Maltese model Tiffany Pisani last night made it to the final of Britain’s Next Top Model, together with two Londoners, Alisha White and Joy McLaren.

Kristina Chetcuti spoke to the Maltese hopeful.

Charlotte Holmes, the favourite of Britain’s Next Top Model reality television show, was last night eliminated from the contest leaving Malta’s Tiffany still in the running.

“I was very surprised I made it to the final,” Tiffany, who is currently in Malta, told The Times.

The final showdown between the three girls will take place on October 4 and the winner will be chosen exclusively through public voting. Tiffany, 18, who was eligible to take part because her mother is British, will be going up to London next week to prepare for the final.

She has in the meantime shed her trademark blond look to a more subtle brunette, but has kept the pixie haircut she was given at the beginning of the competition.

Her reluctance to accept the short haircut was what had made Elle Macpherson, the supermodel and the show’s host, quite critical of the Maltese aspirant.

“She was frustrated with me. She gave me this elfish look which she really wanted me to adopt but I was resisting. Let’s say it’s a lot better now. I’ve made it my own – but the bleach is gone, my hair really needed a break.”

She did not feel she was criticised more than others and does not think there was any favouritism on the show.

The judges were harsh, she said, especially top designer Julien Macdonald, but she added: “What he said was so true. The thing is you have to learn not to take it to heart. Of course it hurts but I was there for them to tell me what to do.”

Her Maltese accent and her different cultural background, she believes, made her stand out for the better: “In these things the more you stand out the better.”

The heavily edited show, which squeezed four days of filming into a 55-minute programme, was, according to Tiffany, not scripted at all. However, the aspiring models “were helped a lot” in their daily recordings in front of a camera.

“We’d be talking to the director and we’d have to criticise each other’s work, which wasn’t easy to do,” she added.

This was a sensitive issue and has even led to Olivia Oldham Stevens, one of the eliminated models, calling Tiffany “double-faced” in the British papers.

“I contacted Olivia after that programme. She was shocked I had said I didn’t like her work [of the week before]. She knows we were made to criticise everyone. But she has every right to feel that way I suppose. But we’re ok now and still very much in touch,” she said.

Tiffany said she was on the phone almost every week with some of the girls she was closest to including Joy, Amelia, Charlotte and Susan. Charlotte, who had just taken part in Miss England, was even helping her find an apartment in London.

Despite this camaraderie, inside the house there was a lot of tension.

“It didn’t feel like prison, of course, because I really wanted to be there. But there was a lot of tension, especially towards elimination day.”

Long shooting hours, especially in the initial programmes, did not do anything to ease the stress. “The first elimination took 67 hours to film. One girl even fainted.”

The competitive air of the programme made her feel she could not fully trust anyone and confessed that she was very homesick during the three-month stint in the show’s house.

“We were only allowed a three-minute call every 10 days. That’s when I broke down. I really needed that time to talk to my family and my boyfriend but in three minutes you don’t get to say anything,” she said.

However, this was not the reason why on the programme she was often called “shy” and urged to “get out of the shell”.

“I’m not really shy, but keep in mind it was a shock for me. I had never done any work in front of a television camera before. By the end, even though I dreaded posing naked, when I had to do it, I went ahead,” she said.

She certainly has come a long way from when she and her sister would dream of becoming models as they watched America’s Next Top Model.

“It never crossed our minds to even do anything about our dream,” she said. It was only when she was scouted by Carina Camilleri, director of models.com.mt, that things took a turn for real.

“I had just come out of the dentist, crying, when suddenly this car pulled over. Carina rolled down the window and asked my mum: ‘Madam are these your children?’ Well by the end of the conversation, I wasn’t crying anymore,” she said.

Having made it to Britain’s Next Top Model final is already a huge thing for Tiffany. The chances of winning the trophy are a big question mark:

“Joy, Alisha and myself are so completely different. It’s really up to the public now.”

Whether she wins or not, Tiffany is moving to London this autumn to pursue her modelling career.

“Being in the top three of Britain’s Next Top Model opens many doors. I decided to take a pause from my studies because I want to give modelling a serious go.”

Tiffany, whose name means epiphany, has so far lived up to her name: She has been just that, a revelation, a lightening in the bolt, brightening up the Maltese modelling scene.

(See video above)