pick one of the photos that Jay chose, although said that he didn't know if it was Tyra or production who did it, or why. Manuel also discredited Tyra's claims that she looks through everyone's entire film, saying that he rates the girl's films from 5 stars to 1 star, and Tyra only looked through the films that Jay ranked 5, 4 or 3 stars, saying there was "no point" going through the 2 or 1 star films, especially since Tyra didn't have the time.