While an embattled Chrissy Teigen issued a blanket apology this week to victims of her past cyberbullying, she’s withholding her mea culpas from at least one of her accusers: fashion designer Michael Costello.
That’s because she, her husband John Legend and her team have instead gone on the offensive against Costello, accusing him of faking direct messages he claims Teigen sent him in 2014 — messages he said pushed him to suicidal despair, according to People, citing a report by Business Insider.
The offensive began Thursday, with an article published by Business Insider on Thursday. A representative for the supermodel and Twitter star told the publication that the purported direct messages are fake, or altered in some way.
Legend followed up that report Friday by tweeting: “Chrissy apologized for her public tweets, but after her apology, Mr Costello fabricated a DM exchange between them. This exchange was made up, completely fake, never happened.”
Legend also wrote: “Honestly I don’t know why anyone would fake DMs to insert themselves in this narrative, but that’s what happened.”
Honestly I don’t know why anyone would fake DMs to insert themselves in this narrative, but that’s what happened.
— John Legend (@johnlegend) June 18, 2021
Teigen let loose later on Friday, tweeting: “No idea what the (expletive) michael costello is doing. He just released a statement where he didn’t at ALL acknowledge how fake the dm’s were, & now claims to have emails that don’t exist.” She also issued a statement, saying Costello’s claims caught her by surprise as she believes she thought they have long had a “cordial relationship.”
Earlier this week, Costello shared screen shots of the purported messages in a lengthy Instagram post, in which he said that Teigen had falsely accused him of being a racist and rallied her powerful friends to blacklist him from design work with A-list clients.
The “Project Runway” alum said he has been living with “deep, unhealed trauma” for the past seven years because of Teigen’s actions.
“I wanted to kill myself and I still am traumatized, depressed and have thoughts of suicide,” he wrote.
As Teigen’s representative explained to the Business Insider, the screenshots Costello shared showed several “temporal inconsistencies” that may suggest they had been altered.
Per People: “Examples include a missing verified checkmark next to Teigen’s name — which would suggest the screenshots were taken in 2014, before Instagram’s verification program had launched — in the same screengrab featuring purple and blue messages, a design implemented by the social media platform in 2020.”
People added: “The screenshots also showed a video chat icon — something that was introduced on Instagram in 2018 — alongside a profile photo that Teigen had changed no later than 2016.”
Costello’s bullying accusation came hours after Teigen issued her second apology for cyberbullying teenaged TV personality Courtney Stodden 10 years ago.
Fighting to salvage her reputation as a powerful influencer, cookbook author and media personality, Teigen posted her lengthy apology on Medium on Monday. She said she was “so sorry” and living with the “crushing weight of regret” for posting “awful” tweets when she was younger, starting her career and looking to gain fame by being a “troll” and posting clever, snarky comments about other celebrities.
Costello was among those who found Teigen’s apology somehow insufficient and who have questioned whether she’s only sorry now because she’s afraid of losing more brand sponsorships.
Curiously, Costello’s complaint against Teigen also is based on a purportedly faked social media comment.
Costello said Teigen “formed her own opinion of me” in 2014 after seeing a “photoshopped comment” that was “floating around on the internet.” The comment contained a racist slur, and Costello said it was created by a “disgruntled employee” to make it look like he wrote it.
Costello said Teigen, the wife of singer John Legend, contacted him via Instagram and accused him of being a racist. At the time, Costello had already appeared on “Project Runway” in 2010 and garnered notice for dressing celebrities, including Beyoncé at the 2014 Grammy Awards.
When Costello asked Teigen to call him so he could explain that he was the “victim of vindictive cyber-slander,” he said she refused to listen. She told him that his “career was over” and that all “doors will be shut from there on.”
Costello shared an unverified text from Teigen, which said: “Racist people like you deserve to suffer and die. You may as well be dead. Your career is over, just watch.”
Costello also said that Teigen lived up to her words to use her growing celebrity power to try to end his career.
“Throughout the next few years, I would book jobs only to be pulled off last minute with no explanation,” Costello explained.
Costello said he would regularly get texts and calls from mutual friends, saying that Teigen and a powerful stylist in the fashion industry had gone out of their way “to threaten people and brands” to not work with him.
“So many nights I stayed awake, wanting to kill myself,” Costello said. “I didn’t see the point of living. There was no way I can ever escape from being the target of powerful elites in Hollywood, who actually do have powers to close doors with a single text.”
It’s not clear how much damage Teigen did to Costello’s career. In recent years, he’s become known for being good friends with Lady Gaga and for designing outfits for other powerful women in entertainment, including Cardi B, Kylie Jenner and Nicki Minaj.
After speaking out against Teigen this week, Costello faced other backlash. Singer Leona Lewis defended Teigen by claiming that she felt “humiliated” and body-shamed by Costello during her participation in a 2014 charity fashion show, the Daily Mail reported.
In an Instagram story post, Lewis said Costello and his team refused to help fit a dress she was to wear in the show because she “wasn’t the body type required.”
“Because I didn’t look like a model size, I was not permitted to walk in his dress,” Lewis said.
Costello responded to Lewis’ post with a statement, saying that he was blindsided by her accusation, the Daily Mail reported. He recalled there was a dress fitting, during which he said he “fangirled” her and complimented her for being one of “the most talented and beautiful women I know.” But he apologized if he “unintentionally” hurt her.
In an additional statement shared to Instagram Wednesday, Costello said that he was “not going to address any more issues in regards to false statements proven to be false, false stories from those aspire to clout chase, and false allegations made by those close to my bullies in an attempt to smear my name.”
Teigen’s cyberbullying scandal erupted in May when an interview with Stodden in the Daily Beast resurfaced the model’s old tweets.
Stodden, who is now 26 and identifies as nonbinary, using they/them pronouns, told the Daily Beast they were publicly shamed by Teigen and other celebrities in 2011 and 2012 after they became a media sensation for their troubling marriage and unconventional behavior.
Stodden told the Daily Beast: “(Teigen) wouldn’t just publicly tweet about wanting me to take ‘a dirt nap’ but would privately DM me and tell me to kill myself. Things like, ‘I can’t wait for you to die.'”
Teigen also reportedly mocked troubled star Lindsay Lohan, who has admitted to cutting herself in the past, and publicly called “Teen Mom” star Farrah Abraham “a whore.”
After Stodden’s interview and other revelations resurfaced about Teigen’s past online behavior, Teigen issued her first apology on May 12 and stayed away from social media until Monday, but major retailers began to distance themselves from her, including Target, Bloomingdale’s and Macy.
Last week, Variety reported that Teigen bowed out of a guest role performing a voiceover in Mindy Kaling’s Netflix comedy series, “Never Have I Ever.” Safely, the company that Teigen co-founded with good friend Kris Jenner, also decided to stop having the supermodel front promotional efforts for their products, The Sun reported.
This story has been updated to include comments from John Legend.