John Legend says he ‘looks down’ on ‘racist’ paparazzi who called him a ‘monkey’

John Legend has spoken out about a ‘racist’ comment aimed at him by a paparazzo last week, saying he ‘looks down on’ the offending photographer.

The remark came while the American R&B singer was at JFK airport with his wife Chrissy Teigen, who tweeted about the incident on Thursday January 19.

“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,” she wrote, adding:

“Also, john is right next to me. The balls.”

In an interview with Variety, Legend elaborated on the incident saying he was ‘not hurt’, but that it’s ‘a shame’ attacks like this still happen.

“[Chrissy and I] were right next to each other and we looked at each other like, did he really just say that? And he really said it. He basically called me a monkey,” he explained.

“Black folks have had to deal with being called monkeys for a long time. Dehumanisation has always been a method of racism and subjugation of black people.”

Read more

• John Legend ‘disappointed’ in friend Kanye West for Trump meeting

• John Legend- Darkness and Light review: ‘full of ideas’

• Piers Morgan in Twitter spat with Chrissy Teigen and John Legend over Muhammad Ali comment

“I’m not hurt by someone saying that to me because I’m smarter, I’m stronger. I look down on that person that would say something like that. It’s a shame that that still exists.”

Legend recently released his fifth studio album Darkness and Light, and stars in hit film La La Land as a jazz-pop musician.