The big conversation this weekend was about Alison Roman’s white-hipster attacks on Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo. Roman said outright that Teigen and Kondo were sellouts shilling consumerism, and claimed that consumerism was inauthentic to their brand if not downright hypocritical. Yes, Roman chose two women of color for her hipster gatekeeping, and yes, Roman was doing the interview to promote her own product line. In the attacks against Teigen, Roman suggested that Teigen’s Cravings site and social media is basically a content farm and Teigen barely does anything herself.
Of course Chrissy Teigen responded on social media, because she lives on social media and she feeds on this kind of thing. Teigen had every right to clap back, and she did clap back with an initial tweet-thread, which I covered. Most people were on her side and this weekend was full of larger conversations about white chefs stealing cultural recipes and Anglicizing them, then getting credit and profit from that cuisine culture-vulture. The thing is, Chrissy Teigen lives on the internet and she kept going. Lots of people were throwing some old stuff back in her face, like the time she made some unfortunate tweets about Quvenzhané Wallis (who was only 9 years old at the time), or all the times she inserted herself into C-list drama for attention – Nicki Swift compiled a list of “shady” things Chrissy has done online and in interviews.
So, basically, there was a backlash to the backlash. It went from “Alison Roman attacks Chrissy Teigen, poor Chrissy,” to “well, Chrissy isn’t cool either.” So now Chrissy is taking a break from social media:
Looks like Chrissy Teigen would like to be excluded from this narrative. On Friday, best-selling cookbook author Alison Roman made headlines with comments she made about Chrissy’s business model in the food world. Soon after her comments made rounds on social media, people went to Chrissy’s defense but it looks like things might have taken another unexpected turn over the weekend.
On Twitter this weekend, Chrissy wrote: “This is what always happens. The first day, a ton of support, then the next, 1 million reasons as to why you deserved this. It never fails.”
It seems as though the Cravings author might be referring to old resurfaced tweets from years past that Twitter users found problematic. Now, Chrissy has made her Twitter account private and decided to take “a little break.”
“I really hate what this drama has caused this week,” she added. “Calling my kids Petri dish babies or making up flight manifests with my name on them to “Epstein island”, to justify someone else’s disdain with me seems gross to me so I’m gonna take a little break.”
E! News makes it sound like there wasn’t a full weekend of drama and people on Chrissy’s timeline, reposting all of her problematic old tweets… only for Chrissy to first delete those tweets then make her account private. To be clear, no one is arguing that Roman’s interview wasn’t shady and no one is saying that Roman is NOT problematic for attacking women of color. We’re just saying that no one should throw out their back caping for Chrissy Teigen.
I won’t forget how Chrissy Teigen used her platform to make fun of Quvenzhané Wallis, who was a child at the time. She’s also known for being shady and rude to others but now she wants to act butt hurt because Alison Roman threw shade at her culinary line? Oh well. 🤷🏾♀️
— Kia Richards (@KiaRichards_) May 9, 2020
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Okay so I’ve been trying to follow this (as I said on twitter I have never heard of Allison Roman before) and I think this is an example of two things being true at once – Roman was out of line/racist/acting as a gatekeeper AND Chrissy has a history of being problematic and messy AF on twitter. The latter does not negate the former, I sort of wish the conversation about Chrissy was happening completely separate from the conversation re: Roman.
Agreed!
Definitely
absolutely agree.
For sure. Alison Roman was gross re: her comments. I don’t disagree about that at all.
The issue with Chrissy is that she refuses to have a conversation about her nasty tweets towards a child. IIRC, she got called out when it happened, doubled down, then took a break until it blew over. Chrissy has never even tried to apologize and that those tweets were still up years later showed she wasn’t sorry. What type of person attacks a 9 year old girl on social media over her correcting people about her name (which is another conversation about how the [white] media kept being rude or stupid about Quvenzhane’s name, esp during the Annie movie promotion)?
By deleting the tweets, locking her account, and taking a break, Chrissy is doing another runner to avoid the discussion of her nasty tweets towards a child. She refuses to address it or apologize and that is a foul stance for her to take AFAIC.
I recall at the time a white female reporter didn’t feel like trying to pronounce the girl’s name, told her “Well I’m just gonna call you Annie” and that’s when the little girl corrected her on her name.
The entertainment reporter wouldn’t say to Saoirse Ronan “Well I’m just gonna call you Jo” without being corrected. Little Quvenzhane did the right thing by signaling to the reporter she is owed respect.
Yep. I saw way too many people bringing up Chrissy problematic tweets as a way of both siding the issue. Nope. Nothing Chrissy has said justifies Roman’s obviously biased comments. Roman didn’t go after white influencers. She went after two Asian/Asian American women.
Chrissy should be woman enough to apologize for what she’s said. She won’t and that’s why I don’t follow her anymore. She’s a hypocrite and irritating af.
@TheOriginalMia I completely agree. I never really was a fan of Chrissy and let’s be real she wouldn’t have the career she has if it wasnt for John Legend. Chrissy is so annoying to me. I couldn’t take her as a person. But she is shady and judgemental as hell to other people. Putting out on SM that you had sex in the WH bathroom is just tacky as hell. She refused to apologize to a child for making those comments and then when people called her out on it she got defensive. She needs a break and we need a break from her. I have a feeling she won’t be able to stay away for long.
