Midnight Celebrity: Tyra Banks slams rumors she moved to NY to be with a new boyfriend

Tyra Banks says she is insulted by Internet rumors she moved to New York to be with a new boyfriend.

According to bloggers, the former model moved her chat show, Tyra, from Los Angeles to the Big Apple because she is allegedly dating investment banker John Utendahl, 50.

But Banks, 34, pours cold water on that theory saying: "I'm very insulted by that rumour. I employ a lot of people; their livelihoods rest on my shows.

"The move to New York was a decision I made with my manager. It was not about a man."

Banks addresses the rumour in an interview with US magazine, Essence.

In the February edition she reveals that she won't be following in the footsteps of former colleague, Heidi Klum, anytime soon.

Klum, 34, who is married to singer Seal, has three children - a girl and two boys all under the age of five.
But Tyra says she has no desire to have a baby.

She says: "After the talk show started, and I had [reality show] Top Model at the same time, it engulfed me so much that it dulled my maternal instinct.

"I hope that when I get more of a handle on my life it comes back."

Still the glamorous model-turned-TV-presenter and producer says that she feels lonely at night when she comes home to an empty New York apartment.

"I'd go to work and women would be crying in my arms on the talk show," she says. "But then I go home and put my key in my door andnothing.

"No friends, no husband, no children. I feel so full when I'm at work but so empty when I come home."

Banks offers a possible insight into her rampant work drive.

Raised in South Central - an unglamorous part of Southern California - her parents divorced when she was six.

She says that her father kept the family's big house while she, her older brother Devin and their mum Carolyn London moved into a cramped one-bedroom apartment.

Banks says her mother worked two, sometimes three jobs, to keep the family afloat.

"My brother and I shared the bedroom and my mother slept on the living room floor because the sofa wasn't comfortable," Banks says. "I think my mother stayed married for so long because he [my father - a computer consultant] was the breadwinner.

"I never want to be in that position. But I think maybe I've taken it into overdrive. People look at me and say: 'Oh, Tyra, you're doing such great things. Girl, you a mogul'.

"I don't think they understand that it's almost as if I don't have a choice. What motivates me a little bit is fear."

Banks, who launched the successful reality TV series America's Next Top Model in 2003, has always said she never set out to be a supermodel. That was a happy accident. She always wanted to work behind the cameras.

The woman who became the first African-American to grace the covers of GQ and the Victoria's Secret catalogue, says: "I hate saying that because I like to tell women: 'Have a dream and go after it'.

"But modelling was something that just happened because I was 5ft 10."

Yet, although modelling was not her first dream, Banks is set to encourage women who want to walk the catwalks of New York and Paris - even if they are the black Eliza Doolittles of the US inner cities.

Speaking about some of the girls featured on America's Next Top Model, she says: "I cast girls who have urban accents and bamboo earrings because the fashion industry ignores them.

"When those girls walk into a modelling agency with all the goods but too many accessories, the agencies don't say: " 'Let me cut your hair, put on this black dress'. They send them away.

"My goal is to show the industry that you don't have to be from Africa and be exotic to be beautiful.
"You can be a 'round-the-way girl from Brooklyn or Arkansas."

Like most reality shows these days Top Model is not without its on-set bickering. But if viewers tune in to see the squabbles, Banks who likens the show's appeal to "candy" says: "But there's some medicine in that candy.

"And it's medicine people don't even know they're getting because the candy's so sweet."

By Marissa Charles, Jan 10 2008 © Copyright 2008 - Showbiz Spy

Category Showbiz Gossip

RELATED POSTS

* Vanessa Hudgens admits to a little crush on Matt Damon
* John Smeaton awarded for bravery on a US awards show
* Ten Things You Didn't Know AboutZac Efron
* 50 Cent offers his condolences to Kanye West
* Jaslene Gonzalez wins 'America's Next Top Model'
* David and Victoria Beckhams' Estate Agent Charged With Fraud

NO COMMENTS

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

LEAVE A COMMENT

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

IN THE GALLERY

*