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ABC/Paula LoboAfter a social media backlash to John Legend’s Vanity Fair comment about Kanye West, “we were never the best of friends,” The Voice judge took to Twitter to clarify his words.
In the magazine’s December cover story, Legend says, “I’m not trying to disown Kanye because I still love him and love everything we’ve done together creatively,” he says. “But we were never the closest of friends.”
“I get why people want to make this a thing” Legend tweeted. “But I was explaining to the reporter how I’ve seen people I love reacting to the deaths of their mothers. I was thinking specifically of my own mom, Chrissy’s mom and others.”
“Then she asked me if I was referring to Kanye as well after Dr. West died,” he continued., referring to Kanye’s late mother, Dr. Donda West, who died 12 years ago. “And I told her I wasn’t really in a position to say because while Kanye have a long friendship and have a made a lot of great music, we weren’t close on the level of confiding in each other about grief.”
Kanye was John’s mentor, launching his career by signing him to his GOOD music label and changing his name from John Stephens to John Legend.
“As I said then, I don’t want this to sound like I’m trying to disown him now that we’ve publicly and privately disagreed about politics, etc.” Legend adds. “It was just clarifying that I had no private knowledge that equipped me to speculate on his grieving process and how that related to mine.”
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