YES! This. The issue with Roman is that, while she used Teigen and Marie Kondo as her racist gate keeping example this time, she means it about any women of color who stray out of their lane into “hers” (prior comments/actions prove this). Teigen also has major issues with her filter and is problematic for that (I do not like it when people claim they can’t help what they say – yes they can).
I jusgt do not want Teigen’s past comments to take over the current conversation about Roman. Roman and women like her benefit from the distraction and it proves to them that their feelings are justified. I know, I know, we can discuss two things at once, and care about two things at once. But it seems like Teigen’s problems are getting the bulk of the outrage, like Roman’s issue existed just to bring this back up. And that shouldn’t be the case, either.
Case in point, the comments on both articles on this page seem to be focused on Chrissy’s past behavior. White woman gets the benefit of the doubt.
@Becks1
Actually it’s the same conversation racism and on-line bullying
Teigen want everyone to see her as the victim now that she had found a White woman’s words hurtful but HAS never acknowledged when she has hurt others
For the record the most egregious tweets were deleted, in those Teigen retweeted an Article from the ONION calling a 9 yo black girl a C*nt and asked ” If they were hiring ? ” She also referred to the child as “cocky” aka uppity
When she was called out on it she THEN doubled down with the tweets shown above
Also when one of the Mowry sisters announced thier pregnant on SM by showing thier pregnancy test ( yes that used to be a thing I dont get it but if its not for you move on )
When everyone else responded with Congrats or simply moved on Tiegen felt the need to snarkily comment ” on how much are the EPT companies paying celebs to pee on a sticK?”
No defense of this Alison person either but Teigen can kick rocks in open toe shoes and the amount of Black women flying to her defense ….Unreal
@notthisagain – someone down below said something similar about Black women defending her. It’s an interesting take, one that had not occurred to me I admit because I’m white. the connection between Chrissy’s previous tweets (which I definitely think were bullying) and her reaction here that you describe in your post is something that I had not thought of.
Agreed
Roman was openly racist – openly
Teigen is an idiot – I am not bothered by those tweets to the kid
Putting them together means we forget the grim racism
Agreed. Excellent post.
Chrissy has been offensive and horrible on Twitter on multiple occasions (and hasn’t apologized) but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t a victim of racism here by Alison Roman. And no amount of weak apologies on Alison Roman’s part can negate that. And what about poor Marie Kondo who has been totally dismissed.
The Roman-Chrissy and probelmatic Chrissy tweets conversations should be completely separate.
Absolutely this!!!!
The problem was that Chrissy started whining about how people were picking on her, wah wah wah and that’s when people were like “Ok, wait a minute, how about when YOU bullied ____?”
For someone who built her brand online, she sure shot herself in the foot. It would have been simpler to apologize and delete the offending Tweets.
Yeah. It doesn’t make sense to me. Also, like… the Q. Wallis jokes weren’t that bad? Don’t get me wrong, they weren’t classy or clever and she WAS a child. But, it seems like a pretty easy one to apologize for. Just say “Now that I’m a mother, I realize how vulnerable children are in the internet age…. etc. etc. etc. I’M SORRY.”
That said, I know Chrissy and John get a lot of QAnon stuff and they are wildly hated by people because John spoke out against R. Kelly and MJ.
Not that bad @mika?! CT co-signed The Onion calling QW a c*nt. On the night of the Oscars when the focus should have been on her amazing achievement, it was all about the scrambling to delete that tweet.
The anti-blackness was disgusting then and it’s disgusting now.
And that NYT woman is a basic b*tch who should focus on GOOP instead of her own petty racist jealousy.
I don’t think there’s any justification for calling a child a c&nt, especially if there was a story about an adult white woman a c&nt the came people excusing Onion/Chrissy calling the name people would be melting down.
There is no excuse, none. Chrissy Teigen would be melting down if anyone called her daughter Luna a c&nt.
Uuuuuuhhhhhh… she verbally attacked a kid for having the audacity to correct the pronunciation of her name. Yeah, Teigen’s attacks were that bad. She just doesn’t own it at all.
Or better yet, think before you tweet. I don’t understand that people get offended when they are called out for inappropriate statements. Before you insult someone on twitter think about the fact that it won’t ever go away. It may affect your career. There is still no excuse for racist attacks.
I love that she goes after Trump and Fox News, etc. but she just seems exhausting.
I personally can’t get into her – I do think it’s at least partly right that she just constantly streams out content and you can’t escape it. I don’t begrudge her success though – she wanted her own thing and worked for it. I can remember a time when she had to settle for being a bartender on WWHL because she wasn’t famous enough to be a guest.
This so much. I didn’t care too much about her snarky attitude meets I’m your cool bourgeois social media friend.
Both things can be true, it’s not one or the other only.
How does she not realize how hurtful her own comments were? The stuff Stodden re-posted was TERRIBLE. And this, criticizing a 9 year old? Ugh.
