MCHS grad on national TV

It wasn’t until she was standing in front of Caesar’s Palace casino in Las Vegas that reality hit.

Last October, Madison County native Kelly Falk, now 20, stepped off a charter bus onto Las Vegas Boulevard with 33 other aspiring models.

A wall of sturdy-looking, muscular men dressed as Roman knights greeted the girls. Once the men parted, they revealed a sight that resulted in fits of high-pitched squeals and dropped jaws.

“The Jays” – “America’s Next Top Model” reality television show runway trainer J. Alexander and photo shoot creative director Jay Manuel – congratulated Falk, and her fellow “Top Model”

contestants, for making the cut out of thousands who tried out for the show.

“It almost seemed like I was just watching TV because they look exactly the same as they do on TV,” Falk, a 2007 Madison County High School graduate, said of her arrival in Las Vegas. “I had to like pinch myself and say okay, I’m here.”

It was Falk’s co-worker at Starbucks in Charlottesville’s Hollymead Town Center who convinced her to try out for “America’s Next Top Model,” hosted by former supermodel Tyra Banks. The show follows contestants who compete for a grand prize that includes a $100,000 modeling contract and a magazine photo spread.

Falk – who grew up on a farm in Aroda and now lives in Barboursville – started modeling when she was 15.

“There’s not a lot of modeling to be had around here…but every opportunity I had I would take it,” the 20 year old told The Eagle. In addition to working with area photographers in need of volunteer models, she also walked the runway [RTF bookmark start: OLE_LINK1]for Saks Fifth Avenue in Richmond and did some promotional modeling for Dillard’s department store.

Falk also participated in the Madison Jaycees’ pageant, competing two separate times, unsuccessfully, to be named Miss Madison.
“I was a little more awkward then,” she said.

After not making the cut for “America’s Next Top Model’s” 11th season earlier last year, Falk tried out for the show again, sending in another audition tape for the 12th season, the one currently airing.

Fortunately, she got a call back and was invited to join the show’s 30-odd contestants in Las Vegas. With another “Kelly” among the crowd of competitors, Falk was asked to choose another name to go by to cut down on the confusion. She chose “Isabella” as her stage name, although she prefers Kelly, and plans to stick with that in the future.

Falk’s bright, friendly smile and runway skills seemed to make a good impression on the show’s judges in the early part of the season’s initial episode.
But her first photo shoot – which had her dressed as a young school girl attempting to produce fashion shoot-quality poses while pretending to play dodge ball – didn’t turn out so well.

“Like I’ve never done anything like this in my entire life,” Falk tells the camera later, during a one-on-one interview reflecting on her feelings during the shoot. “I’m from a small town (Madison). I’ve been to like little mall fashion shows and done that, and so I’m nervous.”

Photo shoot creative director Jay Manuel isn’t happy when Falk mistakenly covers her face during the shoot and takes his criticism “far too literally” creating weak photos.

And although Falk didn’t know it at the time, Manuel, during his own one-on-one interview reflecting on the day, describes her shoot as “one of the biggest disasters of the day.”

Near the end of the show, as the contestants were told whether they would move on to the next level or be sent home, Falk was left standing beside just one other contestant.

“It was disappointing and a little bit shocking that I could be in the bottom two,” Falk told The Eagle. “I felt like it was just a blindside.”
Falk had thought the photo shoot went well and was disappointed that the positive feedback she said she did receive during the day didn’t make it into the episode.

But elimination was something she had prepared herself for, and so when Tyra Banks told her she should “go home and practice,” she kept her cool.
“It was definitely sad when I had to leave, but I know I have a great future ahead of me,” she said, adding that, “Madison is not a bad place to come home to.”
Even so, the five months between Falk’s return to the area – and back to working at Starbucks – and the show’s March 4 airdate were difficult.
A confidentiality agreement required Falk to keep quiet on details about the show to both friends and family, including her father Aksel Falk, mother Melanie Perl, sister Laurie Falk, 21, and brother David Falk, 18.

Although she says she didn’t have any reservations about participating in a reality show, her family was a little nervous.

“I think that they thought that maybe I wouldn’t be strong enough, because they knew there would be a lot of criticism,” Falk said.

Last week, as she waited for the Wednesday night show to air, she felt nervous.

“It was a little nerve-wrecking to wait to watch myself on TV,” said Falk, who watched the show with her fiancée, Jeff Ashworth, and his family.

After watching, she was relieved to see that she was portrayed exactly how she is in person.

Falk still plans to pursue her modeling career, hoping to eventually move up to New York or New Jersey sometime in the future.
However that plan is still in its early stages, “it’s a distant sort of thing,” she explains.

In the mean time she’ll be working at Starbucks saving up for her move up north and a trip with her fiancée overseas.

“We want to go to Italy to get married. We’re saving some money to try and get that to happen,” she said.

“America’s Next Top Model” airs 8 p.m. Wednesdays on The CW television network.