Alison Roman’s NY Times Column ‘On Temporary Leave’ After Chrissy Teigen Feud

New York Times readers may have to wait a bit for a new Alison Roman column or recipe following remarks she made earlier this month about model Chrissy Teigen and tidying expert Marie Kondo that set off a torrent of criticism online. 

A spokesperson for the paper confirmed to The Daily Beast on Tuesday that Roman’s column is “on temporary leave.” The paper did not elaborate on how long it would last nor did it give a specific reason for why.

Earlier this month, the well-known food columnist, whose bi-weekly recipes are featured in the paper, gave a wide-ranging interview in which she admonished celebrities who have capitalized on fame by attempting to promote cooking content and products. In particular, she expressed dismay at Teigen and Kondo’s business strategies.

“She had a successful cookbook,” Roman said of Teigen in particular. “And then it was like: Boom, line at Target. Boom, now she has an Instagram page that has over a million followers where it’s just, like, people running a content farm for her. That horrifies me, and it’s not something that I ever want to do. I don’t aspire to that. But like, who’s laughing now? Because she’s making a ton of fucking money.”  

According to Times insiders, Roman had a piece that was prepared to run last week amid the controversy, but it was ultimately not published. 

Following the interview, the author of popular cookbooks Nothing Fancy and Dining In attempted to backtrack from her comments, particularly after Teigen publicly expressed sadness at being the target of Roman’s remarks. 

In a lengthy note, Roman eventually apologized to both Teigen and Kondo, saying her comments were “stupid, crass, and insensitive.”

“I need to learn, and respect, the difference between being unfiltered and honest vs. being uneducated and flippant,” she wrote. “The burden is not on them (or anyone else) to teach me, and I’m deeply sorry that my learning came at Chrissy and Marie’s expense. They’ve worked extremely hard to get where they are, and both deserve better than my tone deaf remarks.” 

Teigen, for her part, thanked the chef for her apology. 

“Thank u for this, @alisoneroman,” Teigen wrote on Twitter. “The comments stung, but they moreso stung because they came from u! It wasn’t my usual news break of some random person hating everything about me!”