Alison Roman Apologizes To Chrissy Teigen After Criticizing Her Business Empire

Alison Roman, a food writer for The New York Times and Bon Appetit, and the author of several books on food and cooking, is trying to make amends. On Friday, Chrissy Teigen took to Twitter to respond to Roman’s comments about her business empire, and now, Roman has apologized for criticizing the model.

The controversy started on Thursday, when an interview with Roman was published in New Consumer in which she offered some criticism of the way that Teigen has approached her career. In the interview, Roman says that what Teigen has done is “crazy,” because after launching a successful cookbook, Teigen was suddenly everywhere, and people were farming out content on her behalf.

“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,” Roman said.

In response to the comments, which caused a backlash online, Teigen wrote on Twitter that the interview had hurt her, Us Weekly reports.

“I have made her recipes for years now, bought the cookbooks, supported her on social and praised her in interviews. 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,” Teigen wrote.

She continued, saying that she had put actual tears into her work, and it was hurtful to see someone invalidate it in that way. Teigen also said that the work she’s doing is done solely by her, and there’s no monetary gain in it yet.

The former Sports Illustrated model explained that, because she wasn’t making money on her cooking site yet, it hurt to be called a sellout. She denied the existence of a content farm, saying that she was the one doing all of the work herself. Teigen then suggested that she and Roman should probably unfollow one another.

In response to Teigen’s tweets, Roman offered an apology. She said she was sorry for the hurt she had caused, and that it was careless of her to use Teigen and Marie Kondo as examples of what she doesn’t want in her own career. She said that she’s not the kind of women who tears other women down, and she knows Teigen isn’t either.

“I hope we can meet one day, I think we’d probably get along,” she wrote, concluding her apology.

In a separate series of tweets, Roman attempted to clarify her initial statement by saying that she was not trying to come after any other women. She was simply explaining that her business model doesn’t include a product line, because she doesn’t see that as something that will work for her.