You’d be forgiven for thinking Chrissy Teigen and John Legend were besties with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian-West. Chrissy and John went to Kimye’s Italy wedding in 2014 and the foursome have been known to share selfies while attending awards shows and the like.
But according to John, he and Kanye “were never the closest of friends”. Especially these days.
And a lot of that has to do with US President Donald Trump.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Chrissy and John opened up about their estranged friendship with Kim and Kanye, and how Kanye’s support of Donald Trump has come between them.
“I’m not trying to disown Kanye because I still love him and love everything we’ve done together creatively, but we were never the closest of friends,” said John.
John and Chrissy have always been open about their dislike for Trump. From the Twitter wars that led to Trump blocking Chrissy in 2017, to the more recent blow-up last month when the President tweeted John and referred to Chrissy as “his filthy mouthed wife” and John as a “boring musician”, there’s no love lost between them.
“He’s locking kids in cages and he’s a terrible human being…’ John said to Vanity Fair of one of the issues he has with Trump.
Last year, John got in touch with Kanye to caution him against his close association with Trump, in particular, bringing Kanye’s attention to ‘harm that Trump’s policies cause, especially to people of colour”.
The message was private, but Kanye took to Twitter to publicly share how John had reached out.
“I really appreciate this dialogue with John Legend because I’m actually very empathetic. Im still the kid from the telethon. I feel when people think of MAGA they don’t think of empathy.”
Kanye followed the tweet with another: “I tweeted the John text to show that there are people around me that disagree with me and voice their opinion. I respect everyone’s opinion but I stand my ground.”
Of the situation, John told Vanity Fair, “I think what was always challenging about it was Kanye has never been political. I don’t think he knows one way or another what policies of Trump’s he likes. He’s just kind of embraced Trump’s blow-it-all-up spirit and the energy of himself being countercultural in supporting him.”
While Kim has said “I’ve always had different opinions than Kanye” when it comes to politics, the fact that she met with him at the White House, no matter how well-intended the meeting was, doesn’t sit well with Chrissy.
“To be able to go in there and put whatever you hate about him aside to do this greater good for this person?” Chrissy said to Vanity Fair. “I don’t know if I could physically muster that smile and handshake.”
