Chrissy Teigen doesn't 'know how to go on' after her infamous Trump takedown tweet is read at House hearing
Chrissy Teigen doesn't "know how to go on" after her uncensored tweet to former President Donald Trump became a talking point during Wednesday's House Oversight Committee hearing discussing Hunter Biden's laptop.
The Washington, D.C., hearing is looking at Twitter's role in suppressing a New York Post story about President Joe Biden's son in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election with testimony from former Twitter execs. However, the Cravings cookbook author and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model was pulled into it, while home recovering from the birth of daughter Esti, when it was revealed that the White House, under Trump, tried to have one of Teigen's tweets, critical of him, deleted.
Rep. Gerry Connelly (D-Va.) asked Anika Collier Navaroli, who was on Twitter’s content moderation team, about an online exchange between Trump and Teigen in September 2019. Before he was banned from Twitter and often went on insult sprees, Trump slammed "boring" John Legend for appearing in an NBC News special report about criminal justice reform and his "filthy-mouthed wife," Teigen, who had nothing to do with the special but had been publicly critical of his politics. Teigen responded at the time with a tweet calling Trump a "p***y ass bitch."
"The White House almost immediately thereafter contacted Twitter to demand the tweet be taken down. Is that accurate?" Connolly asked.
Navaroli replied, "I do remember hearing we'd received a request from the White House to make sure that we evaluated this tweet, and that they wanted it to come down because it was a derogatory statement directed towards the president."
For the record, the tweet wasn't taken down.
Later during the hearing, Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) asked Navaroli a follow-up question about the contents of Teigen's tweet.
"Would you like me to give the direct quote?" Navaroli asked before continuing, "Please excuse my language — this is a direct quote — but Chrissy Teigen referred to Donald Trump as a 'p***y ass bitch.'"
Frost replied, "OK. Free speech. And what happened after Ms. Teigen posted her tweet? What did the White House do? What did the Trump White House do?"
Navaroli said, "Per my understanding, the White House reached out to ask that this tweet be removed. It was my team's job" to review it under the company's abusive behaviors policy. "At that time, up to three insults were allowed. So it was our job to determine how many insults were included within that phrase."
Frost asked if the Trump White House asked to remove the tweet and Navaroli replied, "Per my understanding, yes."
The mentions of Teigen in this hot political debate went viral on Wednesday afternoon — and she reacted to being mentioned. Along with a clip of Navaroli reading her uncensored tweet, she wrote on Instagram, "I don't know how to go on after this."
Brooklyn Decker was among those to comment on Teigen's post, writing, "I want this to be my wake-up alarm. My childrens’ first dance. Our national anthem. The tune I hear on my death bed."
Andy Cohen gave it a string of emoji applause hands and Katie Couric wrote, "Chrissy" with laughing emojis. Tia Carrere declared it "gangsta" and hairstylist Jen Atkin called Teigen "an American treasure."
The House Oversight Committee is looking at how Twitter handled a report in the New York Post detailing the alleged scandalous contents of a laptop owned by Hunter. The social media company briefly restricted the distribution of the article from being shared in tweets and direct messages.
Teigen has been nesting after the birth of her and Legend's daughter Esti last month. She skipped the Grammys, she said on Sunday, to stay home with new baby, who joined siblings Luna, 6, and Miles, 4.