Food writer Alison Roman made headlines over the weekend for some comments she made about Chrissy Teigen’s Cravings empire.
“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,” Alison said in a recent interview with The New Consumer. “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–king money.”
Chrissy went on Twitter on Friday to respond to what Alison said.
“This is a huge bummer and hit me hard,” the Cravings author explained. “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.”
“I started Cravings because I wanted something for myself,” she added in a series of follow-up tweets. “I wanted something John didn’t buy, I wanted something to do that calmed me, made me happy and made others happy, too. Cravings isn’t a ‘machine’ or ‘farmed content’ – it’s me and 2 other women. I didn’t ‘sell out’ by making my dreams come true. To have a cookware line, to get to be a part of that process start to finish, to see something go from sketch to in my hands, I love that.”
Chrissy also revealed that the comments hurt more because it came from someone she respected.
“I genuinely loved everything about Alison,” Chrissy later wrote. “Was jealous she got to have a book with food on the cover instead of a face!! I’ve made countless NYT recipes she’s created, posting along the way. 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.”
She also added that the whole drama has been “crappy to deal with this all day” but she could not not say something. “I know the actual tears I put into the work I do and it’s really hard to see someone try to completely invalidate it. Someone I really liked.”
“We do this work ourselves, and there is NO monetary gain yet. it is just work work work and the reward is you liking it. so to be called a sellout….hooooo it hurts,” she wrote, referring to the work she and her team put into the Cravings website.
Following the initial backlash on her comments, Alison tried clarify her stance.
“I want to clarify, I am not coming for anyone who’s successful, especially not women,” she tweeted. “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.”
She’s since publicly apologized to Chrissy.
“Hi @chrissyteigen!” Alison’s later wrote. “I sent an email but also wanted to say here that I’m genuinely sorry I caused you pain with what I said. I shouldn’t have used you /your business (or Marie’s! [Kondo]) as an example to show what I wanted for my own career- it was flippant, careless and I’m so sorry.”
“Being a woman who takes down other women is absolutely not my thing and don’t think it’s yours, either (I obviously failed to effectively communicate that). I hope we can meet one day, I think we’d probably get along,” she continued.
While many initially showed their support for Chrissy, social media users kept the drama going over the weekend – and it seems to have taken some unexpected twists and turns.
“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,” Chrissy tweeted.
She’s since made her Twitter account private, announcing she’s gonna take a little break.
“I really hate what this drama has caused this week,” she wrote. “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.”