It was very brave of Courtney Stodden to break her silence on Chrissy Teigan’s misogynistic abuse of her. Because she was not an oppressed bullied male victim, and because of the virgin-wh*re complex people on both sides still have, there are many people who would prefer to either ignore/downplay the seriousness of how she was treated, or use that to say she brought it on herself and shame her for addressing it all. Plus there’s the fact that it’s abuse that many are already guilty of either participating in or justifying anyway, which leads to defensiveness. We don’t yet live in a world where dehumanizing people who make up half the population in the name of sexual morality and wishing violence on them over that issue are even rare.
totally agree with this. it was brave of her. Chrissy needs to check herself and fess up instead of hiding. those texts to a teenages were APPALLING. you can’t hide from the things you’ve. the best thing she can do is wholeheartedly admit that she did this and take accountability. then she should spend her time doing all kinds of work for anti-bullying charities to stop this mess. it’s just gross.
For someone would basically lives her life on Twitter, she should have known how everyone would know she was deleting her old tweets and how shady it would look. The internet never forgets.
Team no one.
This. Live by the internet, die by the internet. A double standard is hard to cover up when the proof is available.
So true , I have no need for either woman or what they are shilling.
Chrissy has tweeted some problematic & moronic thoughts in the( long) past and for those she should apologize (maybe she’s already done privately) but it’s been my impression that she’s evolved. Now she comes across as relatable, empathetic, self deprecating and kind. I think we have to make space for people to learn, mature and become compassionate thru life’s experiences.
She tweeted to Courtney Stodden, age 17, to “go. to sleep. forever” and to Farrah Abraham she was a “whore.” That is some hateful shit.
She has not apologized, stop suggesting she might have secretly. You attack some one publicly — telling a teenager to die, no less — you don’t get to pretend you might have maybe apologized super secretly.
We all knew freaking better even in 2013 than to send death threats. Stop minimizing that shit.
True. Not only did she promote against women by slut-shaming Courtney Stodden and others, but by wishing death on her. LaineyGossip has a great Hilarie Burton-related article up on how girls and women are groomed into accepting disrespectful, abusive behavior by how we put more emphasis on tone-policing how women handle it than we do on dealing with the behavior itself. When she rolls with the punches or acts as desensitized, we make that into an altruistic act. When she’s not subservient enough, she’s the ‘bad girl’ who needs to be silenced.
Maybe Chrissy Teigan will eventually apologize and grow, but in the meantime we need to examine the everyday ways both sexes are encouraged to treat girls the way she did (and worse), even if that involves change and discomfort. If boys are worth it (and we roll our eyes at conservatives who whine about why they should stop saying this or that) then girls are too.
I’m not defending her comments and some that you reference I wasn’t aware of and they’re awful. I’m saying that her mea culpa’s might have been private, because if I was on the receiving end I’d prefer a private apology over a pr spin to intended to save my ass.
I still, however stand by my posit that we have to allow people to grow, mature and learn by mistakes.
I would hate to be defined by my questionable conduct in my early 20’s because I don’t even slightly resemble that impetuous girl.
If you tell Courtney Stodden to kill herself publically on Twitter, you should not be issuing private apologies to Courtney Stodden OFF Twitter. You should apologize on Twitter.
Same with the bullying of Quvenzhane Wallis: if you blast the girl and retweet accounts calling the 9 year old a c&nt in public, then you should apologize in public. Don’t blast me in public then try to slide me a private apology. Keep that same energy.
By the way, Chrissy Teigen was 27, 28 years old when she blasted the little girl. She is for all intents and purposes a middle aged woman bullying Courtney Stodden. Chrissy Teigen is old enough to know better and if Alison Roman can catch the heat, so can Chrissy.
If Chrissy can’t handle the get, log off social media and get some PR people to run her Twitter/Instagram.
Nope. Nope. Nope. You tell an abused, exploited underaged teenager to “go to sleep forever” in public? You make sure that **if** you apologize, you apologize in public. Otherwise, you haven’t apologized.
You humble yourself the same way you elevated yourself – in public.
She stood on the backs of at least two children, who did nothing to her, trashing them publicly for kicks. I have no use for her.
Blowback is a VENGEFUL….Bitch…
Lol. This is what people normally call karma.
Teigen’s tweets about Quvenzhané weren’t just unfortunate. They were racist. Lots of people feel comfortable showing open hatred and hostility to little darker-skinned Black girls. Quvenzhané also has a unmistakably culturally Black name, and this is also fuel for the disrespect aimed at her. And no, Teigen having a Black husband and kids who are “biracial” doesn’t mean she is incapable of engaging in anti-Blackness. (I hate the term biracial-race isn’t real but racism unfortunately is…)
100%
Exactly!
This. Chrissy Teigan wasn’t someone I knew of at the time when this happened, so for years I didn’t even know that was her.
Excellent point. I don’t see her calling out any other young children in the spotlight.
Also, Quvenzhané was so good in that movie – it was her first role, she was amazing, and she was super cute during all the red carpets. Who could look at her and that situation and think “hmm, I want to knock that kid down a few pegs”?
Totally agree. Quvenzhané hit the trifecta for bullies, abusers & racists – she was a child, a girl and Black.
Roman and Chrissy are separate but important conversations, both of them extremely problematic.
I imagine her little “break” is to formulate a way out of this with some good PR.
Agreed, it’s not an either or thing- we can express frustration over how she has treated people (+how that mistreatment is encouraged in society) and still call out past, present, or future racist/sexist situations that may involve her as a victim.
