In March, Chrissy Teigen shocked her 13.7 million Twitter followers when she declared she was permanently leaving the social media platform and deleting her account.
However, it turns out her permanent departure wasn’t so permanent after all. She returned to Twitter today after just 23 days away.
What prompted her return? Teigen offered an explanation to fans while also turning philosophical about Twitter’s unique combination of positivity and negativity.
In her own words, “turns out it feels TERRIBLE to silence yourself and also no longer enjoy belly chuckles randomly throughout the day and also lose like 2000 friends at once lol,” she wrote, adding, “I choose to take the bad with the good!!”
Her comment about taking the good and bad together goes back to her original series of (now-deleted) farewell tweets. At the time, Teigen wrote that “it’s time for me to say goodbye. This no longer serves me as positively as it serves me negatively, and I think that’s the right time to call something.” She added, “My life goal is to make people happy. The pain I feel when I don’t is too much for me. I’ve always been portrayed as the strong clap back girl but I’m just not.”
Teigen was also open about the negative effect Twitter had on her mental health. “My desire to be liked and fear of pissing people off has made me somebody you didn’t sign up for, and a different human than I started out here as! Live well, tweeters,” she added as a farewell message. “Please know all I ever cared about was you!!!”
At the time of her departure, Teigen seemed reflective of the criticism she had received on Twitter over the years. “I have made my mistakes, throughout years and in front of hundreds of thousands, and been held accountable for them. I’ve learned an incredible amount here,” she wrote.
Now that she has returned, it seems like Teigen has discovered a kind of balance between the “good” and the “bad” of her own social media experience. Just as she has her own good days and bad days, Twitter can be inspiring one day and downright degrading the next.
But leaving the platform appears to have been hard on Teigen, who joked, “I’ve spent weeks just saying tweets to shampoo bottles.”
She also tweeted photos of her and John Legend’s children Luna, 5, and Miles, 2, and looking through a high-powered telescope.
Ultimately, Teigen decided that Twitter was more a force for good in her life than a force for bad. And judging from the enthusiastic response her fans had to her return, it seems Teigen is a major force for good in their lives thanks to her Twitter posts.