‘America’s Next Top Model’: Are Shandi & Boyfriend Eric Still Together After Season 2 Scandal?
Shandi Sullivan’s life changed forever when she became a contestant on America’s Next Top Model during Season 2 in 2004. As a small town girl from Kansas City, Missouri, who worked at Walgreens and never really gave modeling much thought, the chance to appear on Tyra Banks‘ reality competition series was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the then-21-year-old.
While Shandi, who uses they/them/she/her pronouns, was transforming into a supermodel in front of our eyes, Shandi was also maintaining a relationship with her boyfriend, Eric, back home. However, one night in Italy changed everything.
Now, Shandi is opening up about the situation and more in the Netflix docuseries Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model. Scroll down for a refresh on the scandal and to find out where Shandi and Eric stand today.
What happened to Shandi on America’s Next Top Model?
When Shandi made it to the Top 5 on ANTM, she and the other remaining contestants found out they’d be traveling to Milan, Italy, for the next phase of the competition. While overseas, they went on go-sees and were transported around the city by men on mopeds.
Those same men came back to hang out with the girls that night, which is when things took a turn. In a preview for Reality Check, Shandi recalled, “We were just like talking, drinking. I don’t think I’d eaten anything at all or had any sleep.”
Shandi said she remembered getting in the hot tub with some of the girls and guys, but said everything after that is a “blur.” She ended up sleeping with one of the men. “I remember him on top of me. I was blacked out,” Shandi continued. “No one did anything to stop it. And it all got filmed, all of it.”
She said she had two bottles of wine by herself that night and can only remember “little bits and pieces” of what happened. “And then we’re in the bed,” she went on. “I was blacked out for a lot of it. I didn’t even feel sex happening. I just knew it was happening. And then I passed out.”
The show documented Shandi’s breakdown the morning after. Cameras also filmed her emotional conversation with Eric when she told him that she slept with someone else.
Shandi ended up finishing in third place. Yoanna House was the winner of Season 2, and Mercedes Scelba-Shorte came in second place.
Are Shandi and her boyfriend Eric still together?
No, Shandi and Eric are no longer together. They tried to make their relationship work, but ended up breaking up about a year after the ANTM drama.
Netflix
“He moved to New York with me,” Shandi revealed on the Throwback Thursday Time podcast in 2020. “We slowly kind of just started to drift apart.”
However, Shandi said that they and Eric remain friends “even after all this time.” Shandi explained, “He’s still my best friend. It’s good to have someone in your life that kind of knows you during that time period and what you both went through, and that’s something that we share. And we’ll always share that.”
Where is Shandi’s ex-boyfriend Eric now?
As of the recording of the 2020 podcast, Eric was living in Berlin, according to former reality star. Shandi also confirmed that Eric had gotten married.
Is Shandi in a relationship now?
Shandi does not appear to be in a relationship now. Per their Instagram bio, Shandi is is the host of the Urn Fulla Popcorn podcast with Timmy Williams. The podcast features the duo “[talking] about horror films and [trying] to figure out why life is like this.”
Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, Monday, February 16, Netflix