I don’t think what Roman said about Teigen is a separate conversation because it’s mostly black women who have dragged Roman in defense of Teigen–a woman who is anti-black.
Teigen is anti-black period. You don’t defend a publication calling a black child the C-word (!) and then double down on it by calling her ‘cocky’ if you are not anti-black.
I hope the black women who breathlessly tweeted and retweeted critique at Roman realize we (black women) win NOTHING by capping hard for non-black women of color who hate us.
Thank you!! Whenever I see women saying how much they LOVE Chrissy, I just side-eye them. She’s a nasty piece of work. I also side-eye John Legend who seems like a nice level-headed guy.
This is an interesting perspective and I saw someone say something similar on twitter and it did make me think. I said above that I think the two are separate conversations but I can see how for many, they aren’t going to view them separately.
Sigh. I’m no fan of Chrissy, but from what I understand she hasn’t been like that for several years. The thing about the child actress bothered me because Black folks are disproportionately attacked, but her actual tweets are nowhere near as bad as some of the twittersphere is making it out to be. Maybe I’m missing something, but it’s that and some slut shamey tweets from nearly a decade ago, right?
I don’t know. I guess I think the twitter mob goes overboard sometimes and refuses to recognize people change and grow, and that many of us have said something problematic in our lives. Up until I was about 25, I am embarrassed to admit I used to slut shame. Granted, I was never dumb enough to put it on social media.
I agree that cancel culture is valid when its racist slurs & that sort of thing. However, digging something up from 7-10 years ago that’s problematic, but not wildly problematic, and then “canceling” the person just gets tiring…especially because people get “passes” for much worse and there’s a bit of “throwing rocks at glass houses” type of vibe.
What she said about that child was pretty bad. At her big age of 27, why was she publicly proclaiming her dislike for a child by calling her cocky, bratty, liking tweets calling her a c*nt simply because the child wanted her name pronounced correctly. And now, folks are coming at Chrissy’s kids and she’s in her feelings locking her account and deleting tweets. She’s been pretty awful for years. This is long overdue.
I understand what people are complaining about with Teigen, but let us please not defend or condone people calling her kids awful names. Two wrongs do not make a right, and the more we practice that, the nicer the online world can become.
Teigen hasn’t grown from mocking a black CHILD: she was a full-grown and only deleted the tweets hours ago.
She’s racist period. Even with her black husband and mixed-race children, she is racist. She doesn’t deserve grace because she has yet to show any remorse for defending The Onion calling a black little child the C-word.
She can have her fans, but they should not be black women.
Well the chicken have come home to roost haven’t they? Totally agree with Becks, two things can be true.
She is, and has been problematic (I think she also called that child a very vulgar name that rhymes with blunt back then) but it doesn’t negate the Alison thing.
But I can chew gum and walk at the same time, so I’m here for it.
Like I said yesterday she seems to use social media for validation. But things can turn on a dime, which is why I’m not on Twitter, the praise is great, but when they decide to come for you (whether it’s rightly or wrongly deserved), it sucks. Her whole thing is to be outspoken on social media and be unfiltered or whatever, but how does that work with a private account? Also she has 12.7 million followers so that’s not reply private lol all those ppl can still troll her or screen shot anything controversial she posts. I don’t get it.
There are so many cliches that describe this situation it is cracking me up.
All this! Chrissy loves to be the center of attention, as long as it’s all positive attention to boost up her ego. Girl is as thirsty as they come. She needs to take a long break and grow up.
I watched John’s first concert at home, and she was UNBEARABLE. People tuned in for his music, and she was hogging the camera and being dismissive of him. He seems like such a nice guy, I don’t really understand their dynamic.
IKR? I find it highly ironic that she went after Courtney Stodden for fame-whoring when she, in fact, is one of the queens of fame-whoring. For a while you couldn’t get away from her. She’s owned up to having had a drinking problem for a while, maybe that explains her “LOOK AT MEEEE” behaviour, but she really was OTT and in your face all the time. She’s tiresome.
@lucy, I feel she is low key jealous of her husband and he is way out of her league, and she knows it. She puts everything out there, and not sure why. She has enough credibility as a cook/entrepreneur, she has the lovely children, hottest husband ( according to People), A-list life, so why the constant neediness? Like do we need to see her hung over in bed surrounded by Burger King wrappers the day after her husband gets an award.Ugh, just, why?
No, she did not call Quvenzhane Wallis a c*nt, it was The Onion that did that.
She retweeted the Onion Article with laugh emojis and asked if they were hiring?
So basically yes
Despite the backlash to Alison and the awful way she brought up the subject, I’m grateful she opened the conversation once again about consumerism and selling out. It would have been better if she had mentioned white people instead of Marie and Chrissy. However idk who that would be because you guys are suggesting Rachel Ray goop Martha and Paula.
Paula’s old, racist and cancelled
Martha’s old and even when she was a new thing her audience wasn’t young and she « sold out » like 30 years ago. Rachel Ray just seems like she was always a consumerism type, and she’s not popular with Chrissy and Alison’s fans, and goop seems a bit greedy lately but they don’t sell stuff and target made in china at this point.
