The New York Times food columnist posted an apology on social media Monday in which she tried to make amends for controversial remarks she made about the pair.
“Among the many uncomfortable things I’ve begun processing is the knowledge that my comments were rooted in my own insecurity,” she wrote. “My inability to appreciate my own success without comparing myself and knocking others down—in this case two accomplished women—is something I recognize I most definitely struggle with, and am working to fix. I don’t want to be a person like that.”
Kondo is the author of “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” and “Tidying Up With Marie Kondo,” the latter of which was turned into a Netflix series.
Both women also have a line of cooking and kitchen utensils they sell as part of their business empires — and that’s what Roman took a shot at in the interview.
“Like the idea that when Marie Kondo decided to capitalize on her fame and make stuff that you can buy, that is completely antithetical to everything she’s ever taught you…,” Roman reportedly said when asked about the line between consumption and pollution. “I’m like, damn, b***h, you f***ing just sold out immediately! Someone’s like ‘you should make stuff,’ and she’s like, ‘okay, slap my name on it, I don’t give a s**t!'”
Of Teigen the “Dining In” author said that what she “has done is so crazy to me.”
“She had a successful cookbook. And then it was like: Boom, line at Target. Boom, now she has an Instagram page that has over a million followers where it’s just, like, people running a content farm for her,” Roman said. “That horrifies me and it’s not something that I ever want to do. I don’t aspire to that. But like, who’s laughing now? Because she’s making a ton of f***ing money.”
Roman’s going after two successful Asian women was met with backlash on social media and hurt from Teigen who tweeted that she considered herself an admirer of the writer, and had even gotten involved with a TV show Roman said in the interview she had forthcoming.
“This is a huge bummer and hit me hard,” Teigen tweeted on Friday. “I have made her recipes for years now, bought the cookbooks, supported her on social and praised her in interviews. I even signed on to executive produce the very show she talks about doing in this article.”
Roman tweeted an apology to Teigen Friday night.
“Hi @chrissyteigen! I sent an email but also wanted to say here that I’m genuinely sorry I caused you pain with what I said,” Roman wrote. “I shouldn’t have used you /your business (or Marie’s!) as an example to show what I wanted for my own career – it was flippant, careless and I’m so sorry.”
Roman went further in her lengthy note which she tweeted on Monday, saying she was not a “victim” but a “white woman who has and will continue to benefit from white privilege.”
“The fact that it didn’t occur to me that I had singled out two Asian women is one hundred percent a function of my privilege (being blind to racial insensitivities is a discriminatory luxury),” she wrote. “”I know that our culture frequently goes after women, especially women of color, and I’m ashamed to have contributed to that.”
Teigen tweeted her acceptance of the apology.
“Thank u for this, @alisoneroman. To be clear, it never once crossed my mind for u to apologize for what you genuinely thought,” Chrissy wrote. “The comments stung, but they moreso stung because they came from u! It wasn’t my usual news break of some random person hating everything about me!”
As of Tuesday Kondo had remained silent on the controversy and her rep told CNN she had no comment.