Internet Queen! Chrissy Teigen was taken aback when a report linked Neopets, the virtual pets website, to Scientology — but that didn’t stop her from rejoining the online community.
The Outline reported on Wednesday, April 18, that before Viacom bought Neopets in 2005, the site’s then-CEO, Doug Dohring, was a Scientologist who used the church’s org board while heading the company. But that didn’t stop Teigen, 32, from sharing the same day that she still missed the game.
I miss neopets
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) April 19, 2018
The pregnant Lip Sync Battle host then went on to explain her long history with Neopets and her decision to play again. “I was a comment board moderator. I won multiple caption contests,” she tweeted on Thursday, April 19. “I’ve basically been told to barely move and let my baby grow so f—k it, I’m going back on neopets.”
“Oh my god neopets has not changed a bit. the omelet…is still cooking,” she tweeted after logging onto the site. “I vaguely remember these concepts. I remember the faeries. The paintbrushes. The guilds, kind of. But only specks of them. Father Time has stolen my youthful memories of neopia and instead replaced these innocent times with tattered images of a world once simple and kind.”
A Twitter user then shamed Teigen for supporting the site after learning about their involvement with Scientology, and she replied: “What does that have to do with my marketplace.”
I…worked on this story for two years…and…she just…she tweeted it out pic.twitter.com/6aTOWbA9bR
— knife dog (@hudsonhongo) April 19, 2018
A writer for the website Gizmodo also shared a screenshot in 2016 of a page he found, which showed that the model had previously won a caption contest on the site. “I…worked on this story for two years…and…she just…she tweeted it out,” he wrote. Teigen responded: “Wait please tell me this caption contest win wasn’t only 10 years ago. 10 years ago I was 22. Please tell me I wasn’t 22 years old on neopets.”
While Teigen seemed unfazed by the game’s reported Scientology connection, her followers flooded her with reactions about the time they spent raising their virtual pets. One user wrote: “I also read this. Just thankful they didn’t push out Scientology content because if they did, I’d probably be a Scientologist rn with all the hours I spent playing Neopets in my formative years 😂😂.”
Another wrote: “Miss? I’m still playing and have zero shame about it.”
One Twitter user revealed her not so pleasant experience with the site: “I’d miss neopets more if they hadn’t gotten hacked and leaked my middle school email address to the black market.”
Others were looking forward to rejoining the online community, tweeting: “Tell us your username so we can gift you many expensive things.”
The Cravings author is pregnant with her second child — a baby boy — with husband John Legend. The couple also share daughter Luna, 2.
