FELICIA ELIMINATED FROM "AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL" ON THE CW

March 22, 2007 (Burbank, California) - Felicia, a sales associate from Houston, Texas, was the fourth girl eliminated during the eighth cycle of The CW's hit reality series "America's Next Top Model," reducing the pool from 10 girls to 9.

After being pulled over by what they thought was a traffic cop, the girls were taught the art of posing by vogue instructor Benny Ninja. The girls were pitted against one another in a posing battle to practice how to exaggerate and add movement to their poses.

The following day, their new skills were put to the test when Benny Ninja met them for a unique challenge. Each girl had only 2 minutes to demonstrate their cat-like agility and fabulous poses while slinking though a maze of lasers to collect a key that would open a locked box with the winner's prize inside. Felicia felt very confident during the challenge. "The maze is very easy for me because I got to use my dance background to my advantage," Felicia said. Though Benny noted that Felicia completed the challenge with grace, Whitney was chosen the winner and unlocked the box that held a $40,000 diamond bracelet from Angara.com.

The next day the girls met Jay for their photo shoot, where they were each assigned a crime scene victim to portray. Felicia was confused on how she was supposed to breathe life into her pose of "decapitation by model." While both Jay and photographer and guest judge Mike Rosenthal tried to get her to bring more life to her face, she just wasn't finding the light in her eyes. "It looks like you're taking a nap. We need you to look like you were brutally killed," guest judge Mike Rosenthal said.

During the judging, the judges were impressed by almost all of the photos, but they felt that Felicia's lacked a sparkle that the others portrayed. Nigel noted that acting dead can be one of the most difficult things to do, but he felt that Felicia was walking into the judging panel with a cockiness that she was not delivering in her photos. The judges all agreed that Felicia was a very beautiful girl, but they didn't feel that she was ready to handle the competition. "I think one thing that you need is a little more development," Tyra said to Felicia, before eliminating her from the race to become "America's Next Top Model."

In addition to a $100,000 contract with cosmetics giant CoverGirl, this year's prize package for the winner of The CW's "America's Next Top Model" will include a contract with Elite Model Management and a cover and six-page fashion spread in Seventeen magazine.

The eighth cycle of the hit reality series "America's Next Top Model" on The CW follows 13 young women as they attempt to prove they have what it takes to make it in the high-stress world of modeling. Banks, who created the show, also serves as executive producer along with Ken Mok ("Making the Band") and Anthony Dominici ("The Amazing Race").

"America's Next Top Model" airs Wednesdays, (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on The CW. For more information about "America's Next Top Model" log on to http://www.cwtv.com/.