Something I love about Chrissy is that she’s outspoken and doesn’t try to act demure. I like how she handled the spongebob thing a week or two ago. however I didn’t know about the insults to young people and she should apologize for that.
As soft as her response was, I honestly think if she had ignored Alison totally people may not have gone digging. Not saying she should have to be quiet but it’s interesting how Chrissy pushed back a little, in a mature way, and people just went nuts.
Why is everyone so interested in what bad things Chrissy has done years ago instead of the actual issue, consumerism.
I’d love to see an article anywhere describing what exactly the two ladies are selling and how they got started.
Umm no. The push back started a week or two ago when Courtney Stoddard (one of her victims) went public with the tweets and how they made her feel at the time and how they still make her feel. And Teigen has still not addressed it or apologized.
It’s about time she’s getting called out for her bullying ways
Goop ” . . don’t sell stuff and target made in china at this point”?! Goop is the embodiment of consumerism and just like this Roman person, have long been whitewashing traditional (including Chinese) health therapies to boost her goop empire. https://theconversation.com/marketing-not-medicine-gwyneth-paltrows-the-goop-lab-whitewashes-traditional-health-therapies-for-profit-130287
Going private seems like the coward’s way out after she was rightfully called out for being a bully. She needs to apologize. I’m really interested to see how she tries to spin this.
Maybe we shouldn’t talk about the two women in terms of who’s worse and who had what coming. That cooking lady was being a condescending, possibly racist, hipster a**hole. It was no accident that she quickly moved on from Goop to sh*t on two women of color for doing the same thing she’s doing. That’s an issue. A big one.
Nothing Chrissy has said or done changes that and I hate how already the conversation has shifted to “karma”. No. You don’t have to shed tears for Chrissy (I don’t) but the focus shouldn’t shift away entirely from the issue. I mean what has Marie Kondo done? Nothing, to my knowledge.
These things need to stay separate and maybe it shouldn’t have taken a racist hipster lady to remind people that Chrissy isn’t harmless. And she has never really apologized. The things she tweeted about Wallis were disgusting. But hey, she sometimes takes down people we don’t like and brings drama so let’s forget that for a while.
Exactly. There is no karma when it comes to racism or sexism. We ALL are hurt when someone experience either. And no one deserves it. Completely separate, and I hope Roman’s issues don’t get lost in the weeds.
And I agree, Marie Kondo has been completely dismissed from the conversation despite that fact that once again her philosophy has been dismissed and misunderstood, and she hasn’t done anything to anyone. If you can’t feel for Chrissy, maybe we should focus our outrage on Kondo’s behalf.
This.
Roman – to my knowledge – still hasn’t apologized to Marie Kondo for calling her a “bitch.” The hatred towards Marie Kondo truly baffles me. And I agree with @Original Jenns – Marie’s philosophy has been dumped on for no reason and people totally misconstruing what she has said.
HERE FOR ALL OF THIS. I do not get it
Whew! This is… not it.
You’re not “caping” for Chrissy, people.
You’re dismantling white supremacy, one tweet at a time.
Identifying white fragility, naming it, so it can finally stop.
There are not good people on both sides here.
There’s a history of white women using and abusing, and getting away with it because people turn on the victim.
Chrissy is a victim of racism, here. Whatever her past, she is actively experiencing racism, and the only people who can stop it are white people.
If you’re a person still thinking this is a feud between 2 not great people, you need to find more Black people and have some honest conversations, where you listen and don’t talk.
Start with Black twitter. Just read the conversations happening daily about this very systemic problem.
There’s also a history of WOC engaging in misogynoir, this time towards a child, but I guess we can’t talk about that? Hmmm.
Does anyone remember Courtney Stodden? Chrissy’s tweets to her were vile – telling her she should, “go to sleep, forever” and that she fantasized about Courtney taking “a dirt nap” and so on. I love Chrissy but this was a bit much.
Chrissy can also be tone deaf and never knows how to deal with folks calling her out. For example, during the shut down, she tweeted a link that was essentially meant to benefit small businesses and restaurants–except the product she was promoting cost more than 100 dollars for a pound of food. Granted, you were getting fresh clam chowder from Boston or lobsters from Maine so the price made sense. But still…not the best thing to post as people are losing their jobs, worried about their income, etc. So a few reporters actually called her out and instead of apologizing or reading the room, she freaked out! You could tell that she was upset they didnt like her because she kept tweeting over and over again about how she was upset that the first interaction with these reporters was because of this tweet. She’s definitely insecure and open about being insecure so I can see why she’s so reactive to commentary. If she had addressed the old tweets and apologized genuinely this would have been so much better for her, but basically now, she’s losing the battle. Sucks for her because I’ve heard that she and John are really great tippers and wonderful people so idk
I feel like Chrissy has a lot of diversions from her problematic behavior. Like she talks up her own mental health issues, so then if you call her out on the negative stuff, you’re being “mean” by coming for a fragile person. Chrissy is so different from other “brand” influencers in that most of them try to carefully curate themselves and generally don’t broadcast their personal opinions on things – Chrissy tends to be out there will all of it.
Maybe part of it is that Chrissy’s fans are defending her by pushing the racism and sexism in Roman’s statements, but seem to downplay Chrissy’s own histories of racism and sexism? I mean, it does look a wee bit hypocritical.
