Grammy-winning artist John Legend is under scrutiny following the reemergence of a video in which he labels President Donald Trump a “white supremacist” during an event held earlier this year.
The video, which began circulating on social media this week, was recorded at The Fifteen Percent Pledge’s 15th Street Block Party in Hollywood, California, in February 2025. In it, Legend critiques Trump’s leadership and comments on the president’s racial views.
“He’s a bigot… It’s a belief that there’s a hierarchy of racial groups and that his group is genetically superior,” Legend said in the video, which was met with applause from the audience.
During the same event, Legend contrasted former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a four-star general, with Pete Hegseth, a conservative media personality and Trump appointee, implying racial bias in Trump’s staffing choices. “That’s the level of bigotry he has — any white man is better than that,” Legend added.
Legend also addressed Trump’s 2024 election victory. “America made a decision that I strongly disagree with, and it seems that we are reaping the whirlwind right now,” he stated shortly after Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025.
Legend described Trump as a “terrible leader, especially in crisis,” accusing him of “blaming, misinforming, and dividing people” when a more effective approach would have been to unify the nation, he continued.
Legend’s comments come amidst the controversy surrounding Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Hegseth, a former Fox News host, was appointed by Trump to succeed Lloyd Austin, the first Black Secretary of Defense under the Biden administration, and has faced criticism for security breaches involving the sharing of sensitive military information in group chats.
Critics have noted that when Austin encountered health issues during his tenure, Trump called for his resignation, stating that Austin “should be fired immediately for improper professional conduct and dereliction of duty.”
Legend has a history of criticizing Trump, beginning with Trump’s initial campaign. In 2016, Legend engaged in a Twitter exchange with Donald Trump Jr., calling Trump Sr. a racist.
“I think they were protesting your racist father. This isn’t complicated,” Legend wrote in response to Trump Jr.’s tweet about protesters at a Chicago rally.
When Trump Jr. argued that racism “can’t be the answer for everything you don’t like,” Legend responded, “No. It’s just the answer when racist racists are saying racist s—t and are endorsed by the KKK,” referencing Ku Klux Klan endorsements of Trump’s candidacy.
In 2019, Legend intensified his criticism following Trump’s tweets about Baltimore and Representative Elijah Cummings. “Our president is a flaming racist,” Legend told TMZ outside a Los Angeles nightclub.
The dispute between Legend and Trump became more personal when Trump referred to Legend’s wife, Chrissy Teigen, as “filthy-mouthed” after she used a profane name for him. Trump subsequently labeled Legend a “boring musician.”
The resurfaced video has elicited strong reactions from social media users across the political spectrum. Many Trump supporters have criticized Legend’s remarks as divisive.
“Only a Democrat could claim ‘Trump is divisive’ in one breath and say ‘MAGA is white supremacist’ in the next,” wrote one critic on social media.
Another commenter cited media bias: “If President Trump ever said anything like this, it would be played by legacy media on repeat. This is projection 101; John Legend is the divisive racist,” another said.
Legend, also known by his legal name, John Roger Stephens, continues his activism on multiple fronts. Recently, he responded to Trump’s remarks about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.
In an Instagram video posted in September 2024, Legend spoke “not as a singer but as a native of Springfield,” lauding immigrants as “hardworking and ambitious” and stating they committed “less crime than native-born Americans.” He urged his followers to “love one another” instead of spreading what he described as xenophobic rhetoric.
The Fifteen Percent Pledge, founded by Aurora James, challenges retailers to allocate at least 15% of their shelf space to Black-owned brands. The February block party aimed to raise funds for Black-owned businesses impacted by the Los Angeles wildfires.
