What happened to Miss J. Alexander after America's Next Top Model? Inside his health issues and life with son

Miss J was born "Alexander Jenkins" on April 12, 1958 in the South Bronx. He is the sixth of nine children born to Julius and Mary Jenkins and remembers his mom as being the first person to introduce him to fashion.

When Miss J was a teenager, he met Monique Pillard, the president of Elite Model Management, who was so taken with him she signed him to the agency. Miss J later walked for Jean Paul Gaultier.

During his early career in the fashion industry, Miss J met Tyra backstage at a runway show. The supermodel later gave him the title: "Queen of the Catwalk."

"I was just Alexander — Queen of the Catwalk," he recalled in Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model, adding, "I came out of my mother's stomach with high heels."

After modeling for top designers, Miss J became a runway coach. He worked with supermodel Naomi Campbell and model Kimora Lee Simons. In the docuseries, Miss J explained: ""I taught a girl how to walk with confidence. When that clicks, it's like, 'Woah. Oh my god, you're really, really quite beautiful.'"

Aside from working as a runway coach, Miss J helped cast models for Chanel, Alexander McQueen, and Valentino.

Miss J was a staple of the reality competition show, serving as the runway coach on every cycle of ANTM, until cycle 19 when he and Nigel Barker were let go. While ANTM has received a healthy amount of criticism since it concluded 2018, Miss J looks back on his time on the show fondly.

"I look back on that time as me, doing me, being me," he told The Guardian in 2022. "Feeling fierce and fabulous. Being creative. I created my wardrobe."

But, Miss J also acknowledges some of the controversy of ANTM. "I think about the girls, what they went through and how they were treated," he said. "I look at the backlash and I do wonder if we knew what we were putting them through."

On December 27, 2022, Miss J suffered from a stroke and spent five weeks in a coma. After the traumatic ordeal, he had to relearn how to speak. As of February 2026, he still cannot walk.

"I couldn't walk, and I couldn't talk, and I thought to myself, 'What was I going to do?'" Miss J shared in the documentary. "And that I couldn't walk, and I couldn't speak. It was emotional. I cried. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried."

He spent a year and a half in the hospital and was visited by former co-stars, Jay and Nigel. "I didn't even know that he wanted me to see him in that way," Nigel recalled in the docuseries. "I was going to go see him and that was just such a terrible shock and really upsetting and horrifying and scary. When he saw me, he was happy to see me, and the two of us cried, and I held him."

When asked if Tyra had visited him in the hospital or seen him since his health complications began, Miss J said: "No, not yet. She just sent me a text she wants to come and visit me, but no not yet."

Miss J announced on The Tyra Show in 2009 that he was a dad with his ex-partner, Alexander. His son, Boris, was seven when Miss J revealed the big news. The runway coach explained how he and Alexander became parents, saying: "A French lesbian had asked if we would be sperm donors."

He continued, telling Tyra at the time: "So we thought, 'OK, you want me to do you?' And she was like, 'Ooooh, I'm not that talented.' So I said, 'Okay fine.' So we did a little test tube."

While Miss J is not Boris' biological father, he is still very much involved in his life.