Tyra Banks Leaving ‘FABLife’ After Two Months, Sources Say Show Just Wasn’t Working For Tyra

Tyra Banks is going to spend more time promoting her cosmetics line and a lot less time on the ABC daytime show FABLife — no time, to be exact.

The actress, television host, and fashion mogul announced this week that she was leaving the talk show to put her focus fully on her cosmetics line. She lasted just two months on the show, which has a number of co-hosts including model Chrissy Teigen, designer Lauren Makk, and YouTuber Leah Ashley.

“This is a very difficult decision, but necessary,” she said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

Tyra Banks noted that her eponymous line, TYRA Beauty, is expanding faster than anticipated, and she needs to give more oversight both to the line and to her company’s other entertainment ventures.

She will remain on as an executive producer on FABLife at least through the end of the year.

Tyra Banks quits her daytime talk show after two months https://t.co/uDLTYmE1hT

— TIME.com (@TIME) November 21, 2015

In a way, Tyra Banks seemed to predict her departure from the daytime talk show scene. After The Tyra Banks Show went off the air five years ago, she immersed herself in her fashion work on America’s Next Top Model, and appeared to be putting television behind her.

In fact, when she was promoting FABLife this summer, Tyra said her schedule was too packed for daytime television.

“It just wasn’t a healthy thing for me,” she said at TCA. “At that time in my career, I was probably the most successful, lucrative, and [relevant]…and the most unhappy. And so when [The Tyra Banks Show] ended, I was, like, I’m done with talk. I’m going to hunker down, go to business school, and really focus on the business side of my career.”

But others said the departure was more the result of behind-the-scenes friction between Tyra Banks and the show’s producers.

“The show wasn’t what Tyra wanted,” a source told People magazine.

The source added that Tyra, “was disappointed with the direction that the producers were taking. It wasn’t right for her. She hopes it will be successful for the other cast members but she has to move on.”

The source want on the say that Tyra Banks, a veteran of television hosting, just knew the show wasn’t clicking the way other panel programs — like The View — seemed to.

“She’s done 22 cycles of Top Model and has two Daytime Emmys and knows how to produce and do television. And the show wasn’t working,” the source added. “It wasn’t exciting for her. She is a serious businesswoman and person, and she just didn’t want to be doing it anymore.”

At the same time, it is true that Tyra Banks needs to devote more time to her fashion line. Tyra has been looking for ways to expand the line, and is reportedly looking for investors for the mostly self-funded venture, the Wall Street Journal reported.

.@tyrabanks to Seek Investors for Beauty Startup https://t.co/LbIdciK1pE Would you invest?

— Gene Deems (@gdeems) November 2, 2015

Tyra will reportedly be leaving the show gradually, scaling back to two or three days a week through the end of the year.

There are reportedly no plans to replace Banks on the cast of FABLife.

Tyra Banks is also leaving her other, much more famous hosting position in the very near future, as America’s Next Top Model is set to wrap up in December after 12 seasons on the air. Fans of the model may still get a chance to see her if they catch the right day — People magazine reports that Tyra will make occasional appearances through the spring season, and she is reportedly working on new series for the Disney Channel called Life-Size 2.

[Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP]