Chrissy Teigen: Not everyone I hurt wanted to hear from me

Chrissy Teigen went on the “Today” show Tuesday to plead her case to be forgiven and to be released from her self-described “cancel club,” acknowledging that her cyberbullying scandal lost her career opportunities, temporarily forced her off Twitter, pushed her to get sober and to learn to be a better, more empathetic person.

The supermodel, lifestyle influencer and cookbook author also explained to “Today” host Hoda Kotb that she had taken steps to apologize to unnamed people who were the targets of vicious tweets and private messages she wrote some 10 years ago. However, she admitted that not everyone wanted to hear from her.

“Some people didn’t want to be in contact with me, or they had gotten past it or moved past it themselves,” Teigen, 35, told Kotb. “It was nice to be able to have everyone’s contact information, and to be able to reach out on my end. If they accepted it, that’s great. They didn’t have to, either. You let people process on their end.”

Teigen’s most well known target is Courtney Stodden when the media personality was 16 years old. Stodden, who is now 26 and identifies as nonbinary, using they/them pronouns, told the Daily Beast in May that they were publicly shamed by Teigen after they became a media sensation for a troubling marriage and unconventional behavior. Stodden said Teigen had urged the then-teenager to commit suicide.

It’s not known if Stodden was one of the people Teigen apologized to, or who didn’t want to have contact with the model, but in July, Stodden suggested in an interview with TMZ that Teigen had yet to offer a personal apology. She also suggested that Teigen was self-serving in the way she went on Instagram to tell her fans that she was “depressed” and “lost” after being put in the “cancel club.” Stodden said that the “cancel club” is “not a real thing.”

“Truly it made me a stronger person, a better person.”@chrissyteigen opens up to @hodakotb about apologizing for the allegations of cyberbullying against her and reveals she has been sober for 100 days. pic.twitter.com/eBWUI8Dywk

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) October 26, 2021

Teigen’s “Today” interview was her first since the scandal broke in May, perhaps because she has a new cookbook to promote called “Cravings: All Together.” The second part of the segment involved a cooking demonstration, while Kotb said they’d use the first part to let Teigen speak her peace on the scandal.

Perhaps because Teigen was limited for time in a five-minute interview, she didn’t offer too many revealing responses to some of Kotb’s questions — such as whether she had “gotten to the bottom” of why she became a self-described social media “troll.”

In one of the apologies she issued in the spring, Teigen admitted that she had been “immature” and “insecure” and used Twitter to become famous early in her modeling career.

With Kotb, Teigen only offered some generalities, saying, “Having this period of time to digest it all and to look back and to realize that honestly there is always so much time to grow and to learn and to become more empathetic.”

Teigen, the wife of singer John Legend and mother of two, also brushed past Kotb’s questions about whether retailers and brands were willing to work with her again. Following Stodden’s Daily Beast interview and other revelations that surfaced about Teigen’s past online behavior, major retailers distanced themselves from her, including Target, Bloomingdale’s and Macy.

The latter, without explanation, suddenly stopped selling the cookbook author’s “Cravings” cookware line on its website. Teigen also was forced to bowed out of a guest role performing a voiceover in Mindy Kaling’s Netflix comedy series “Never Have I Ever.”

Even “Saturday Night Live” joined the pop-culture pile-on when Pete Davidson made a joke during a “Weekend Update” segment that “one good thing” about the COVID-19 pandemic is that it at least got “Chrissy Teigen out of our lives.”

Teigen didn’t say whether Macy’s or Target had reached out to renew their partnerships. Instead, she again spoke more generally and let slip that she was celebrating her 100th day of sobriety.

“You learn so much in the moments where you do lose so much,” Teigen said. “Your world is kinda turned upside down.”

“There’s that old cliché of ‘I’m glad it happened,’ but truly it made me a stronger person. A better person,” Teigen said. “That’s when I went sober, I went clean — I’m actually 100 days sober today and I’m, like, so excited, yeah. I feel so good. I feel clearheaded.

Actually, Teigen may not have to worry too much about being in the “cancel club.” In fact, she’s previously let it be known that she’s still embraced by America’s A-list. In August, she broadcast the news on Instagram that she was one of 200 “close” family and friends of Barack and Michelle Obama to make the final cut for the former president’s now legendary 60th birthday party at his Martha’s Vineyard estate.

But to Kotb, Teigen made one last plea to be forgiven, saying: “I feel like I’ve done the work, and I hope these people can forgive and be able to welcome the fact that hopefully they’ve seen me be better.”