Jael Strauss From America’s Next Top Model On Dr Phil For Her Meth Addiction

Jael Strauss is one of the standout girls from the early seasons of America’s Next Top Model during which she suffered a momentary breakdown after she lost a close friend to a drug overdose. She didn’t leave the show, saying at the time: “There was never, never a question in my mind to leave the competition. My friend is gone and I am still here living life to the fullest.” Her family said the friend’s overdose “really shook her” but Strauss kept taking meth even when the drug rotted her teeth and covered her body in sores.

Mixed ethnicity former model Strauss (African-American mother and German father, if memory serves) of Detroit, Michigan was one of the older girls trying to break into the industry on America’s Next Top Model cycle eight in 2007 when she was 22-years-old (modelling is an industry into which you could enter age 11 and age-out by 21-years-old). She was eliminated in episode nine, following a series of mediocre and inconsistent photo shoots. And she’s barely been heard from since. Until today, with the admission from her family that she’s losing an addiction to meth that’s taken hold in the subsequent six years since filming ended.

Strauss will appear on Dr. Phil September 13. Her family compelled her to seek help on the show because “the full blown meth addict” refused help elsewhere.

She is currently homeless so Dr. Phil, and her brother, Brandon, and her mother, Debbie, went to find her and talk her into travelling to Los Angeles for the show. During filming, Strauss runs off stage and into the Paramount lot where Dr. Phil says “This is the first time in ten years I’ve come out here, to talk to you.”

Included is a clip of Strauss during AMTM cycle eight, and her ANTM photos, and a before and after.