Breaking her silence. Chrissy Teigen shared a long apology on Monday, June 14, after she was caught up in a bullying scandal last month.
“Hi all. It has been a VERY humbling few weeks. I know I’ve been quiet, and lord knows you don’t want to hear about me, but I want you to know I’ve been sitting in a hole of deserved global punishment, the ultimate ‘sit here and think about what you’ve done.’ Not a day, not a single moment has passed where I haven’t felt the crushing weight of regret for the things I’ve said in the past,” she wrote via Medium. “As you know, a bunch of my old awful (awful, awful) tweets resurfaced. I’m truly ashamed of them. As I look at them and understand the hurt they caused, I have to stop and wonder: How could I have done that?”
The prolific social-media user, 35, previously went silent online after Courtney Stodden, who uses they/them pronouns, accused Teigen of bullying them in private messages.
Chrissy Teigen and Courtney Stodden. Andrew H. Walker/Shutterstock; Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/MEGA
“She wouldn’t just publicly tweet about wanting me to take ‘a dirt nap’ but would privately DM me and tell me to kill myself. Things like, ‘I can’t wait for you to die,’” the “Pleasure” singer, 26, told The Daily Beast in May. “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.”
After the Cravings author posted a four-part Twitter apology to Stodden, she went quiet on the app. Teigen also quit her upcoming role in Netflix’s Never Have I Ever.
“I’ve apologized publicly to one person, but there are others — and more than just a few — who I need to say I’m sorry to. … I understand that they may not want to speak to me,” Teigen continued on Monday. “I don’t think I’d like to speak to me. (The real truth in all of this is how much I actually cannot take confrontation.) But if they do, I am here and I will listen to what they have to say, while apologizing through sobs. There is simply no excuse for my past horrible tweets. My targets didn’t deserve them. No one does. Many of them needed empathy, kindness, understanding and support, not my meanness masquerading as a kind of casual, edgy humor.”
After admitting that she was a “troll, full stop,” Teigen continued her long-winded apology, noting that she was “insecure, immature and in a world where [she] thought [she] needed to impress strangers to be accepted” when she began taking jabs on social media.
“I thought it made me cool and relatable if I poked fun at celebrities,” the Sports Illustrated cover star wrote. “Now, confronted with some of the things that I said, I cringe to my core. I’ll honestly get sharp, stabbing pains in my body, randomly remembering my a—hole past, and I deserve it. Words have consequences and there are real people behind the Twitter handles I went after. I wasn’t just attacking some random avatar, but hurting young women — some who were still girls — who had feelings.”
The Chrissy’s Court host noted that while she heard people say she was “nicer in person” during her earlier tirades, she didn’t think anything of it. She also acknowledged that while at the time she thought she was doing nothing wrong, she now realizes the harm she caused.
“I’m telling you this for context, not seeking or deserving any sympathy. There’s no justification for my behavior. I’m not a victim here. The subjects of your sympathy — and mine — should be those I put down,” she wrote. “The truth is, I’m no longer the person who wrote those horrible things. I grew up, got therapy, got married, had kids, got more therapy, experienced loss and pain, got more therapy and experienced more life. AND GOT MORE THERAPY.”
The model finished her apology by promising to continue to do better.
“I won’t ask for your forgiveness, only your patience and tolerance. I ask that you allow me, as I promise to allow you, to own past mistakes and be given the opportunity to seek self improvement and change,” she wrote. “Phew. A lot, I know. Thanks for listening.”
This story is developing.
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