Kanye West has burned a lot of bridges in the last few years. It started when he publicly announced his support of Donald Trump back in 2018. Saturday Night Live even banned the rapper after his unexpected rant about the former POTUS.
In March 2022, the Heartless hitmaker also had a series of social media meltdowns amid his divorce battle with Kim Kardashian. He attacked the reality star's then-boyfriend Pete Davidson - claiming that the comedian has AIDS and burying him alive in his music video just to sabotage his relationship with Kim.
Back then, celebrities weighed in on the drama and called out Ye for harassing the Skims founder. Recently, John Legend also revealed that he's "no longer close" with the Yeezy founder. Here's why.
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Kanye played a huge part in John's career. The Donda performer even suggested the name Legend. The two first met through the All of Me singer's roommate who happened to be Ye's cousin. Soon, the two hit it off and started collaborating.
"I went to school with this guy Devon Harris and he was a roommate of mine in college and we also were roommates in New York together," John told Insider in 2018. "He had this cousin that moved to New York from Chicago. He wasn't famous. He was just some cousin that made beats as far as I knew. But he was Kanye West, before everybody knew who Kanye West was."
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"My roommate was like, 'You gotta meet my cousin, Kanye. He's working on Jay-Z's album,'" John continued. "He's working with all these guys from Roc-A-Fella [records]." After that, Kanye was able to score record deals for both of them "Dare I say, luck is when opportunity meets preparation or preparation meets opportunity," The Voice judge recalled. "Part of it is just being prepared and working on your craft, and then, when opportunity comes along, you're able to seize that." And that's exactly what he did.
"[Kanye] got a deal as a rapper with Roc-A-Fella as well. He still had to convince people that he could rap," John said of Ye's tough journey into the industry. "I think they gave him the deal moreso so he could just make beats for them and they just wanted to keep him in house. But, eventually, he convinced everybody, 'I'm an artist. I'm not just a producer. I'm an artist. Oh, and, by the way, I signed this really cool kid, John Legend from Ohio, and you should sign him, too.' And, so, eventually, he helped me get signed to Columbia [Records]." By the end of May 2004, John released his debut album, Get Lifted.
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In 2019, John told Vanity Fair that he and Kanye had a strained relationship. A year before that, he reached out to the rapper after he announced his support of Trump.
Kanye posted a screenshot of the texts, prompting John to post a series of tweets denouncing Kanye's political stance. "I imagine there's some comfort in imagining a future without racism and projecting that onto the present. Thinking if we just deny the truth, it doesn't exist," tweeted the record producer. "I love that great, brilliant artists have the power to imagine a better future. But artists can't be blind to the truth."
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"I'm not trying to disown Kanye," John told the publication about his Twitter response, "because I still love him and love everything we've done together creatively, but we were never the closest of friends." He added that "what was always challenging about it was Kanye has never been political" and that "he just kind of embraced Trump's spirit and the energy of himself being countercultural in supporting him."
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Recently, John admitted that politics caused a rift in his friendship with Kanye. "[Kanye and I] aren't friends as much as we used to be," he told David Axelrod during an episode of The Axe Files podcast.
"I honestly think because we publicly disagreed on his running for office, his supporting [Donald] Trump, I think it became too much for us to sustain our friendship, honestly." He added that Kanye wasn't pleased that he didn't support him during his presidential run in 2020. "I wasn't alone in that, but, you know, he [West] was not happy about that. And we really haven't been close since then," John said.
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Still, he said that he admires Kanye's honesty and openness. "I think he's been very open with who he is and his struggles with mental health," the Grammy winner explained. "And he's very real, honestly. So I think there's not a lot about him that people don't get . Like he's been pretty upfront with his opinions, his struggles, all the things that he's dealing with. And I think what you see with him is pretty much what you get."
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