Cookbook author and former New York Times columnist Alison Roman, who came under fire after criticizing Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo in a May 2020 interview with the New Consumer, will debut a new cooking show on CNN.
Called “(More Than) A Cooking Show,” the four-episode series will follow Roman, 37, as she travels, learns about ingredients and tries recipes.
Roman was supposed to launch her show on CNN+ earlier this year, but that platform was scrapped amid a shake-up at Warner Bros. Discovery, the owner of HBO, CNN, TLC and other networks. The cut-backs also included layoffs at HBO Max and a shelved “Batgirl” movie.
CNN’s fight for survival wasn’t the best-selling author’s only obstacle; Roman’s now-infamous 2020 remarks about Teigen and Kondo galvanized social media.
“What Chrissy Teigen has done is so crazy to me,” Roman told Consumer in 2020. “She had a successful cookbook. And then it was like: Boom, line at Target. Boom, now she has an Instagram page that has over a million followers where it’s just, like, people running a content farm for her. That horrifies me and it’s not something that I ever want to do.”
Regarding Kondo, she said, “The idea that when Marie Kondo decided to capitalize on her fame and make stuff that you can buy, that is completely antithetical to everything she’s ever taught you.”
After a considerable amount of backlash, Roman’s Times column was put on hold, and she tweeted an apology to Teigen.
“Being a woman who takes down other women is absolutely not my thing and don’t think it’s yours, either (I obviously failed to effectively communicate that). I hope we can meet one day, I think we’d probably get along,” Roman wrote. At the time, Teigen went public with her disapproval regarding the Times’ decision, telling her Twitter followers, “I’d like her back.”
Roman parted ways with the Gray Lady that December. “I’m proud of the work we made together but excited for this new chapter,” she wrote on Instagram.
Roman lit up the internet once more in 2021 after offering her Boerum Hill apartment for rent. This summer, she shared in her newsletter details of her new home in the same neighborhood.
“(More Than) A Cooking Show” will premiere on CNN at an unannounced date in the fall.
