Saleisha Cooper - America's Next Top Model Winner

Congratulations to Saleisha Cooper, winner of cycle 9, America's Next Top Model and not without controversy! It seems she had prior modeling experience and knew the show's creator and host Tyra Banks as a teen in Tyra's T-Zone program for girls. Well, in today's tabloid environment, gossip, scandal and controversy makes for great headlines and fodder for entertainment shows and websites. I thought she would win from the beginning, just looking at her photos online. It doesn't hurt that her model behavior makes for a great role model to the millions of teen girls watching and wanting to succeed. While the runner up Chantal could have easily been the winner and had a stronger high fashion look in my opinion versus Saleisha's beautiful girl next door appeal. Unfortunately, Chantal came up short in the final runway competition. It's a safe bet that we'll see more of her. These shows are promotional vehicles.

With careful marketing and some luck, these starlets can parlay this major exposure and promotion into a lucrative and sustaining career. The likelihood that a winner from ANTM will become a wildly successful high fashion model is remote, given that major models start their professional careers in their early or mid-teens. Many have arrived by age 19 or 20 and begin to transition into other related fields as did Cameron Diaz, Jaime Pressley and Tyra Banks (Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Higher Learning). Another upset is that the "super model" era is most definitely over! With fashion magazines, clothing manufacturers and cosmetic companies now using branded or rising actresses and 'it' girls to sell products, models are losing jobs. We see Beyonce, Kira Knightly, Kerri Washington, Eva Mendez, Rihanna as well as other beautiful actresses and singers now getting modeling jobs that were once enjoyed by famed models. Our celebrity crazed society is to thank for these actors receiving additional revenue streams and lucrative contracts. We worship celebrities and so many devotees aspire to be famous, not necessarily talented, just famous. To wear their fragrance or rock clothes that movie and rock stars endorse or are photographed wearing gives us a perceived closer connection/likeness to our idols. With "You Tube" and other sites, stars can be made overnight with instant exposure (15 minutes of fame) from any town in America and around the world. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, athletes and politicians were once the people we wish we could be, now to be famous, rich and thin and live the red carpet, velvet rope experience is what intoxicates the masses.

America's Next Top Model provides a springboard for many of the show's contestants to live out their dreams and build careers in the entertainment industry, from designer runway fashion shows to television commercials to reality TV/Film roles to print ads to endorsement contracts, premiers and hot parties, think Adrian Curry, Yoanna, Eva Pigford,Toccara, Naima, Bre, Yaya, Mercedes, Jaslene Gonzalez...they have lasted beyond the perennial 15 minutes. Saleisha has great likability and I believe guided through to the right offers, she'll be around. Her fresh face and well-mannered public persona is immensely needed in the media with young and rich entertainers behaving badly and dominating the news. I expect big things to happen for this latest ANTM winner!

You go Saleisha!