John Legend reveals he has a 'history' of cheating in relationships

Singer John Legend has revealed he has a "history" of cheating in relationships, clarifying that it was in his early 20s and not during his marriage with cookbook author Chrissy Teigen. On Dax Shepard’s podcast Armchair Expert, Legend spoke candidly about why he cheated and how he had come to realise he was “happier being honest.”

Speaking to Shepard (who is married to Kristen Bell and also added he had a “f**king deplorable” record of cheating in the past), Legend said, “I did have a history of it, definitely in my 20s.”

“I think what happened for me personally is, you go through a lot of your life, like your teens, and I was like the 'two years younger kid than everybody' in high school and college, and so I just didn’t get a lot of girls when I was younger.”

He continued, “And when I started to get that attention, I loved it. Just ate it up.”

Legend said that he “escaped technically cheating” by putting a loophole in place, i.e. keeping his relationships “ill-defined.” However, he called his past self "dishonest and selfish" and said, “But it was really cheating. You can try to get off on technicalities ... I was dishonest and selfish and just enjoyed this new attention I was getting."

Things changed as he and model Chrissy Teigen began to get serious, as he said he “decided” to be monogamous and not “mess around with anybody else anymore.” The pair first met in 2006 on the set of his music video Stereo and have been married since 2013. They share two children together, 4 year old Luna and 2 year old Miles.

“At a certain point you just realise, like, you're happier being honest. And you're happier being faithful and being in love with one person,” he said.

"Your whole life is lighter. Like, when you're able to be honest with the person and, like, you aren't hiding texts ... your mind is freer. Everything is better. Obviously people have to get to that place and they have to realise that the person they're with is the person that they're ready to do that for, but once you figure that out, it's so freeing,” he said

He also joked that it would be "career suicide" if thing went south with Teigen as she has a massive Twitter fanbase of 13.1 million followers.

Chrissy Teigen has since responded to Legend’s comments on Twitter, screencapping an article and highlighting the word “especially” - in the line “I did have a history with it, especially in my 20s.”

She tweeted, “"especially"?? the other s**t is the 10's and 30's so u better be talking the tens, idiot.”

Teigen and Legend have shared a number of videos of their life over lockdown, from Teigen cheering Legend on during his early lockdown livestream concerts through to documenting cooking with their children.

Although their relationship may have been idolised over the years, Legend warned fans against hailing them a ‘perfect relationship’ as he said to Cosmopolitan, “I don’t think anybody meets that definition.”

“I think it’s too much pressure to put on anyone. However, I don’t mind being known as somebody who’s devoted to their wife. I am devoted to Chrissy,” he continued.