Fashion Designer Michael Costello Had Suicidal Thoughts After Alleged Chrissy Teigen Bullying
Hours after Chrissy Teigen published a lengthy public apology for cyberbullying Courtney Stodden, Project Runway contestant Michael Costello took to Instagram yesterday evening (June 14) to describe how Teigen attempted to ruin his career.
“I didn’t want to do this but I can not be happy until I speak my mind. I need to heal and in order for me to do that I must reveal what I’ve been going through,” he wrote in a post. “I wanted to kill myself and I still am traumatized, depressed and have thoughts of suicide.”
According to the fashion designer, the harassment began after Teigen left a public comment on his Instagram page in 2014, accusing 38-year-old Costello of racism after seeing what he claims was a fake racist comment Photoshopped by a “former disgruntled employee” to publicly slander him.
“When I reached out to Chrissy Teigen to communicate that I was the victim of a vindictive cyber slander, and that everything she thought I was is not who I am, she told me that my career was over and that all my doors will be shut from there on,” Costello said. He appeared on season eight of Project Runway and on 2012’s Project Runway All-Stars.
“And wow, did she live up to her words,” he continued. “Throughout the next few years, I would book jobs only to be pulled off last minute with no explanation.” According to Costello, friends and colleagues in the industry would tell him that Teigen and stylist Monica Rose had allegedly “gone out of their way to threaten people and brands that, if they were in any shape or form associated with me, they would not work with any of them.”
“So many nights I stayed awake, wanting to kill myself. I didn’t see the point of living,” Costello said in his Instagram post, revealing that he wrote personal letters to family and friends in preparation for a suicide attempt.
“I wish no harm on anyone and I don’t wanna go back-and-forth fighting with anyone. I just want people to realize that I, too, am human and this was the most inhuman treatment to ever be endured by someone who has seen their decades of hard work, years of building a brand, crumbled from one comment.”
The last two images of his post show screenshots of alleged DMs between himself and Teigen, who refused to believe his claims that the comments she saw were fake. “Racist people like you deserve to suffer and die,” Teigen allegedly wrote. “You might as well be dead. Your career is over, just watch.”
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