John Legend and Ye were good friends for a long time, but their relationship has cooled since the rapper made a bid for the presidency. Legend disagreed with Ye's political choices, causing him to distance himself from him.
The rapper openly expressed his support for then-President Donald Trump and also decided to run himself in the 2020 election.
"We're not as good friends as we used to be," Legend tells the podcast The Axe Files. "Honestly, it's because I didn't understand that he was a supporter of Trump and wanted to be president himself. That became too loaded a topic and it got in the way of our friendship. Ye was disappointed about that, and I understand that too. We haven't been very close since," said the singer, who is himself a supporter of Democratic President Joe Biden.
Legend and Ye met in 2004 in the studio. The singer had not yet broken through but was working on his own music and writing songs for others, while Ye (then Kanye West) was already an established name. The rapper even suggested the stage name John Legend (the singer's full name is John Stephens). Eventually, Ye hired Legend to provide vocals on one of his songs and the rapper became the producer of Legend's debut album Get Lifted. They also interacted a lot privately. For example, Ye asked Legend to sing his hit All of Me at his wedding to Kim Kardashian.