Chrissy Teigen, a prolific tweeter the corporate as soon as referred to as the mayor of Twitter, give up the social media platform Wednesday evening. In a collection of now-deleted tweets, Teigen mentioned Twitter “not serves me as positively because it serves me negatively, and I feel that’s the suitable time to name one thing.”
The mannequin and media persona who’s married to singer John Legend was a witty presence on Twitter, and she or he had 13.7 million followers on the platform, which she joined greater than a decade in the past. Teigen tweeted about every little thing from her youngsters to her cooking projects to non-public challenges in her life, together with a miscarriage she suffered final October. She was famously blocked on Twitter by former President Trump (who was himself banned from the platform in January) and was one in every of a handful of accounts adopted by the official POTUS account when President Biden took workplace.
Twitter even promoted her as its unofficial mayor, doing a “behind the tweets” video phase in 2019 the place she gave some backstory about a number of of her higher-profile tweets.
However Teigen was additionally the goal of vitriolic abuse and ongoing harassment each on and off of Twitter. Pizzagate conspiracy theorists baselessly claimed Teigen and Legend had been a part of the nonexistent pedophile ring supposedly run out of a Washington, DC pizzeria. She mentioned she deleted hundreds of tweets and blocked greater than 1,000,000 Twitter accounts final July after ongoing harassment by QAnon followers. “For years I’ve taken so many small, 2-follower rely punches that at this level, I’m actually deeply bruised,” she tweeted Wednesday.
This can be a very unhealthy search for Twitter, which regardless of all of its efforts to cut back harassment on its platform, was unable to guard a lady of coloration — and arguably one in every of its best-known personalities — from being focused and harassed. The corporate declined to remark to The Verge on Thursday.
Teigen herself mentioned on Instagram Thursday that she doesn’t blame Twitter. “I imagine they do all they will to fight relentless bullying,” she wrote. “It’s not the platform. It’s not the ‘bullying’. And it’s not the trolls. The trolls I can take care of, though it weighs on you. It’s simply me. I’ve to return to phrases with the very fact some folks aren’t gonna like me.”
Right here’s the total assertion from Teigen, which she tweeted out earlier than deleting her account:
Hey. For over 10 years, you guys have been my world. I actually owe a lot to this world we’ve got created right here. I really take into account so lots of you my precise associates.
However it’s time for me to say goodbye. This not serves me as positively because it serves me negatively, and I feel that’s the suitable time to name one thing.
My life aim is to make folks pleased. The ache I really feel once I don’t is an excessive amount of for me. I’ve all the time been portrayed because the robust clap again woman however I’m simply not. My want to be favored and concern of pissing folks off has made me anyone you didn’t join, and a unique human than I began out right here as! Dwell nicely, tweeters.
I encourage you to know and always remember that your phrases matter. It doesn’t matter what you see, what that individual portrays, or your intention. For years I’ve taken so many small, 2-follower rely punches that at this level, I’m actually deeply bruised.
I’ve made my errors, all through years and in entrance of a whole lot of hundreds, and been held accountable for them. I’ve discovered an unimaginable quantity right here.
God I’ve mentioned fucked up shit and killed myself over it as a lot as you killed me. However one factor I haven’t discovered is the best way to block out the negativity.
I’m only a delicate shit, okay!? I don’t wanna be this manner! I simply am! However I like you guys and I cherish our time collectively. I really do. I additionally hate you.
Disclosure: John Legend is on the board of administrators for Vox Media, The Verge’s guardian firm.
Replace March twenty fifth 3:47PM ET: Provides remarks from Teigen’s Instagram account
