Tyra Banks on TV's fashionable 'Top Model' finale

She taught us how to be "fierce" and drew back the curtain on the modeling world.

And 13 years after launching CW's America's Next Top Model, Tyra Banks still keeps it real. "Right now my eyebrows are just not perfect. I need to, like, pluck them I think," says Banks, leaning forward to offer a peek at her full arches (which are perfect).

It's a time for reflection as her long-running show hits the end of the runway Friday (9 p.m. ET/PT)  after 22 seasons, and Banks is looking back to a time when eyebrows and budgets were paper thin.

"Oh my gosh, that first judging room was so bad. That was in a hotel room and we had run out of money," she says, harking back to early days when Janice Dickinson, Kimora Lee Simmons and J. Alexander flanked her as judges and the show aired on now-defunct UPN.

The show turned out to be a ratings blockbuster, but in early days, Banks was her own production assistant. "I was unhappy with the room so I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond and Linens-N-Things with my own money and bought pillows and tchotchkes and all these things to round out the room."

Top Model was born in the early days of the reality-TV craze, not long after American Idol and Survivor, but preceded many  other reality-competition shows, including Top Chef, Project Runway and The Apprentice.

The show proved so popular, copycats abounded. "Right after Cycle 1, producers of other shows would call my office and say, 'Hey can you give me a VHS or DVDs of the show? We'd like to study it,' " recalls executive producer Ken Mok.

New seasons prompted changes aimed at boosting ratings: shorter models, British models, a season full of college-age models and finally, the introduction of male models. "That's my mantra, when others are zigging, we're zagging," says Banks.

Every time the show needed a shakeup, "we took the lead from Tyra because she led that life," says Mok.

The biggest change has been a lessening of the stigma associated with reality TV.  Few of the show's "Top Models" actually became top models. "A lot of my international girls, like on Holland's Next Top Model or Australia's Next Top Model, do much better in the general high-fashion modeling world because the world's not watching that show," says Banks.  

But social media has changed that, at least elsewhere. "The fashion world is a business," she says, pointing to popular reality-stars-turned-models. "They see Gigi (Hadid) has how many followers and Kendall has how many followers and Kylie (Jenner) and Cara (Delevingne) …that is what made the shift. Not just time. Numbers are money."

Tyra Banks on trailblazing, retouching and 13 years of 'Top Model'

Since CW's cancellation, producers have been shopping the show to streaming and cable outlets. Should one of them buy the show, would Banks continue to host it? "I don't know," she pauses. "It really depends on time, it depends on if I can get my producers."

Time is precious. Banks, 41, just stepped away from hosting the new (and low-rated) syndicated talk show FABLife to focus her attention on TYRA Beauty, a line she developed while attending Harvard's Business School extension program (yes, she stayed in the dorms). The show "competed for my time in a way that you cannot run a business and do a daytime talk show. And I thought I could. And I can't," she says.

Banks' company launched in September and products are Tyra-familiar (see the Smoky Smize holiday palette). The company is "100% self-funded," with no backers. "So I have not just my skin in the game, but my muscles and my flesh in the game," she says. "I'm not successful unless my 'beautytainers' are making a lot of money."