As a Korean woman, I don’t identify as a WOC and I dont know any Asian woman who do. Yes, in the United States I am technically a minority but as far as identity politics are concerned, that’s a different thing. I feel it’s a stretch to make this about race. Roman was using the 3 most popular and relevant examples she could- one being GOOP, a buisiness owned by the epitomy of a priveleged white woman! I had never heard of Roman, and while she can be funny, Chrissy is overexposed IMO.
The way you identify is your business. Not going to comment on that. However, I keep hearing people say that Alison wasn’t being racist because she also went after Gwyneth.
Uh-no. She didn’t criticize Goop. She simply said that the world doesn’t need another Goop, because the market is over-saturated with Goop-like blogs. If anything, Gwyneth would probably be flattered. She’s saying that everyone wants to be like Goop.
Uh are you an Asian woman in America? If you are I don’t believe you.
(I’m not white)
It’s fine that you weren’t offended. Many other Asian people were and said so.
Alison Roman called Marie Kondo a “bitch” for no reason and has yet to apologize to her. She only weakly apologized to Chrissy because of the intense backlash she received.
As another Asian woman here, I totally disagree. It is racism and even if you don’t identify yourself as a WOC, other can still view you as one. Roman is using micro aggression style of racism against Asians because she built her career appropriating our recipes and then adapting it without credit and she’s insecure. Twitter has other posts about how she has treated other Asians strangely or aggressively. There was no need for her to name check two successful Asian women instead of the many countless other men and women in her field. Marie Kondo isn’t even in her field of work, is totally misrepresented and called a sellout B-;$;).
As an Asian American woman of Indian origin, I do identify as a person of color BUT I completely agree with you that this isn’t a “racist attack” by the chef on Marie Kondo or Chrissy Teigen. That is flung around way too casually. I think her tone came off as that she identified with them or respected them in some way and was disappointed by the commercial approach they easily fell into…which is exactly what she’s doing too. It’s hypocritical at worst. But come on…not every criticism can be attributed to a conscious OR subconscious attempt to undermine or discredit the accomplishments of people of a certain race. It’s myopic to suggest this at every turn. Obviously it exists, but anytime a white personal criticizes a person of color it’s immediately thought of as racist. Teigen’s comments towards a child were not okay and whether intended or not she should have been aware of how it sounded as subconscious racism and in poor taste.
well said!
Good point! Those were my thoughts as well. Sometimes people are just jerks but that’s doesn’t necessarily mean they are racist.
As @Goldie mentioned above, when Roman mentioned goop – she simply said that she doesn’t want to be another Goop and stopped there. Why could she not mention Kondo & Teigen the same way? I don’t want to follow their business style – the end. Just like how she mentioned goop. Yet she said said so many things disparaging things about Kondo & Teigen. She had to portray these two Asian women as inauthentic. In the case of Kondo, she called her bitch and even condescendingly mimicked her english by saying “please to buy . . .”. In her pathetic excuse, she said that it was an eastern european book she and her friends joke about. So she just had to use that joke on a japanese woman who barely speaks english, right? Yeah . . . this isn’t about racism.
She also co-signed The Onion calling Wallis the c-word. BUT EVEN THE ONION APOLOGIZED FOR THAT.
I personally don’t see anything wrong with that tweet lol
And this is why I try to mostly ignore Chrissy Teigen. For years I could not understand why people liked her, she seemed annoying and extra and I just couldn’t what her appeal was. Over the years, I could see she had a heart and am now able to tolerate her in very small doses. But her old tweets confirm my initial impression of her and why I just can’t pay attention to her too much. She blasts her entire life online and has no filter, tweets everything like a stream of consciousness, and doesn’t understand why she keeps getting criticized. Girl, you do NOT have to comment on every single thing in pop culture!
Chrissy TRIES. SO. HARD. Please stop trying to make me like you. I might like you if you just stopped trying so hard. She is so insecure it’s actually a bit painful to watch her – it’s a combo of sadness for her and cringe. She inserts herself into things she shouldn’t. And she triggers very easily, which makes her a target for those who dislike her. I don’t get it – honey, you are rich, and beautiful, and have a great husband and lovely kids. You got it made. Who cares if people online dislike you?
I was always surprised when people who were never trained as chefs had tv shows, lines of cookware, books etc I would imagine trained chefs would be pissed, doesn’t that include Rachel ray, nigella lawson? Right?
One of the best if not the best cooking authority right now is Maangchi, the Korean American Youtuber. Not only is she faithful to korean traditions to her recipes, she makes it accessible to her non Korean audiences. She has no formal training. Guys at bon appetite Hq welcome the likes of Maangchi who are passionate about their cuisine.
Chefs were PISSED back in the day when Rachel got her show because she was a cook, not a chef.
But she was super cute with a great figure. I would have been a mistake not to cast her.
and IMO the fact that she wasn’t a trained chef was one of the things that made her so successful. People liked her recipes because she was cooking in the real world.
I imagine someone like Pioneer Woman ticks them (trained chefs) off even more….
Rachel Ray, a great figure?? Is this sarcasm??
