Steph H is just a maddening case to me of favoritism and how it almost kills a series. I talked about this in Eboni’s ranking but when you push someone who clearly doesn’t want it or just not worthy of the package, you’re just going to end up either killing their career or your own. Steph H is the latter where I just don’t see her doing anything after the show. I’ll focus on some of her positives though. Obviously, she’s young (she’s the youngest at 16) so color me surprise when Steph H actually didn’t come off as some inexperience mall chick. During the first half of the competition, she was fairly strong. I wouldn’t say she was the same level as my actual top 4 but compared to the weaker second half, she held her own. She did well in the group shot, her swimwear was unexpectedly seductive (plus one of her best), and ignoring her terrible beauty shot, she had a great runway walk in the beginning and did well in the car photoshoot. However, things just went downhill from there. I never understood her look, she looked so basic and much younger than she actually was, so she would never do the seductive sexy photoshoots at all, so she already failed at that (the last 2 weeks). Another factor to this is just Steph’s attitude after the 5th week. I don’t know if it was Steph H’s nerves or her feeling worse after everyone in the house turned on her and Paloma but she just sucked when it came to the second half. Her walk just got worse and worse and so did her photo quality. She would stiffen up on set or give up halfway through, resulting in lazy looking lazy and a dead face. Yet, she kept getting pushed by the judges more and more. I would understand the first 2 weeks of this (her stiff avant and nightmare fuel mothers-daughters) because of the much weaker girls left over but by the 8th week, where there’s been no improvement and a dwindling runway walk, that really should’ve lead the judges into realizing “hey wait, let’s get her out of here!”. That takes me to my next point, the agonizing favoritism for Steph H from the host Jodhi. Now, this has been commented on so many times by many people so I don’t feel like repeating myself’. But to sum it up, Steph Ho only made it so far to the finale because the host’s creepy obsession for her due to her age and look. It was just creepy to watch Jodhi, a 30 something woman, lust over recently 16 Steph, who still looked like a middle schooler. If Jodhi actually got her way and got Steph the win, I would reckon that the show would probably be considered one of the biggest jokes in reality TV history. I want to like Steph H, she seemed like a sweet girl and she proved at times that she could be a decent model, but I could only see her as a commercial girl. She had no versatility, her performance was getting worse and worse, and comparing her look to other girls like Jordan and Alice, it’s a joke that she even made it to the live finale and only got votes from the judges who creamed over her personality and look. I felt bad for Steph H for the bullying she got after the show and really, she should’ve been cut while they had the chance instead of making her think she could model when she would be caught after the C4 premiere being a waiter while Alice was booking shows left and right. Shame on Jodhi, just shame.
