WINFREY: Tyra says growing up, she was torn--
tormented by the older brother,
her older brother.
It got so bad that Tyra was afraid to be home alone with him,
and she's been doing a series of shows with us this season
and told us that sibling rivalry was a topic that she wanted
to talk about, Devin, because of her experience with you.
Devin Banks is Tyra's brother.
He says Tyra was the family favorite who could do no wrong.
And growing up, it was his goal to belittle her
and make her cry. His goal.
WINFREY: It was your--really? For how long?
Mr. BANKS: It was--certainly right, absolutely.
BANKS: Oh, I'd say about 25 years.
WINFREY: Really?
Mr. BANKS: Yeah, I'm--I'm profoundly ashamed to say that.
But, yeah, I--I--I tormented her for about 20, 25 years.
WINFREY: And you told the producers that,
really, it was your goal to do that.
Mr. BANKS: Yeah, it was. It was my mission in life.
You know, I was actually projecting and displacing a lot of anger,
teen angst and so forth on her.
She was vulnerable. It was easy, you know.
WINFREY: And what were you and who were you angry with?
Ms. BANKS: He was angry with our father.
Mr. BANKS: That--yeah.
Ms. BANKS: Because I could--he's right, I could do no wrong.
I was Daddy's little girl.
Mr. BANKS: Yeah.
Ms. BANKS: I whimpered a little bit, he got the whuppings...
Mr. BANKS: ...even though I might have been wrong,
but it was always his fault.
Mr. BANKS: Yeah.
Ms. BANKS: And it was--I--I feel that my father was trying to, you know,
rear me to be more macho and masculine, but it's hard to
explain to an adolescent that, you know, the disparity of treatment here
and the division of labor thing is to, you know, make you more of a man.
WINFREY: And so what kinds of things would he do to you, Tyra?
Ms. BANKS: Oh, my gosh.
I'd be eating my food and then he would just be eating it
and grabbing it and eating it.
And I'd be like, `Stop eating my food.'
And he's like, `This is the jungle and the law of the land means you
have to protect your food!'
Right? So I'd put my arms around my food and start eating it.
And he said, `Now you look like a damn dog.'
So then I'd go like,
`Oh, I look like a dog, oh, but he's gonna eat it, oh, oh.'
It was always these mind games. Another thing he did was--
I'm in my room doing my homework.
WINFREY: Yeah.
Ms. BANKS: My mom was working two jobs, so she was out at work
and I hear a loud `crash, boom' in the kitchen.
I run to the kitchen, my brother's tooth looks like it is knocked out,
he's on the floor, kitchen table turned over, all the chairs
turned over, blood pouring out of his mouth.
And he's yelling `Call 911. Call 911. I'm dying.'
So I'm calling upward and, `My brother, he's dying,
he's dying. His mouth is bleeding.'
Like, I get a bang upside my head.
He hangs up the phone, he's like,
`You stupid idiot, it's ketchup.'
You know, it was just constant.
Popping firecrackers in the sink, starting fires, and he said,
`And if you tell, you know you're gonna get it.'
WINFREY: You really tormented her. You...
Mr. BANKS: Yeah. That's right.
BANKS: Yeah, I did. I delegated all the work she gave me...
WINFREY: 'Cause it sounds like fun and games now,
but it wasn't fun and games for you.
Ms. BANKS: Oh, it wasn't fun and games.
Mr. BANKS: Yeah.
Ms. BANKS: Every time she left the house, it was just like,
`What's gonna happen now? What door is he gonna be behind?
What mind game is he gonna pull on me?'
Mr. BANKS: I felt that if I could control her and get--I was actually
getting back at my father for everything that--that...
WINFREY: And you knew that?
Mr. BANKS: I didn't realize it, you know, until we had that last
argument when you were 25 years old and--but...
WINFREY: So what happened? You all had another fight?
Ms. BANKS: Yeah, I went to go visit him in Okinawa all
the way across the world in Japan, because he's in
the Air Force, as everybody can see.
WINFREY: Just flew here from Okinawa,
three planes, a bus, a--but, yeah...
WINFREY: Yeah.
Ms. BANKS: And...
BANKS: Yeah. Just to get here.
