Categories: Entertainment

John Legend Talks About Recently Being Called A Monkey By Racist Paparazzi

John Legend and Chrissy Teigen dealt with a recent racist paparazzi incident while getting off their flight, all while calling Legend a monkey. 

When the couple landed at New York City’s JFK airport on Thursday, January 19th, they were of course expecting the paparazzi, but one in particular took a different root to get the couple’s attention. The photographer tried to use racial slurs to have the couple respond/talk to them. The paparazzi has yet to be identified, but its sure to come out sooner or later. Teigen took to twitter to explain the situation.

“Paparazzi at JFK just asked me “if we evolved from monkeys, why is John Legend still around?” – and people wonder why celebs lose it in pics”

But that wasn’t all. After insulting Legend, the pap then asked Teigen an extremely racist question about Jews for no apparent reason at all. “He also went from ‘what’s an easy recipe to make at home’ to ‘if a Jew were a vampire, would he still be afraid of crosses?’” she wrote.

Legend has since responded on the incident to Variety.com. He used the time to address it and make connections on our history and Donald Trump.

“We looked at each other like, ‘Did he really just say that?’” Legend said. “He basically called me a monkey. Black folks have had to deal with being called monkeys for a long time and dehumanization has always been kind of a method of racism and subjugation of black people and that’s just part of American history—and it’s part of the present, apparently.”

William Carter

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