Chrissy Teigen and John Legend have furiously defended themselves after a social media user suggested they were part of a debunked paedophile ring conspiracy theory.
The cookbook author explained that she was “pretty disturbed” by the tweets, which used photos of her daughter Luna to allege that she was involved in the theory, referred to as Pizzagate.
Pizzagate was a baseless online conspiracy theory alleging that a Washington D.C. pizza parlour linked to a child sex trafficking ring was operated by Hillary Clinton.
The theory was part of a fake news campaign which eventually ended up with a man being arrested in December 2016 after he told police he went to the restaurant to “self-investigate” and fired an assault rifle.
According to the Washington Post, he has since apologised for his actions.
Chrissy Teigen said it was “really scary” that people would link her and her husband, John Legend, to the discredited and long-disproved theory.
The images that sparked the accusations show little Luna in her Halloween outfits, which included Alice in Wonderland and a hot dog.
The photos were shared on Snapchat, where the mum has a pizza emoji in her username.
She added:
“…apparently dressing my daughter as Alice in Wonderland and a hot dog and having a pizza emoji on Snapchat has to do with pizzagate and being uhhhh darksided. Holy shit That thread is wild. Enjoy.”
Tiegen continued that it was “incredibly weird” and terrifying that someone would accuse her and her husband of this.
She Tweeted:
“Yeah yeah it’s ‘just Twitter’ but I’m pretty sure this *sick* person is saying we are darksided pizzagate pedophiles who traffic our daughter. Ummmmm this is really scary shit.
“It is INCREDIBLY weird to be two (semi) normal, ridiculously boring human beings who literally make food, watch tv and clean up dog barf in any kind of off time and then be suddenly accused of being in Hollywood’s hottest pedo ring.
“What a year what a year, 2017.”
The model later turned the tables on Twitter itself, calling out the social media platform for having verified an account that was accusing her family.
She pointed out:
“Thank you, Twitter, for verifying somebody who is esentially accusing me (with pictures of my daughter) of child abuse and pedophilia to their 50,000 followers.”
The woman behind the account – Liz Crokin – was unverified, and later tried to weakly backtrack on her statements about the couple.
In a series of posts, Teigen threatened to take legal action against her for her social media comments.
She said:
“You lead people to believe WE were endangering our child. Trafficking OUR child. You posted photos OF MY child. don’t backtrack now and say we ‘run with’ pedophiles. I am taking this FAR, Liz.
“I don’t care HOW you backtrack or WHAT you deleted. I have it ALL. I’m the last person you are fucking with. You are DONE with me and my family. You are going to court.”
John Legend also spoke out about the social media incident, echoing his wife’s sentiment about possible legal action.
You need to take my family’s name out of your mouth before you get sued. https://t.co/bPTwiBAs97
— John Legend (@johnlegend) December 31, 2017
The mum made her social media accounts private over the weekend following the incident. Her Instagram account has been made public again while her Twitter remains private.