BANKS: Yeah. Thanks. Thank you.
WINFREY: Thank you.
Mr. BANKS: Yea!
Anyway, we're driving in the car. His wife is in the front with him
and my mom and I are in the back. And we're driving through
pineapple plantations because Okinawa is
full of pineapples and sugarcane.
And all you can see for miles is pineapples.
And we're on this road trying to get to some pineapple plant for a tour.
And I say something, and then he's like,
`You're ignorant, you're always ignorant,
you don't know what you're talking about.
And, yeah, you've traveled the world, you've lived in Paris for a year,
and you've done this and you've done that, but you still
haven't been in college, you have no education, so you're ignorant.'
And I just went off.
Mr. BANKS: I went off and I said,
`Stop the car now.'
And he dropped us off, like, at some kind of pineapple plant.
I don't know where we were.
But I said--and I had my mom--I said,
`Mom, get out of the car with me.
I can't be by myself.'
And I said, `I've traveled the world, I will find our way
back to a hotel and I will
find how to get back on that airplane and go home...'
`...because I'm tired of it.'
Mr. BANKS: She did.
Ms. BANKS: It was really enlightening.
Ms. BANKS: And he just drove off, down--and he left us.
Mr. BANKS: Yeah.
WINFREY: And you did leave?
Mr. BANKS: Well, I came back, but--yeah, yeah.
Ms. BANKS: About 10 minutes later we saw the car coming
in the road to get us.
And he was crying, I was crying.
Mr. BANKS: Yeah. It was a rude awakening.
I--that's when--You know what?
I had been in--in the service for so many years,
and I left--when I left, she was a child.
So it's kind of like I was in a--a state of--of suspension, a time warp,
so I didn't see her as an adult the next time I saw her,
it was, like, four years later.
So I--that was the day I realized Tyra's an adult,
a self-sufficient woman and I--I can't--I can't do this anymore.
BANKS: And then we totally...
Mr. BANKS: Yeah.
WINFREY: This is Carolyn London, Tyra and Devin's mother,
and she says she didn't realize that Tyra and Devin were rivaling.
She just always thought that Tyra was just a whiny little girl
always tattling on her big brother.
Is that true? You didn't realize it was this serious?
BANKS: Yeah.
WINFREY: OK.
Ms. CAROLYN LONDON: I had no idea it was as serious as it was.
I knew--now he was--he was known to get into trouble.
And the majority of the time he was so slick with what he would do,
he'd always cover his tracks,
so he would almost put her in a situation where he was setting her up.
So, like, for instance, you remember the time I was on a business--
very important business phone call. I told them,
`I don't want any noise in the background.'
I did not know while I'm on the phone he's doing
everything he could to make her make noise.
Ms. BANKS: `Stop it. Stop. Mom! Tell him to stop it.'
Ms. BANKS: So what does she hear?
Ms. LONDON: So, of course, when I get off the phone,
who gets the spanking?
Ms. LONDON: She does. She made the noise.
Mr. BANKS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
WINFREY: And you protected him, is that what you're saying,
or you just thought it was--that's kids will be kids?
Ms. LONDON: I just thought kids would be kids. But I...
Ms. BANKS: I still thought you protected him, Mom.
Ms. LONDON: I did. But I did...
Ms. BANKS: He was your favorite.
Mr. LONDON: I have to--I have to confess one thing...
Ms. BANKS: No.
Ms. BANKS: Don't trip because we're on TV now.
Mr. BANKS: Yeah. Yeah.
Ms. LONDON: I have to confess that I wanted Tyra to be a strong woman,
so I think I put a lot more emphasis on her being independent and
strong and not whimpering and whining.
I didn't baby him, but I did have a tendency to feel that--with
the whining that was coming from her that it
couldn't possibly be...
Ms. LONDON: Yeah, it was just a weakness.
It's like come on, you know?
Mr. BANKS: That it was just weakness.
Because I was always sick anyways.
I had fevers, I had this, I had that.
Ms. BANKS: Yeah. Yeah.
Ms. BANKS: So she's thinking `Oh, you're just whining.'
Ms. LONDON: `Fight back,' you know?
`Come on, don't just come running to me. You can deal with this.'
That type of thing. So I'm guilty of that.