Former Wairarapa teen draws fire over TV model show

A flame-haired former Greytown girl battling to become New Zealand's Next Top Model is unaware her presence on the television show has drawn fire.
Former Wairarapa College pupil Rebecca Rose Harvey, 19, who is listed with the show as an Auckland student, is in her last year of a fashion design degree and is already acquainted with competition laurels after taking a design award in Nelson in 2006 understood to be her final year at Wairarapa College and the title of Bathing Belle in a retro 1930s beauty contest in Napier the same year.
She has since stalked the catwalk for high-end designers including Karen Walker, Helen Cherry and Sera Lilly and her modelling campaigns which include a comprehensive Auckland billboard and online focus for the latter designer have sparked questions in national newspapers from industry insiders that her modelling experience does not tally with the show philosophy of finding an "undiscovered" new talent.
Harvey was also this month photographed outside an Auckland studio with her face made up like a lion during filming for a segment of the show, which launched on TV3 and captured top ratings last Friday with a format that eliminates a contestant each week according to the panel of three judges.
Filming for the show began in early February when 13 contestants, chosen from among hundreds of 16 to 25-year-old wannabes during nationwide auditions, shifted in to a $4.3 million "secret location" on Auckland's North Shore.
The Herald on Sunday newspaper has described the Campbells Bay clifftop home as "a multi-million-dollar mansion with a history of parties, playboys and death" that was formerly owned and outfitted with a wet bar, indoor and outdoor jacuzzis, a home theatre and a dancer's pole by party-pill millionaire Logan Millar, who committed suicide there in 2007.
MediaWorks executive and show producer Andrew Szusterman said yesterday a "media-free bubble" descended on contestants when filming for the show began that includes the barring of newspapers, radio and television from the mansion.
"We give them DVDs but otherwise they are kept oblivious to it (media commentary) in order to keep the production even and their performance even."
He said Harvey and fellow contestant Ajoh Chol had told producers of their previous modelling experience and were safe from disqualification despite show rules that bans hopefuls who have appeared in a national campaign in the past five years.
The overall winner will receive a modelling contract and a magazine cover shoot and must "walk away" from any existing contract they may hold. Mr Szusterman would not confirm details around a confidentiality agreement that binds each of the contestants and refused to give any details about Harvey or her fellow contestants.
"Obviously any headlines are good for us as a production but we are not giving any details because we want the audience to enjoy the show and to grow with the girls." n The second episode of New Zealand's Next Top Model screens on TV3 at 7.30pm tonight.