How Marie Kondo Really Feels About The Alison Roman Controversy

If any of us wanted to know how fickle fame actually is, we only need to track down former New York Times columnist and Momofuku Milk Bar pastry chef Alison Roman. Roman was a godsend for many of us who had just gone into lockdown in the Spring of 2020, (foolishly) thinking that days of isolation and staying at home were meant to end in mere weeks. Vox even hailed Roman as the "reluctant, pasta-loving 'prom queen of the pandemic'" for her easy, accessible recipes. During her conversation with Vox's Alex Abad-Santos, Roman had said, "On the one hand, I'm so happy to be 'prom queen of the pandemic'. But on the other hand, are people going to forever associate me with the darkest time in their lives?"

The answer to that rhetorical question is a resounding no because just weeks later, Roman took on model and cookbook author Chrissy Teigen as well as tidy-up queen Marie Kondo in an interview with The New Consumer (via Eater). Roman criticizing Teigen's Instagram page for being "a content farm" and because she had started up a product line after releasing her cookbooks. Roman also went after Kondo for making money off her popularity because she had "just sold out immediately." Many took pains to point out that Roman had gone after two Asians, who are vastly underrepresented in both the cooking and lifestyle spaces (via The Lily). By December of 2020, Roman was no longer with NYT Cooking, as she told her followers on Instagram. 

While Teigen publicly expressed how much Roman's remarks upset her, Kondo stayed mum for a bit. During an interview with The Daily Beast. Kondo addressed Roman's accusation that she was profiting off her fame by saying, "I always try to teach people to cherish what you already have, and in buying new things, I really encourage people to be as selective as possible." For her, there is no tension between saying goodbye to old things and buying new ones. Kondo acknowledged having an online shop but said it wasn't meant to be used until "you finish tidying, and you attain a life that sparks joy for you."

The decluttering queen didn't celebrate Roman's eventual exit from the Times either, pointing out that it's normal for people to hold different points of view. Kondo explained to The Daily Beast, "I'm someone that really considers discussions among people with different opinions to be very important because it's only through such discussions — and through the process of tidying — that we discover what's important to us individually."