Kanye West discovered John Legend and co-produced his 2004 double-Platinum debut album, Get Lifted. However, they are no longer friends and have not worked together in several years. Now, the EGOT winner is setting the record straight on why they fell out.
“What it got described as was, we stopped being friends because he supported [Donald] Trump, which was a mischaracterization,” The Voice coach told the New Yorker. “What I was saying was that he was very upset with me that I didn’t support him running for president and that was the real impetus for us having a strain in our friendship.”
Legend’s first five albums were released on West’s GOOD Music. John left the label in 2018. He says their friendship ended when he campaigned for Joe Biden for president in 2020.
“I don’t want to live a life that’s so consumed by politics that it’s the sole determinant of who can be my friend and who can’t,” the 43-year-old entertainer said. “But values matter, and character matters and moral compass matters.”
When Legend tried to convince Kanye to join the Biden campaign, Yeezy refused and posted screenshots of their conversation on Twitter.
“I talked to him with love and with empathy and tried to help him see another way of looking at things,” Legend said. “And, obviously, he went the way he went with it.”
When the Donda rapper briefly ran for president in 2020, Trump’s team supported him, including raising money for him.
“I saw their work on his behalf as a clear scam and an operation to try to siphon Black votes away from Biden, so there was no way I was going to support it,” Legend recalled. “Kanye was upset with that, and we haven’t been friends since.”
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