Politics has a way of dividing even the closest of friends and while it appeared that famous artists John Legend and Kanye West had a traditional Democrat vs. Republican fallout, that was not apparently the case.
In an interview with the New Yorker, Legend clarifies that while he is a vocal supporter of many Democrats, including Joe Biden, his and West’s issues have nothing to do with West’s one-time support of Donald Trump, but rather because Legend didn’t endorse West in his 2020 presidential run.
In the interview, Legend stated the following: “What it got described as was, we stopped being friends because he supported Trump, which was a mischaracterization of what I said. That was kind of the Rupert Murdoch version of the story—it was all over the New York Post and Fox News. 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. I don’t know what will happen in the future, but he was very upset with me that I didn’t support him and I supported Joe Biden. It’s up to him whether he can get past that.” [According to the New Yorker, West could not be reached for comment.]
In 2018, Ye posted screenshots of a tweet in which Legend asked him to “reconsider aligning [himself] with Trump,” to which West followed up with a series of bizarre tweets in which he seemed to emphasize independent thought while still maintaining his support for then-president Trump.
However, when West made his own run for president, Legend did not support him and rather supported Biden.
Legend was not the only hip-hop artist to draw West’s ire. On a 2020 episode of “Drink Champs,” West called both Legend and Big Sean sellouts for not supporting him, stating, ““I know this man mama, bro. … I changed this man’s family. Both John Legend and Big Sean, when I ran for office, got used quick by the Democrats to come at they boy that actually changed they life. And that’s some sellout sh-t. And I don’t rock with neither of them and I need my apologies. I ain’t saying they gon’ change, but n-ggas is scared.”
West received about 60,000 votes out of an estimated total of 160 million in the 2020.
