Courtney Stodden has advice for 'cancel club' member Chrissy Teigen: 'Just be nice'

Head shots of two glamorous women
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Hey, Chrissy Teigen — Courtney Stodden just showed folks what it looks like when someone apologizes successfully. And it doesn't happen in a public tweet.

"This is what a personal apology looks like," Stodden, who is nonbinary, wrote Thursday on Instagram, posting a screen grab of a note they got from actor Jason Biggs. "Everyone makes mistakes but not everyone takes real accountability. Jason, I felt this. I wish you love and immense success to you and your family."

So what did Biggs say?

"Hi Courtney- I wanted to drop you a note to say that I'm sorry for any tweet that I made in the past that may have hurt your feelings," he wrote in the note. "They were meant as jokes- but they were at your expense, and knowing how you feel, that makes them not funny at all.

"I am trying my best these days to live a clean and sober life," he continued, "one in which I make good and healthy decisions- and that means taking accountability for bad decisions I've made in the past. I wish you nothing but the best and happiness and success always. Xo jason."

(After years of trying, the "Orange Is the New Black" actor got sober in 2017, a fact he revealed in 2018 on the one-year anniversary of his sobriety.)

Stodden, 26, posted their Instagram message a few hours after putting up a TikTok video in which Stodden is laughing at a recent story about Teigen lamenting her current life. The model and cookbook author has dramatically scaled back her social media activity as she repents for telling Stodden in DMs years ago that they should kill themself.

In the video, which has a snicker-filled soundtrack, Stodden looks amused by both a recent Instagram post from Wednesday and a headline that says Teigen was feeling "lost" after her bad behavior was outed.

Teigen apologized in May, and Stodden said they accepted but didn't exactly believe the apology. A month ago, Teigen, who's married to musician John Legend, copped to being "a troll, full stop," and talked about how every day she felt "the crushing weight of regret for the things I’ve said in the past.”

Since then, she's been off Twitter (except for one thread contradicting this story line) and has posted only non-snarky things on Instagram. Teigen previously quit Twitter for a whole three weeks after saying in March that the platform's toxic environment had taken a toll on her mental health.

Agonizing about her social media situation, Teigen wrote Wednesday, in part, "Going outside sucks and doesn’t feel right, being at home alone with my mind makes my depressed head race. But I do know that however I’m handling this now isn’t the right answer. I feel lost and need to find my place again, I need to snap out of this, I desperately wanna communicate with you guys instead of pretending everything is okay. I’m not used to any other way!!"

The 35-year-old went on to reference "cancel club," which she called fascinating, saying she had learned a lot from so-called cancel culture.

But "only a few understand it," she said, making it hard to talk about "because obviously you sound whiney when you’ve clearly done something wrong. It just sucks. There is no winning."

Teigen questioned whether it was wise to say what she was saying, knowing she would be "brutally picked [a]part," but admitted she couldn't stay silent anymore. "If you or someone you know has also been cancelled please let me know if there is a cancel club reunion because I could use some time off my couch!" she wrote.

Meanwhile, Stodden's suggestion to Teigen moving forward was simple: Their TikTok video concluded with them gesturing toward the words "just be nice."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.