Teigen apologizes to reality star for online harassment
Chrissy Teigen has apologized for harassing a then-teenage Courtney Stodden online years ago.
“Not a lot of people are lucky enough to be held accountable for all their past (expletive) in front of the entire world. I’m mortified and sad at who I used to be. I was an insecure, attention seeking troll,” Teigen tweeted Wednesday in a long thread.
She continued: “I have worked so hard to give you guys joy and be beloved and the feeling of letting you down is nearly unbearable, truly. These were not my only mistakes and surely won’t be my last as hard as I try but god I will try!!”
The 35-year-old Teigen, with more than 13 million followers on Twitter, was in her mid-20s when she harassed Stodden. That included tweets urging Stodden to end their life. Stodden is a reality-tv personality who identifies as nonbinary and uses the pronoun “they.”
Stodden told the Daily Beast that Teigen’s harassment and that of many others came as they faced intense media criticism at age 16 for marrying 51year-old actor Doug Hutchison of “The Green Mile” in 2011. The two divorced last year. The marriage led to international fame for the young model and singer-songwriter from Washington state, including TV appearances on “Celebrity Big Brother” and her own “Courtney.”
Stodden accepted Teigen’s
apology in a post on Instagram, with reservations. “All of me wants to believe this is a sincere apology, but it feels like a public attempt to save her partnerships with Target and other brands who are realizing her ‘wokeness’ is a broken record,” Stodden said.
Teigen has a line of cookware called Cravings. She’s a model and cookbook author who’s married to R&B crooner John Legend.
Oprah comforts Ellen on show ending
In her “Today” interview Thursday morning, Ellen Degeneres called the scandal that plagued her last summer “misogynistic” and “orchestrated.”
But her video chat with Oprah Winfrey struck a different tone, presenting two celebrities bonding over the rare experience of hosting a long-running daytime talk show and then ending it.
“Listen, it’s almost 10 years ago ... when I was in this exact position. I know what those feelings are. I also know the feelings leading up to it,” Winfrey said in the interview, which was taped Wednesday for broadcast on Thursday’s “The Ellen Degeneres Show.”
Degeneres told the Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday that her show will be ending with its upcoming 19th season. Despite last year’s drama over allegations of a toxic workplace, the 63-year-old maintains that she made the decision two years ago, when she signed a final three-year contract to do the syndicated program.
Degeneres told Winfrey the same thing she told The Hollywood Reporter: She needs a new challenge. That’s why she has done things like returning to stand-up comedy, she said.
Winfrey predicted that among all the relationships linked to the show, Degeneres would, like herself, miss the audience the most.