Alexandra Underwood tells EW why she actually enjoyed watching Goldberg cackle over the infamous cycle 14 moment, despite being “mortified” and injured by the fall.

ANTM contestant reacts to Whoopi Goldberg’s apology for laughing at runway fall on *The View *(exclusive)

Alexandra Underwood tells EW why she actually enjoyed watching Goldberg cackle over the infamous cycle 14 moment, despite being "mortified" and injured by the fall.

Joey Nolfi is a senior writer at *. *Since 2016, his work at EW includes *RuPaul's Drag Race* video interviews, Oscars predictions, and more.

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February 19, 2026 3:30 p.m. ET

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Whoopi Goldberg; Alexandra Underwood's runway fall on 'ANTM' cycle 14. Credit:

- *ANTM* contestant Alexandra Underwood exclusively tells EW how she feels about Whoopi Goldberg's recent on-air apology.

- The model reveals why she actually enjoyed watching* The View* moderator laugh at a meme of her falling off the *Top Model* runway in 2010.**

- Underwood says she was initially "mortified" by the fall, calling it "inappropriate for the show to put me in that position."**

One day after Whoopi Goldberg made an on-air apology for previously laughing at her misfortune on *The View*, *America's Next Top Model* cycle 14 contestant Alexandra Underwood exclusively reacts to the Oscar winner's remarks in a new interview with *.*

Goldberg's apology came Wednesday, after she was featured in Netflix's *Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model *docuseries cackling in a 2010 episode of* The View* over an often-meme'd *ANTM* moment, which saw Underwood get hit by a giant swinging pendulum that knocked her off a runway during a challenge on Tyra Banks' reality series. Now, Underwood tells EW that she's grateful for Goldberg's words, and that they reshaped her perspective on what was once a painful memory.

"Is it not funny that we get a more sincere apology than we do from Tyra on the show?" Underwood says, before telling us that she "of course" accepts the *Ghost* actress' apology.

'ANTM' alum Alexandra Underwood.

Courtesy Alexandra Underwood

"I don't feel like she needed to apologize. I remember laughing at Whoopi laughing at me. Her reaction gave me permission to laugh at it, too," the model — who's currently in an international Nivea campaign — explains. "In the midst of it, I was mortified. It was inappropriate for the show to put me in that position. I was on *ANTM*, not *American Gladiator*. She gave me permission to laugh and find it funny, because to me, it wasn't."

Underwood maintains that she "should've never been put in that position by [*ANTM*]," but that, "Now, I laugh about it with her. I don't think there's an apology warranted from *her*. I think someone from the show should've been like, 'Maybe we shouldn't have done that.'"

After apologizing to Underwood by name on the air this week, Goldberg maintained that the moment remains "one of the funniest things" she'd ever seen. Underwood also recalls being hired to model designs on *The View *several years later, and says she hugged Goldberg and informed her that she was the model in the infamous clip.

The reality show mishap, however, resulted in Underwood being injured.**

'ANTM' winner Eva Marcille reveals 'amazingly horrified' reaction to docuseries

'ANTM' contestants unite, lobby government for reality TV protections: 'Pushing for real change'

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.***

"I cut my knees up," Underwood tells EW. Footage from the show at the time also shows a cut in her dress, as well as scrapes on her legs. The runway fall was also the *second* instance that Underwood fell that day, as she also took a spill while traveling down a flight of stairs to get to the runway moments prior.

"I was in that ridiculously tight dress in those super high heels, going down stairs," she recalls. "I was already shaken up going into the runway with the pendulum, so I was completely already shaken up and worried about getting axed."

Still, Underwood says that no one from *Top Model *— including Banks — has reached out to her to offer an apology, and that, after walking the runway for major designers in Milan Fashion Week and New York Fashion Week, nothing she's experienced in the real modeling word has "even come close to anything like that" pendulum runway, and that it was "purely done for entertainment," in her view.

Despite tying for third place on cycle 14, Underwood eventually signed with the esteemed agency Wilhelmina — a modeling contract with which served as the *ANTM* grand prize for multiple cycles.

With a successful career (she just began her 16th year in contract with Wilhelmina) in tow, Underwood acknowledges that she's "the outlier" when it comes to *ANTM* experiences, as many contestants and judges — including multiple alums interviewed for the explosive *Reality Check* Netflix docuseries highlighting *Top Model* scandals — have lashed out at the show with numerous allegations over the years.

"I got a great behind-the-scenes look at a big-budget production, and I found it very fun," Underwood says. "I've had a wonderful life and career, and I know that so few of the girls get to say that. How could I possibly completely look at it that were negative? There were negative things that happened, but it gave me this life."

She continues, "That's not to say I don't think some of the other girls absolutely deserve an apology for what they were put through. I will stand by them for that. But, I don't feel like *I'm* warranted an apology by anybody. There are other girls who are. I'm not one of them."

Alexandra Underwood from 'America's Next Top Model' cycle 14.

Courtesy Alexandra Underwood

Banks appeared on camera in the new *Reality Check *docuseries, where she addressed several controversies and admitted that she went "too far" in some instances. She also spoke on stage during an appearance at the 2025 *Essence* Black Women in Hollywood event, admitting that she "said some dumb s---" on the program, but defended her position.

"We fought and we struggled, but we made it happen," she said of casting models of different body types, backgrounds, and sexualities. "Did we get it right? Hell, no! I said some dumb s---. But I refuse to have my legacy be about some stuff linked together on the internet when there were 24 cycles of changing the world."

*Reality Check *is now streaming on Netflix. *The View *airs weekdays on ABC.

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