I’m Canadian and remember when, during an active shooting at the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Chrissy tweeted “active shooting in Canada, or as we call it in america, wednesday”. That really offended me. It didn’t matter if it was one person who got killed or twenty, it was sarcastic and offensive to the families of all victims of random and mass shootings. I cancelled her a long time ago.
I remember that tweet, I live in Ottawa and it was a heartbreaking and terrifying day for us – she is just dying for attention and I’m not interested in people who have to insert themselves into every damn thing.
Feel free to object to the phrasing, but that’s clearly a commentary on the sad, ubiquity of mass shootings in America, compared to their relative rarity in other parts of the world. We are a nation of near-daily mass shootings. The acceptance of such violence is sick, twisted and a stain on the nation, which is exactly what that comment meant, and to pretend it was, instead, meant to minimize anyone’s pain or the situation’s seriousness is a pretty significant reach.
Agree completely – that was a hit on how Americans barely even notice the mass shootings anymore unless the number is bigger than the last one. I’m glad that the rest of the world isn’t immune to the horror of mass shootings! It means they haven’t adopted our attitude toward gun violence and perhaps there’s hope that America can recover.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but i think it’s a damn shame Alison Roman gets a pass basically, because we’re now digging up a very famous (and also very evolved and changed, imo) person’s tweets as a distraction from the fact that Alison Roman is a snobby becky. I unfollowed her last year because i couldn’t stand her Instagram persona, she indeed is a culture vulture who thinks she invented garbanzo bean stew. Something rubbed me so wrong, so to hear about her comments made a lot of sense. It seemed like a good moment to talk again about how Asian cultures are stomped on and stolen and about Asian representation. This is a huge distraction.
Chrissy could have responded differently but i feel like this is becoming a “who is worse” conversation and it should not.
I agree. Roman sounds elitist, resentful and racist in that interview. She’s not as ready as she thinks she is for more visibility She should not get a free pass on that issue because people in Twitterland don’t like Teigen for other reasons.
I’ll never understand why people can’t just apologize for making hurtful remarks. Why can’t Teigen say, “I’m sorry, looking back on those tweets now, with more maturity and awareness, I can see that I said vile, harmful, stupid things. I apologize from the bottom of my heart, I am learning how to gauge the impact of my words especially on young people of color.” Whether she means it in her heart or not it would be so easy to say!!!! If anyone told me something I had said or posted online hurt them, I would say it in a heartbeat, and mean it!!!! Why don’t PR people just hand celebrities a script like this when they need it?!! (I guess the answer is: celebs don’t always listen to their PR reps.)
even more simple, she’s not sorry!
These are two separate issues being merged together. With Alison Roman, she really did come for Chrissie in a way that was problematic on so many levels, regardless of her wealth, cooking credentials or whatever.Her cookbook is solid and her product line is no different than what a lot of other people are doing. Roman came across very badly and very ignorant, and was rightfully called on it. That issue seemed to be an opening for a lot of people who don’t like Teigen. I like that she is bold and outspoken, not at all timid. She also has a lot of emotional baggage and is quite mean on her tweets, so she was being called out on it. Not always a nuanced or subtle person.I hope she wouldn’t now say some of the awful things she said way back about Quevenzhané Wallis or Courtney Stodden, esp. post Epstein. But she never apologized either or explained it, or how she’s grown. Maybe she will eventually. Anyway, wouldn’t want to get in her crosshairs, and maybe she really needs to step back from putting all her business and baggage out there. I think she thought she was in her certain club, and those people showed her that she’s not, and not respected. That’s hard to take and feel for her on that. However, she should be able to handle a bit of smoke, or if that’s too much, get her reps to put out a statement. As someone mentioned, it seems a bit redundant to lock an account when your follower count is the same as the population of Pennsylvania. It’s the equivalent of saying I’m taking my toys and going home.
The key part of the Alison issue is she (Alison) clearly does not want to grow or change. Her apology was disingenuous and self serving, and she doubled down several times.
We all know Chrissy is also messy and also terrible at times (but it doesn’t negate point one) but I oddly think she has more capacity for change since she’s a genuine person – good bad or ugly
She can dish it but cant take it..
Digging up tweets from almost a decade ago to excuse Alison Roman’s dismissal of a minority woman who, like her or not, not only has made her own way to succeed in the celeb culinary world, is way too close to searching for a victim’s past wrongs to justify police brutality or digging into the history of a sexual assault survivor, for my liking.
Now, of course, it’s absolutely OK to have a conversation and/or opinion about whether you find Chrissy Teigan problematic, for any myriad of reasons. But I agree with those that say the Tiegen is at least presenting herself very differently today, and for years now, than she did a decade ago. Let’s try to allow for a place for a people to grow and learn from mistakes, especially those errors that are simply verbal/sh!tposting. That’s not to excuse any words used, say they’re fair, or in any way justify insults. But does that mean we must then dig into Courtney Stodden to see if she’s said anything problematic about anyone else (spoiler alert: she has), before allowing her to feel badly about Chrissy’s (I agree) very inappropriate tweets from 9 years ago? I mean, that would be crazy, right? We all know that Stodden can be imperfect, and still feel wounded. Guess what, so can Teigan.
