Tyra pretends to be homeless for a few hours, gets tricked by street children

I’m starting a new category just for Tyra. Because as my friend Alex noted, I have this “thing” with her.

Chris says I’m just going for easy targets, implying that I’m lazy. I figured out what you were implying Chris, after a while! But I’m not! Just…in my bathrobe at 4 pm writing about how Tyra Banks is not a real intellectual! That’s super not lazy.

My latest favorite Tyra video is this one of her going undercover as a homeless woman. She lets us know that “anything can happen out there” while her homeless makeup is getting done. And then she says she’s been advised to wear really heavy boots so as to protect herself from the needles. Cut to sad music, man helping Tyra into boots.

Her homeless impression is pretty good when she’s not talking, but then she tells two cute “homeless” kids playing basketball, “My name’s Tyra!” and it all falls to shit. When they point out an abandoned crack pipe, she asks “so people really do this right on the street?” and she’s even more not homeless. Then the boy tells her someone probably dropped the pipe after getting scared off by all of Tyra’s cameras. That’s when she’s most not homeless.

There’s a scene missing where Tyra panhandles.

The next part involves Tyra and some sort of homeless consultant. Judging from the way this woman and everyone else we’ve seen so far is dressed, it’s not very cold out; but Tyra is still wearing all of the homeless gear she possibly can, including those cut off gloves that are so in right now. They go into a gas station where Tyra, like one of the Boxcar children, delights in declaring loudly that they just can’t spare the money for this two dollar bottle of shampoo. Then she asks which they should splurge on: salty or sweet foods. “What is going to fill us up longer?”

Alex pointed out at this juncture that she often has the same moment just before road trips.

Now Tyra is ready to “get cleaned up,” although I worry she risks rubbing off her homeless makeup. She brushes her teeth and takes a makeshift shower in the sink. A dirge-like tune about “just giving her one good reason why she shouldn’t fall” plays.

At this point she realizes that she’s going to have a real shower tomorrow. Then she realizes she’s not really homeless. Then she realizes other people really are. Then she asks her camera crew to leave the bathroom. Then she cries.

So now we come to the most confusing part of the show, when Tyra calls back those two adorable homeless kids who dress really well and gives one of them a “free-lance job as a PA for the director of the Tyra Banks show.” I have no idea what a free lance job as a PA means (I swear the kid mouths “what the hell is that?”). His qualifications for the job seem to be based on some documentary he and his “homeless” sister made – an activity that seems distinctly un-homeless. As usual, Tyra is the most excited about the prize of doing something for her show.

Then this lady gets called up who claims to be the mother of these children. But I don’t think she is. She’s white and they’re really black.

Tyra gives them money and the homeless problem is solved just a little.

Except they’re probably not really homeless and the boy knows a lot about nickel rocks.

Now you watch.

P.S. I really like when the kid tells Tyra that the crack pipe won’t hurt her.