Update July 16:
As if she wasn’t terrible enough, Chrissy Teigen has dubbed herself a member of the “cancel club.”
After the deserved backlash following Courtney Stodden’s revelations, Chrissy Teigen has done what most celebrities do: complain about the consequences of her actions.
Does it not stand to reason, Chrissy, that if you do terrible things … people will call you a terrible person?
Apparently not, as Chrissy has addressed the internet’s reaction to her despicable bullying, saying: “It just sucks. There is no winning.”
In a long Instagram caption, she lamented how terrible she feels — not for what she did, but for how she has fallen from grace … yet she is still living the same lifestyle she was before, even if she’s no longer adored by the internet.
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Chrissy Teigen posted a multi-part public apology to Courtney Stodden after The Daily Beast published an interview with the entertainer detailing Teigen’s online harassment of Stodden when she was only 16 years old.
“Not a lot of people are lucky enough to be held accountable for all their past bullshit in front of the entire world,” Teigen began her initial response on Twitter. “I’m mortified and sad at who I used to be. I was an insecure, attention-seeking troll. I am ashamed and completely embarrassed at my behavior…”
Teigen acknowledged that she “publicly fueled all this” and made the rote commitment to “being better” that all celebrities seem to make when they apologize for past abusive behavior. In a recent post on Medium, Teigen called herself a “troll” and apologized at length, once again.
“There is simply no excuse for my past horrible tweets. My targets didn’t deserve them. No one does,” she wrote. “Many of them needed empathy, kindness, understanding and support, not my meanness masquerading as a kind of casual, edgy humor.I was a troll, full stop. And I am so sorry.”
Twitter / @Chrissyteigen
Chrissy Teigen is a lot of things — model, chef, author, TV personality, John Legend’s muse (and sometimes plate holder), etc. etc. — but most people know her as the unofficial “Mayor of Twitter.”
Famed for her clapbacks and relatability, Chrissy Teigen’s Twitter might as well be her full-time job. Like anyone who spends most of their time on Twitter, it’s not all good all the time. Chrissy has made a name for herself by calling out and clapping back at her trolls, building a fanbase of people who find her funny and who admire her outspokenness.
However, in March 2021, Chrissy notably left the platform, saying she had suffered relentless abuse and harassment on the site for years and it was starting to get to her.
In a now-deleted Twitter thread announcing her departure from the platform, Teigen said: “For years I have taken so many small, 2-follower count punches that at this point, I am honestly deeply bruised.”
However, after 23 days, Chrissy was back on the platform, saying: “turns out it feels TERRIBLE to silence yourself and also no longer enjoy belly chuckles randomly throughout the day and also lose like 2000 friends at once … I choose to take the bad with the good!!”
Most people celebrated: The queen had returned! However, it now seems that Chrissy Teigen is part of this “bad” part of Twitter she referenced.
In an explosive interview with the Daily Beast, Courtney Stodden called Chrissy Teigen a hypocrite, revealing that the social media star “would privately DM [Stodden] and tell [them] to kill [themself].”
Chrissy Teigen Tweets to Courtney
The article, titled The Crucifixion of Courtney Stodden, is a candid conversation about how “at 16, Stodden was mocked and slut-shamed for marrying 50-year-old Doug Hutchison. As Stodden says, it’s taken years to free themself from his — and the media’s — abuse.”
In the interview, Stodden referenced a video they made weeks earlier, during Teigen’s Twitter hiatus. In the now-deleted video, Stodden calls out the similarities between the people Chrissy complained about and Chrissy’s own behavior. Most of all, Stodden lamented that they never had the chance to forgive Chrissy, because she never reached out or approached Stodden to apologize.
Stodden also emphasizes the importance of recognizing power dynamics. They were a child being taken advantage of, and powerful media outlets and personalities attacked them with no provocation.
Stodden said: “People came out of the woodwork to beat up on a kid because she was in a situation that she shouldn’t have been in. There were a lot of celebrities acting like playground bullies. Some of the worst treatment I got was from women, and we’re not going to get anywhere if we keep holding each other back.”
Stodden revealed how many other celebrities and media personalities harassed her, but only Perez Hilton has since apologized. While Chrissy Teigen is at the focal point of this revelation for her hypocrisy, she is part of a culture that often applauds malicious, thoughtless “clapbacks.”
The interview comes in the wake of the Framing Britney Spears documentary, which exposed the relentless abuse Britney Spears underwent at the hands of the media at the height of her fame. Stodden feels owed an apology from the same system that exploited and ridiculed them at their most vulnerable.