To me, Teigan’s very old comments came off as dumb, flip and I’m sure hurtful to the people in her sights, but they also all seemed like (bad) jokes of the ‘Ha, ha, look how catty I am,’ variety. Teigan seems to have what can generously be termed as a “big personality,” which many find exhausting. But she’s also a very successful woman of color in a world that doesn’t allow for many of those, so it’s hard not wonder how much of the outrage at stuff she said 10 years ago comes from a know-your-place mindset.
Which brings us nicely back to Roman, who really should have remained the focus here. Roman didn’t just say she finds Chrissy annoying, or exhausting or call her a bitch. It wasn’t a personal grudge. She questioned Teigan’s right to be; Said she (Teigan) was fake, while she, Roman, was the real deal. That she could have what Teigan had, only she didn’t want it. The air of unearned superiority was overwhelming and it for sure wasn’t said as any kind of joke.
This is not the first time that Roman has made herself the safe, white face of culinary cultural appropriation. Search for articles about Roman’s “famous chickpea stew,” and how Roman absolutely, 100% refuses to even ACKNOWLEDGE that is, without a doubt, a curry. (And the reason there are articles about that is because it is also not a one-off instance on Roman’s part.)
This is not new ground for Roman, nor is it behavior from her (in social media terms) distant past. Roman’s “apology” for Teigan on Twitter was, as much about her seems to be, all about how the controversy had hurt Roman, whereas I felt Teigan’s comments about this incident, were thoughtful and fair. Heck, Teigan had signed on as the executive producer of Roman’s upcoming TV show. How clueless and privileged do you have to be to say those things about your boss?
Like or dislike Chrissy for the things she said 10 years. Neither she, nor her children for God’s sake, deserve the backlash they’ve received in the present, which has absolutely overwhelmed Roman’s original, fresh and of the moment comments. This feels like another episode of white women’s tears winning the day and, I’m sorry, but that’s too gross to ignore.
Quvenzhané Wallis was nine years old. 🤦🏻♀️
Children huh? Courtney Stodden was 16-17 when Chrissy Teigen thought it would be “verbal shitposting“ in your words to tell her to “go to sleep forever.” To Tweet that publicly at her.
And guess what . . . no apology for this hideous cruelty to a Black female child and a female teenager (who was clearly, by the way, being exploited by an older man and her parents!) all these years. If she evolved so much . . . hmm? No acknowledgement or apology?
I gotta tell you. Everyone deserves to be held responsible for their deeds and actions. She should have apologized a long time ago.
Alison Roman is clearly a misogynistic, racist asshole, I absolutely agree. And do you see how it is also a misogynistic, racist asshole thing to harass and mock a successful little Black girl, or a teenaged Courtney Stodden, on a major public platform, no less? The difference here is that Quvenzhané, Courtney, and Alison are all quite minor public figures compared to Chrissy. And does it occur to you that part of why Quvenzhané hasn’t been more successful or more public is the racist harassment she received from people like Chrissy?
Sounds like they both needed to face that their insensitive or hateful words have consequences, even if they were born out of somewhat different biases or privileges. One does not negate the other. It really disappointing as a woman to see “successful” women of any color choosing to act like a self-centered asshole and throw others under the bus. I don’t want to be like, or support either of them if they demonstrate bullying or racist behavior.
The mature and kind thing to do would be to publicly apologize for past hurt they’ve caused others and learn to butt out of other women’s business ventures and choices. Then if it’s too hard to stop from throwing out barbs at others, someone on their team should encourage them to back off from communicating to the public and enter therapy to talk through why they have the urge to insult or devalue people and other cultures.
Her whole “career” is about generating clicks by shouting out random things on twitter. She’s annoying and has nothing to offer. Slut shaming (she called someone a “whore” way back) and pointless drivel. She annoys me and her face is so harsh IMO. I thought before she had “legitimacy” as a swimsuit model at least but it turns out even her boobs are fake!
chrissy wrote hateful, vile things to a minor so often it was a clear obsession. the minor, Courtney stodden, was being openly groomed and exploited by a man 30+years her senior. she is thirsty trash and i’ll never accept that she is a decent human being.
Honestly feel this is all a PR move for the upcoming TV show she references and Chrissy will be on it for a segment to “clear the air”. Her way of apologizing to her and then doing one of Chrissy’s recipes together. Lots of press during this time when not a lot of gossip is going on and we all now know about this possible future show.
They both are getting in increase in purchases due to this and people choosing sides. She will become more educated and probably highlight minority cooks during her show. A way to get into the narrative that her recipes are similar to other nationalities. So use it as a now enlightened cook.
I clicked on the link to read what other mean/shady things she felt compelled to share with the world. Granted the ones about Courtney Stodden and Quvenzhané Wallis were awful, but this one about Avril Lavigne deserves to be on the podium.
In 2011 (basically when Lavigne’s earworms were already a decade old):
“If u told me I could have 1 kid, but it would be exactly like avril, I would choose to have a barren, sterile existence that ends when I die.” That’s something you tweet about Pol Pot or Hitler but a faded Canadian pop singer?
She sure is a delight.
Another gem by Teigen, about Mariah Carey this time: “Why is anyone surprised Mariah is having twins? I was always pretty positive there were 2-15 babies growing inside of her.”
Kind is really the word that defines her. And I don’t believe for a second , she’s grown since then.
She was already an adult when she typed this horror.