Chrissy Teigen, a prolific tweeter that the company once called the mayor of Twitter, left the social media platform on Wednesday night. In a series of tweets now deleted, Teigen said that Twitter “does not answer me more positively as it negatively serves me, and I think it is the right time to call something”.
The media model and personality who is married to singer John Legend was a witty presence on Twitter and had 13.7 million followers on the platform, which she joined more than a decade ago. Teigen tweeted about everything from her children to her kitchen designs to personal challenges in her life, including an abortion she suffered last October. It was notoriously blocked on Twitter by former President Trump (who was also banned from the platform in January) and was one of the few accounts followed by the official POTUS account when President Biden took office.
Twitter even promoted her as its unofficial mayor, making a video segment “behind tweets” in 2019, where she gave some background stories about several of her high-profile tweets.
But Teigen was also the target of vitriolic abuse and continued harassment on and off Twitter. Pizzeria conspiracy theorists have unreasonably claimed that Teigen and Legend were part of a non-existent pedophile ring, allegedly run by a pizzeria in Washington, DC. She said she deleted thousands of tweets and blocked more than a million Twitter accounts last July, after continued harassment by followers of QAnon. “For years I have thrown so many small punches, counting 2 followers that, at this point, I am sincerely very hurt,” she tweeted on Wednesday.
This is a very bad appearance for Twitter, which despite all its efforts to reduce harassment on its platform, has been unable to protect a woman of color – and possibly one of its most well-known personalities – from being targeted and harassed. The company declined to comment on The Verge On thursday.
Here is Teigen’s full testimonial, which she tweeted before deleting her account:
Hey. For more than 10 years, you have been my world. Honestly, I owe a lot to this world that we created here. I really consider many of you to be my true friends.
But it’s time to say goodbye. It no longer serves me as positively as it does negatively, and I think it is the right time to call something.
My life goal is to make people happy. The pain I feel when I don’t do it is too much for me. I’ve always been portrayed as the clapping girl, but I’m just not. My desire to be loved and fear of irritating people made me someone you didn’t sign up for, and a different human being than I started here! Live well, tweeters.
Disclosure: John Legend is on the board of directors of Vox Media, The VergeMother emprise.