After remaining silent on social media for the past few weeks, Chrissy Teigen is offering a heartfelt apology for her Twitter bullying in the past. Last month, Courtney Stodden shared that Teigen had cyber-bullied her in the past, even going so far as to tell the then-teenager to kill herself—which Teigen admitted in a Twitter apology. Now, after weeks of social media silence, Chrissy Teigen is sharing her thoughts in a lengthy post on Medium.

In her apology essay, Teigen takes full accountability for her past cruelty to Stodden and others, though her victims remain unnamed:

“There is simply no excuse for my past horrible tweets,” she begins. “My targets didn’t deserve them. No one does. Many of them needed empathy, kindness, understanding and support, not my meanness masquerading as a kind of casual, edgy humor. I was a troll, full stop. And I am so sorry.”


She says her past behavior was a result of being an insecure person who wanted to impress strangers online with “edgy humor.” She also says she didn’t think about the human beings who were on the other side of their avatars, reading her “crude, clever, harmless quips.”

Being confronted and publicly called out for the things that she’s said make her cringe to her core, she says.

“I wasn’t just attacking some random avatar, but hurting young women — some who were still girls — who had feelings,” she writes. “How could I not stop and think of that? Why did I think there was some invisible psycho-celebrity formula that prevents anyone with more followers from experiencing pain? How did I not realize my words were cruel? What gave me the right to say these things?”

She says she’s often been told that she’s “much nicer in person” vs. her online persona. She credits motherhood and therapy for her realization that she wanted to be the best version of herself she could be.

“John tells me almost every day how much our daughter Luna reminds him of me,” Teigen explains. “Every day, I try to make sure she’s all the best parts of me, all the things I aspire to be all the time, but fail at sometimes. And we preach kindness to her and Miles every chance we get. Will they eventually realize there is some hypocrisy there? I certainly do. But I hope they recognize my evolution. My goal is to be so good that my kids will think this was all a fairy tale. Not the fake good. The good that has the best intentions, the good who wakes up wanting to make her friends, family, her team and fans as happy as possible.”

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In an interview last month, Stodden (who uses they/them pronouns) publicly called out Teigen for her past bullying. Teigen reportedly told Stodden to take a “dirt nap” and would regularly send threatening DMs to them. At the time, Stodden was often in the tabloids because they were an underage teenager who was married to actor Doug Hutchison—they were a child who was placed in an unfair, predatory situation, and society was very unfair to them at the time.

Stodden says they were groomed by Hutchison, who was 50 years old to their 16 when they wed in 2011. Stodden’s parents signed off on the marriage, which ignited a media firestorm where Stodden was often at the receiving end of poor humor and online bullying. “There were several different moments when I felt something wasn’t right, and there were several different moments where I felt abused and disrespected,” they told The Daily Beast last month. “I felt crazy almost, and he was great at gaslighting me—I know a lot of groomers are great at that.”

Teigen received a lot of online backlash for her part in Stodden’s bullying, and some of her brand partnerships began to fall through as a result of the scandal.

“The truth is, I’m no longer the person who wrote those horrible things,” Teigen said. “I grew up, got therapy, got married, had kids, got more therapy, experienced loss and pain, got more therapy and experienced more life. AND GOT MORE THERAPY.”

Teigen says she still plans to stay off social media for a while to spend time with her family. “I won’t ask for your forgiveness, only your patience and tolerance. I ask that you allow me, as I promise to allow you, to own past mistakes and be given the opportunity to seek self-improvement and change.”

Her apology is great lesson in the importance of taking accountability and facing the consequences of our actions—and how motherhood can be an incredible catalyst for always wanting to be the best version of ourselves.