When Nyle DiMarco joined Cycle 22 of Tyra Banks’ long-running reality show “America’s Next Top Model,” he made a big splash. DiMarco was the first deaf person to enter the competition. He was also very photogenic, confident, and charismatic. During his “ANTM” audition, the aspiring model said, “Being Deaf has definitely been a strength for me in this competition, just because American Sign Language requires a lot of facial expression and using your body and that’s what modeling requires also.” Even though he had problems along the way, he started strong and finished strong. He not only won, but he also made history as the first deaf winner of the show.
DiMarco saw his time on “ANTM” as an opportunity to learn something new. He told People in 2015, “Even though I’m deaf, I didn’t think twice about being in the show. I was very happy, to be honest. I saw it as a chance to not only become a supermodel but also to change the way the world sees people who are deaf.” Since he was on the show, DiMarco has been involved in projects that work toward this goal.
Nyle DiMarco is an author and activist
In April 2022, DiMarco published a book called “Deaf Utopia: A Memoir and a Love Letter to a Way of Life.” The book tells about DiMarco’s hard times as a child and his not-entirely-good experience on “America’s Next Top Model.” The New York Times said that the show didn’t make sure to have a sign language interpreter there. This caused DiMarco a lot of trouble because he didn’t have enough money to compete fairly in a modeling challenge with war veterans. The editing of the show, which showed DiMarco crying, made it look like he was upset about getting close to the veterans. But DiMarco wrote, “I felt more anger rising up in me—the same fire that burned in my mom’s stomach when she dealt with the teachers and administrators at my school when I was young.”
DiMarco’s activism has also helped a lot to bring attention to some of the problems that deaf people face. NBC News says that in 2016, he started the Nyle DiMarco Foundation, which gave deaf children more chances to learn how to speak. He got some ideas from his deaf father, who was not close to him and didn’t know much American Sign Language. He told People in 2022, “People I met didn’t have access to a good education or language, which made them angry and resentful. I started to notice a pattern in our town that reminded me of my dad.”
Nyle DiMarco has made waves in the entertainment industry
Nyle DiMarco has kept getting a lot of attention. NBC News says that after his win on “America’s Next Top Model,” which was a big deal, he signed with Wilhelmina Models. DiMarco also took part in the TV show “Dancing With the Stars,” which he won. That, combined with two major Netflix projects, have made DiMarco a force to be reckoned with. “Deaf U,” a Netflix reality show that came out in 2020, was his first job as a producer. In the show, a group of deaf college students at Gallaudet University deal with the ups and downs of life. In 2021, he made the Netflix documentary “Audible,” which is about a deaf high school football player getting ready for his last homecoming game. The documentary took place at DiMarco’s old school, the Maryland School for the Deaf. The film was nominated for an Oscar for best documentary short in 2022.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, DiMarco spoke about how much he cared about the project “As a deaf person, I was so happy to be able to add my own point of view and a little bit of creativity to the subtitling when we were translating from ASL to English. It’s a complicated process, so it was great to put it all together and make it easy to understand.” DiMarco’s work in the movie business also led him to start Clerc Studio, a production company whose stories are meant to raise awareness of the disabled community.
