Alison Roman Facing Backlash For Offensive ‘Chola’ Halloween Costume

The controversy surrounding Alison Roman continues after photos of the New York Times cookery author wearing an offensive Halloween costume surfaced. As Page Six reports, photos of the 34-year-old writer emerged showing her wearing a white tank top, large hoop earrings, a fake tattoo across her chest, and bright blue eye makeup.

Roman was recently called out for being racially insensitive after she criticized both Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo — both women of Asian descent — for their business practices, as The Inquisitr previously reported. Roman blasted the two, saying that Teigen used a team to create a content farm and was using her name to sell cooking supplies at Target. Kondo, too, she claims, had sold out to peddle goods to the public.

“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,” Roman told New Consumer.

In the wake of the backlash, she was accused of being xenophobic.

New York Magazine and HuffPost contributor Yashar Ali posted a copy of the 2008 image to Twitter, resulting in a renewed backlash against the cookbook author, calling her out for cultural appropriation for the costume.

Ali says that normally he wouldn’t share these types of photos, but combined with Roman’s recent comments, he felt compelled to bring the photo to the larger attention of the public.

Roman responded with an apology, claiming that she was dressing up as a San Francisco Amy Winehouse.

“This incredibly embarrassing picture was taken in 2008, I was 23 & living in SF, this was my ‘SF inspired Amy Winehouse’ costume for Halloween- it reads as culturally insensitive, and I was an idiot child who knew nothing about the world/how this would be perceived and I’m sorry,” she wrote.

People on social media, however, didn’t find the explanation satisfactory. Many said that her age wasn’t an excuse to not be careful with how she presented herself. Others said that while taken alone, the photo wasn’t such a problem, but given her recent comments, it showed a pattern.

Others came to Roman’s defense, saying that the issue was being blown out of proportion and the costume was clearly an attempt to look like Winehouse.

Ali weighed in on the controversy, saying that he appreciated her willingness to apologize for the behavior.