Mary Alice Stephenson, co-host of America’s Most Smartest Model, is a fashion industry insider whose smart looks and smart tongue control her show’s pretty people. Each week we talk with her about issues on the show. This time the subjects are the way Daniel crumbled under pressure, Angela’s excuses and how V.J. sailed through the whole episode, looking pretty.

VH1: Daniel’s birthday party turned out to be quite the surprise. Talk about a challenge.
Mary Alice Stephenson: I noticed that a lot of people on the message boards have been talking about the birthday “trick.” It wasn’t a trick. These contestants sign up to be on a reality TV show. They get paid. The show tapes for three weeks, and the kids have to deal with cameras morning, noon and night. I never, ever said that they had the night off. No one said that. All we said was that we were taking them out to celebrate Daniel’s birthday over dinner.

VH1: Some of them didn’t react well at all to socializing, which is weird, since they’re not exactly shy.
MAS: These models are not teens. They’re adults, filming a VH1 reality show, and they went to dinner — tailed by cameras. If there were no cameras, and the producers had told them that they had the night off, they would have had the night off. They didn’t. The cameras were rolling the whole time. This was obviously a challenge, and V.J. and Brett were very successful at it. They were kind to everyone they met. V.J. definitely knew something was up.

VH1: Daniel totally lost it.
MAS: There was a lot of moaning and complaining, but hello, there were cameras following them everywhere that night. I think it was hard, because it meant working on Daniel’s birthday. I think Daniel was upset because he drank too much and he was caught on tape. But that was his choice. He knew what the stakes were.

VH1: The irony is that the people you’d gathered to judge them in the bar could really have helped their careers.
MAS: Absolutely. The people that we got to participate are very successful. I mean, we had the casting director from The Lord of the Rings there! So was the head of L.A. Models. I was really impressed with Brett. All of the guest judges that night spoke really highly of both him and V.J., and actually were really interested in working with them on various projects. That was the whole point of the challenge. I mean, this show can come and go. By meeting those people that night, they could have secured career possibilities for the future.

VH1: Angela’s excuse about predators seemed a little on the weak side.
MAS: Oh, Angela’s predator thing. That really bothered me that night because I know it could be interpreted in different ways. The producers cut out a lot of what I said. I understand, as a woman, that yes, you do have to be careful out there, wherever you go, especially when there’s alcohol involved. Angela’s a beautiful woman, and is probably hit on when she goes out, but I’m sorry, I don’t think that any of my judges were being disrespectful in any way. They were trying to have a conversation with her. Her arrogance got in the way. It would have been much more elegant had she said, “You know what? I screwed up. I didn’t talk to [talent manager] Robert Flutie. He wigged me out.” Instead, she pulled this predator card, as if she were some young girl. She’s not. She’s a woman, and it was an event at a bar that was held in the early evening. “Predator” is a really strong word. I mean, come on. You’ve got 20 cameras around you, 20 men filming you, and you’re there with your other contestants. You’re not in any danger — you’re going to be OK. It’s not like you’re out by yourself at 17 in some club you had to sneak into. This is a restaurant filled with people who were there to look out for her. She was just mad that she wasn’t on her game.

VH1: Rachel wasn’t exactly on her game, either.
MAS: Rachel had too much to drink. I don’t blame her for that. She was exhausted. It was a very tiring experience — she’d been going for three weeks on very little sleep. Filming a reality show is like going to boot camp. She was really upset that she drank too much, but that “dance, monkey, dance!” comment was extreme. What I told her, and you didn’t see this, was that it was ultimately her choice. She knew that cameras were following her and she kept drinking.

VH1: Did they complain to you later, after they’d sobered up?
MAS: The truth of it was that most of the kids thought it was brilliant. The ones that didn’t do their best were like, “Oh, we got caught here.” They didn’t protest about the challenge. The people who were disappointed in themselves and voiced that on the show were the people who could have approached that competition in a smarter way.

VH1: V.J. used it as an opportunity to shine. Daniel . . . eh, not so much.
MAS: From a judge’s point of view, V.J. was working so hard. He understood that he was in a competition and seemed to really want the money. He understood the dynamics. Daniel, who was by far the most book-smart guy in the house, and someone who was also a real model, really messed up here.

VH1: Now that the competition’s gotten narrower, it’s fun to watch the contestants strategize.
MAS: Because it was the first season, you could see people struggling to get a handle on it. On other shows, like Survivor or Project Runway, you get to see alliances earlier. They know what to expect when they sign up. Here, we were all feeling our way a little bit. But now you’re starting to see more people teaming up. Pickel and Brett are incredible competitors. They’re smart, great looking and respectful. They formed an alliance at the beginning and that helped them.

VH1: Who did you think performed above and beyond at the photoshoot?
MAS: I thought Andre was incredible. A llama is not an easy animal to handle. That’s where you see some of his experience coming out, even as V.J. was heckling him from the sidelines. As much as Andre says he hates V.J. and wants to take him down, I think Andre loves that kind of competition. The two of them fuel each other, that drive to win.

VH1: The time constraints were severe, though. V.J. had the half-hour, but even that, in terms of an actual shoot, is a ludicrously short amount of time.
MAS: Yeah, the time is a constraint. But what it boils down to is that just because you’re a great-looking person doesn’t mean you’re a model. That’s what I was concerned with when it came to the girls. Literally there were no pictures that I would ever run of either or them. Yes, in the real world of modeling, you have a stylist, a creative director, a photographer and other people advising you on what you’re doing. So I commend them all on what they tried to do, since they didn’t have any of those resources. But when the competition is tough like that, it shows who has the natural instinct in front of the camera. That’s what we were trying to find. Angela and Rachel are both smart and pretty, but after the animal shoot, I started to think that they were weak.

VH1: And then there was Daniel. He made a mess of things.
MAS: Daniel had already screwed up the edge challenge, and then he screwed up the call-back challenge. I know that he was given one minute, and I know that he was given the ostrich. But he didn’t have to touch that ostrich — he could have just stood there and looked at the camera. He would have had his picture. It’s unfortunate that he didn’t get to pick his animal, and it’s unfortunate that V.J. gave him the one-minute shoot. But V.J. knew he was the smartest guy in the house — and that was smart thinking. At that point, Ben and I had to make a decision. We asked ourselves who was the weakest link, and when we looked at everything, that person was Daniel.

VH1: How did he take it?
MAS: Really well. Ben and I have no worries about Daniel. He’s extremely smart, and he’s a very good looking guy. He has a really good heart, but I do think that he alienated a lot of the other contestants with the complaints. When you’re great looking and smart like that, it’s better to play up your humor. You can’t be so whiny. People aren’t going to feel bad for you if you’re great looking and smart. He could have stepped it up a little bit. He could have been more like Pickel, who just laughed things off when he screwed up. Daniel would have done better if he’d had more fun with the show. That said, Ben and I were really sad to see him go. He had a real shot at winning.

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