Chrissy Teigen Is Taking A Break From Social Media After That Drama With Cookbook Author Alison Roman
Over the weekend, foodie Twitter was shaken to its core when New York Times best-selling cookbook author Alison Roman came after Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo, knives drawn, and accused them of being sell-outs for having cookware lines. Alison said “damn, bitch, you fucking sold out immediately” when referring to Marie’s online store and appeared to mock her accent saying “please to buy my cutting board.” Of Chrissy, Alison said she was “horrified” by her business model which includes a line of cookware at Target. And Alison said that Chrissy’s Cravings Instagram page is “just, like, people running a content farm for her.” No surprise, Chrissy took issue and #tooktotwitter to defend herself. Eventually, The Roman Army managed to do what not even the President Of The United States could manage. It drove Chrissy to set her Twitter account to private.
Meanwhile, even though Marie famously claimed “I love mess,” I’m pretty sure this isn’t the kind she meant. If you’re going to drag Marie into your mess, expect an invoice written in a minimalist font and printed on Midori filtered river water and a wood pulp paper. Otherwise, she’s not helping you tidy up shit.
To answer your first question, Alison is a Brooklyn hipster Gone Girl “cool chick” Instagram cook and columnist for NYT Cooking. She has two popular cookbooks, Nothing Fancy and Dining In, and she’s known for something called The Stew which is apparently a watered-down chickpea curry and not another daytime talk show on ABC. Alison was interviewed for a magazine called The New Consumer. She was asked if she’d ever slap her name on a product or restaurant and answered that while she does have a “capsule collection” coming out in collaboration with a cookware startup, she’s not a greedy monster like that Marie Kondo.
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… I’m like, damn, bitch, you fucking 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 shit!”
That’s the thing — you don’t need a ton of equipment in your kitchen to make great food. “For the low, low price of $19.99, please to buy my cutting board!” Like, no. Find the stuff that you love and buy it. Support businesses and makers. It feels greedy. Unless something just simply didn’t exist that I wish existed, but that would make an inventor, which I’m not.
According to TNC, after this shit blew up in her face, Alison reached out to the author of this piece and asked him to remove the “to” because it did not spark joy (also because “she thought [it] might be misinterpreted”). He agreed to do so, but then had to put it back when people complained. Alison later explained that it was a “reference to an Eastern European cookbook called Please To The Table, and an inside joke with friends.”
As for Chrissy, here’s what Alison had to say about her.
Like, what Chrissy Teigen 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. 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 fucking money.
Here’s Chrissy’s response which eventually led to Alison getting “bullied” on Twitter, which in turn led to Chrissy getting “bullied” (rich considering), which led to Alison apologizing, which led to Chrissy taking her nearly 13 million followers into the world’s largest private chat. (via Page Six)
“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, I even signed on to executive produce the very show she talks about doing in this article.”
“I genuinely loved everything about Alison. 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.”
“There are many days I cry very hard because Cravings, the site, is our baby we love to pump content onto.”
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.”
I have to give credit where credit is due. I appreciate that Chrissy was able to call Alison too ugly to be on a cookbook and remind her she’d be nowhere without her, all while crying inconsolably. That’s talent right there. And Alison went through all the stages of getting grief on Twitter from denial, to deflection, and straight through to a weak-ass apology.
when women bully other women for being honest about money and how much they do or do not make, well, thats amore
— alison roman (@alisoneroman) May 8, 2020
Just wishing I had someone to hold my hand during baby’s first internet backlash 😪
— alison roman (@alisoneroman) May 8, 2020
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.
— alison roman (@alisoneroman) May 9, 2020
Unfortunately for Alison, in response, Chrissy pulled off her biggest Twitter flex since she got #PresidentPussyAssBitch to trend.
Imagine, Chrissy Teigen taking a break from Twitter. Alison really did something here (besides fucking up her own livelihood.) Maybe she can start some shit with Jameela Jamil next.