Chrissy Teigen Broke Her Silence After Being Called Out as a Twitter Bully

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Chrissy Teigen has finally spoken out after being labeled a Twitter bully, but despite her apologies, she doesn't want your forgiveness. Penning a long post on Medium on June 14th, the cookbook author and mom acknowledged how hurtful some of her past tweets were. Though she didn't mention Courtney Stodden by name, it was them calling out Teigen in May that was the catalyst for Teigen to take a step back from social media and re-evaluate her past actions.

"I've apologized publicly to one person, but there are others - and more than just a few - who I need to say I'm sorry to. I'm in the process of privately reaching out to the people I insulted," Teigen wrote of her apology to Stodden in May.

"There is simply no excuse for my past horrible tweets. 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 added.

Teigen went on to provide what she calls context but not excuses for her past behavior, writing that she recalls fans meeting her and telling her that she's much nicer in person. Though she didn't see that as a red flag at the time, she said she now realizes that her online persona had gotten out of control.

"In reality, I was insecure, immature and in a world where I thought I needed to impress strangers to be accepted," she wrote, adding, "If there was a pop culture pile-on, I took to Twitter to try to gain attention and show off what I at the time believed was a crude, clever, harmless quip. I thought it made me cool and relatable if I poked fun at celebrities."

It took some growing up for Teigen to realize she wasn't a Twitter bully and didn't want to continue down that path-and it also took a lot of therapy. But despite Teigen growing from her mistakes, those tweets still live with those they were aimed at. Stodden publicly called out Teigen in May for past bullying. Teigen reportedly told Stodden to take a "dirt nap" and would send threatening DMs to them, simply because Stodden was tabloid fodder at the time.

Teigen apologized publicly at the time and also claimed she reached out to Stodden privately (though Stodden said they hadn't heard from Teigen). After this public tweet thread, Teigen kept a low profile, only popping up on occasion on her husband John Legend's social media.

Amid all this, some fans questioned how Teigen could have been so cruel on Twitter after taking her own Twitter break earlier this year to avoid people attacking her. She wrote in another Twitter thread in March that she was leaving the platform because of all the negativity surrounding her. "My desire to be liked and fear of pissing people off has made me somebody you didn't sign up for and a different human than I started out here as! Live well, tweeters. Please know all I ever cared about was you!!" she tweeted.

Teigen had gained a reputation on Twitter as someone who always has a clapback, but she said in March that she didn't feel like that was really her, and the negative vibes it brought her were wearing on her. She returned to Twitter just a month later, but it didn't take long for her past bullying tweets to catch up with her, sending her away from social media again.

At the end of her Medium post on June 14th, Teigen wrote that she's still going to take some time away from social media to focus on her family and taking care of herself. She closed by writing, "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."