Teigen’s ‘tone-deaf’ $13,000 bottle of wine story has refueled the wealth gap debate
Chrissy Teigen has made millions from being relatable on social media.
After which she tweeted about that time a waiter upsold her a five-figure bottle of wine. We’ve all been there, proper?
Not quite.
In reality, many readers are criticizing her for the “tone deaf” tweet in mild of the ongoing wealth disparity across the nation that has only been exacerbated by the pandemic over the past yr.
For context, the previous supermodel turned cookbook writer and influencer requested her 13.6 million followers to share the most expensive factor they had ever eaten that they thought “sucked” afterward.
Her instance: That point a waiter recommended a bottle of Cabernet while she and her musician husband John Legend were eating out — and it wasn’t till they saw the bill that they realized it was a $13,000 bottle.
“We didn’t even finish it and it had been cleared,” she wrote.
what’s the most expensive thing you’ve eaten that you thought sucked?
— chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) February 3, 2021
Many readers did a spit-take — not over the waiter casually giving the celeb couple a $13K bottle of Cab, but slightly, that Teigen and Legend had been casually able to cover the tab.
“People are not going to narrate to this,” wrote one person in a comment that has drawn 2,300 likes and counting
I thought Chrissy Teigen was so relatable, until today
— Audrey Kaufman (@KaufmanAudrey) February 4, 2021
“This is how money isn’t actual & capitalism is straight rubbish,” wrote another person whose comment drew almost 7,000 likes. “Y’all can by chance purchase a $13,000 bottle of wine however most Individuals can’t afford a $300 emergency.”
“I have a bank card steadiness of a similar quantity,” noted another. “I severely don’t know the way lengthy it would take to pay this off.”
Teigen responded to the fallout by writing, “Hey, not everything I say on my Twitter goes to be relatable to you as a result of it’s my life and my Twitter and my tales.” She added, “I see your tweets, I get your jokes, you might be so humorous, sure, you actually nailed me.”
It may be argued that, for an online influencer, all publicity is nice publicity. So it’s potential that Teigen shared the eyebrow-raising anecdote expecting it could get simply this kind of response.
But the purpose that it struck such a nerve online is as a result of so many Americans had been already struggling underneath crippling credit card, scholar loan, and medical debt, and the pandemic has only widened this wealth hole. Whereas CEOs like outgoing Amazon AMZN, +0.56% chief Jeff Bezos and Tesla’s TSLA, -0.55% Elon Musk saw their already considerable wealth rocket even higher over the past year, millions of Americas have been laid off or furloughed, while greater than 450,000 have misplaced their lives to COVID-19.
Millions of Americans became eligible for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits — also known as meals stamps — throughout the pandemic, and virtually 30 million adults (14% of all American adults) reported that that they had not had sufficient to eat within the final seven days, in keeping with the newest Household Pulse Survey launched by the U.S. Census Bureau on Jan. 6.
One in 5 renters and one in 10 homeowners reported being behind on their monthly housing payments in December, and the threat of mass evictions looms if the nationwide moratorium on evictions lapses.
And the worst isn’t over but. Millions of Americans who had been unemployed final yr could be facing a 2020 tax bill that they can’t afford, since unemployment insurance counts as taxable revenue, and recipients have to withhold for revenue taxes of their application paperwork.
“The difficulty is the fact that there’s such a glaring wealth disparity that some people are drinking 13k bottles of wine whereas some people starve,” summed up one in all Teigen’s followers on Twitter.
Teigen later shared a screenshot of her name trending on the social media platform as her “worst nightmare,” and noted she’s having a tough time, as her late son, Jack, would have been due this week. She revealed in October that she suffered a miscarriage, which drew a swell of online support from the many families who have suffered the same tragedy.
Among the followers coming to her defense was one person pointing out that whereas most people can’t relate to Teigen spending $13,000 on a bottle of wine, there are plenty of others around the world who also can’t relate to Americans dropping $1,000 on an iPhone.
