Delving into the drama. On the surface, Chrissy Teigen and Alison Roman, both accomplished cookbook authors, seem like they should get along, but after Roman criticized Teigen and her business model in an interview, the two food pros found themselves at the center of a very public feud.
The drama began when The New Consumer published an interview with Roman on May 7. In the piece, the Dining In author took aim at Teigen’s Cravings brand. “What Chrissy Teigen has done is so crazy to me,” she said at the time. “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. That horrifies me and it’s not something that I ever want to do. I don’t aspire to that.”
However, the Nothing Fancy author did acknowledge that the Bring the Funny judge was reaping some serious financial gain for her efforts. “But like, who’s laughing now?” she continued. “Because she’s making a ton of f–king money.”
When Roman was first criticized for her remarks, she defended and clarified them. “I want to clarify, I am not coming for anyone who’s successful, especially not women,” she tweeted on May 8. “I was trying to clarify that my business model does not include a product line, which work very well for some, but I don’t see working for me.”
Not surprisingly, Teigen responded to the criticism on May 8 and expressed that she was deeply hurt by Roman’s remarks. “This is a huge bummer and hit me hard. I have made her recipes for years now, bought the cookbooks, supported her on social and praised her in interviews,” she tweeted. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so bummed out by the words of a fellow food-lover. I just had no idea I was perceived that way, by her especially. And Marie [Kondo], too. Marie is awesome.”
Later that day, Roman released the first of two apologies. She claimed that she wrote Teigen an email, but wanted to patch things up on social media as well. The New York Times columnist acknowledged via a tweet that her remarks were “flippant” and added, “I hope we can meet one day, I think we’d probably get along.”
On May 10, Teigen announced her decision to take a break from Twitter after users were slamming her and her family for her role in the drama.
She returned to the social media platform a day later to publicly accept Roman’s second apology, writing, “Thank u for this, @alisoneroman. To be clear, it never once crossed my mind for u to apologize for what you genuinely thought. The comments stung, but they moreso [sic] stung because they came from u!”
While many assumed that was the end of the ruckus, The New York Times confirmed to Us Weekly on May 20 that Roman’s recipe column was on “temporary leave.” Though no reason was given for the decision, Teigen claimed she was getting blamed for the move and made her thoughts on the Times‘ choice abundantly clear.
“I hope we can laugh about it one day, but I’m not happy with the NYT leave. So she def can’t laugh about it yet,” she tweeted in response to a user who asked where she stands with Roman. “It just sucks in every way.”
On May 26, in her first Instagram update since the Times‘ decision was announced, Roman confirmed that her recipes won’t be appearing in the paper for the time being. Instead, she noted she was starting her own newsletter to communicate with fans. “For the foreseeable future, you can find me in that newsletter I started 3 years ago and never sent out,” she explained. “There will be recipes, reader emails, recommendations, and discussions about things that I hope you will like or find helpful.”
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