John Legend: Politics Drove Apart Me and Kanye

Singer John Legend says his once-close relationship with Kanye West fell apart when the rapper began cozying up to Donald Trump and then mounted his own presidential run. “We aren’t friends as much as we used to be,” Legend said on David Axelrod’s The Axe Files podcast. “I honestly think because we publicly disagreed on his running for office, his supporting Trump. I think it became too much for us to sustain our friendship.” Two years ago, Legend said politics did not cause a rift and the two had just drifted apart. But now he says it was the decisive factor. “He was upset that I didn’t support his run for presidency of the United States of America—for understandable reasons,” Legend said. “I wasn’t alone in that, but, you know, he was not happy about that. And we really haven’t been close since then.”