J. Alexander — known in the world of America’s Next Top Model as Miss J — was always more than just a judge. For nearly a decade, he was the show’s runway coach and resident truth teller, offering sharp-tongued critiques and pep talks in equal measure. 

The new documentary Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model puts Alexander back in the spotlight, while also revealing a deeply personal chapter of his life. In December 2022, Alexander suffered a stroke, starting him on a long road to recovery. “I spent five weeks in a coma … I couldn’t walk, and I couldn’t talk,” he recalls in the doc. “And I thought to myself, ‘What was I going to do?’ ” 

When Reality Check directors Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan (American Manhunt: Osama bin Laden) joined the project, Sivan told Tudum that Alexander was “completely open about his health” and “very, very much wanted to talk about it.” At the same time, Sivan says it was crucial not to flatten his story for sympathy’s sake. “What was important is not framing Miss J as a survivor,” he says. “He is not his health. First and foremost, he’s a diva who just shattered every single glass ceiling.” 

Loushy describes her first meeting with Alexander. “She was still spicy as ever and amazing as ever,” she says, finding Miss J “as she always was, unapologetic — that’s the way that she looks at her journey now: ‘This is what I’m going through, and I’m going to [be] in your face [about it].’ ”

Alexander himself is characteristically blunt about how he’s doing now. “Fine. Healing and dealing,” he tells Tudum. And when asked why now felt like the right time to share his story with the world — through a documentary revisiting ANTM’s legacy — he keeps it just as succinct: “I’m good at what I did — do and did — which is teaching models how to inky slink down the runway.”

Sivan calls Alexander “a performance artist” and says the veteran creative who’s spent thousands of hours on set showed up to the shoot in a jacket built from broken mirrors. “If you know anything about standing in front of a camera, you don’t bring mirrors,” Sivan says. “But that’s the statement. It’s, ‘Yes, I’m going to mess with your shoot.’ ”

For the directors, that bigger-than-life energy also connects directly to why Alexander and his recovery matter within the larger story of ANTM. Sivan says the runway coach’s real legacy lies in how boldly he takes up space, both then and now. “He would give confidence to so many people that were watching it saying, ‘It is OK to be who you are,’ ” he says. “It’s just about giving zero fucks. ‘I am who I am, and you people accept it.’ ”

Loushy says the interview experience was a reminder of why so many of ANTM’s unforgettable moments came from Miss J. “His mimics are legend, and he still has it. He’s still got it. He still was shining,” she says. “It was such a fun experience to interview [him]. It was lovely. It was so much fun.”

For his part, Alexander says the reason to share now is simple: He’s still here, still himself — and not going away. “After spending five weeks in a coma and one year, five months in the hospital, I’m alive to tell it as I lived it,” he says. “And no dreams of the afterlife, not one.”

Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model is now streaming.