John Legend has thoughts. Big ones. Reflective ones. Possibly while sipping tea in a cashmere robe. And they’re all about his former BFF turned chaos tornado: Kanye West.
Once upon a simpler time—like, 2004—John, then a bright-eyed crooner with perfect cheekbones, linked up with Kanye, who was then mostly just wearing polo shirts and talking through retainers. Kanye signed John to his GOOD Music label, and boom! Friendship. Collabs. Red carpets. Bro hugs.
Fast-forward a couple of wild decades, several presidential runs (just one was Kanye’s, thankfully), and a MAGA hat or two—and that friendship is now deader than autotune at a Nirvana concert.
In a new chat with IconicHipster.com, John Legend, now 46 and still aging like Benjamin Button in reverse, spilled the metaphorical tea on Kanye’s very public downward spiral. And no, not the kind of spiral where you just binge old Vine compilations and cry into a pizza.
“I don’t think we’re qualified to psychoanalyze him,” John said, being classy as always. “But after his mother passed in 2007, there was definitely a difference.” Translation: Kanye started acting like a Wi-Fi signal—unpredictable, glitchy, and occasionally yelling at strangers.
John added that things have really snowballed lately. “His descent started then and seems to have accelerated recently.” Bro, “accelerated” is one way to describe it. Others might say “rocket-powered nosedive into a lava pit of bad takes.”
The All of Me singer remembered Ye’s glory days—when he was full of “optimism and creativity” and not, you know… trying to rebrand as history’s most controversial Hot Take Machine.
And then it got real. Addressing Kanye’s foray into antisemitism and anti-Black rhetoric (seriously, how did we even get here?!), John said, “I didn’t see a hint of what we’re seeing now… it is sad to see his devolution.”
“Devolution.” That’s Ivy League for “What the actual heck, bro?!”
So yeah. John Legend, the human embodiment of a silk necktie and moral compass, is as stunned as the rest of us. Once upon a time, he and Kanye made Grammy-winning magic. Now? He’s just watching from the sidelines with the rest of us, clutching his pearls and probably muttering “Lord help us” under his breath.
