info@businessghana.com
John Legend has responded to his former friend and longtime collaborator Kanye "Ye" West, saying in a March 2025 interview that his ex-G.O.O.D. Music artist smells like "mashed potatoes" amid the latter's long string of problematic behavior.
During a conversation with New York City's Hot 97 radio show, Legend was asked about Ye's interview with DJ Akademiks, during which Ye wore a black Ku Klux Klan-inspired outfit. In that interview, Ye referred to Legend's clothing as a "f----t ass hot sweater" and said he heard that Legend "smells like mashed potatoes."
Legend reacted, telling the radio hosts that, "He was very obsessed with me wearing sweaters," before referencing the mashed potatoes diss. "What kind of potatoes? I like cheesy, garlic!"
Taylor Hill/WireImage
John Legend attends the King's Trust Global Gala on May 2, 2024 in New York City.When asked if the comments offended him, the 46-year-old quickly denied that it impacted him much, but still highlighted Ye's behavior over the last few years, including praising Adolf Hitler as "fresh" in a string of antisemitic messages in January.
Ye's comments doubled down on similar antisemitic rhetoric that, in 2022, led to the dissolution of partnerships with brands like Adidas and Balenciaga — before Ye eventually apologized to the community for posting about going "death con 3 on Jewish people."
"All of it makes me sad. All of it. It's not for me, because I smell great. It never affects me personally, but the whole story is sad," Legend explained to Hot 97. "Seeing this guy praise Hitler, seeing this guy be this force of hate, vitriol, and nastiness, somebody who has made some of the great art of this century, as an artist, as a performer, as a fashion designer — all the things he's done to make the world more beautiful and interesting, for him to be this now, it's sad. It's just sad."
Legend also maintained that he "never saw this side of him that was obsessed with Hitler" during their time working together, which saw Legend sign to Ye's G.O.O.D. Music label in the early aughts, ahead of releasing six albums on the label between 2004 and 2016.
The singer said that Ye "wasn't political, even when he said George Bush doesn't care about Black people" in a televised 2005 moment following Hurricane Katrina ravaging the southern United States.
Legend continued, "I have friends that I talk about politics with all the time. He was never one of them. I never thought of him as a person who thought about who was president or any of these more social and cultural issues. He never talked about it in conversation."
Still, despite their fallout, Legend said that he doesn't harbor negative feelings while looking back on their time as collaborators.
"I have no regrets, even though he's gone completely left now," Legend said. "I'm so glad we did what we did together."
In addition to the albums Legend released through Ye's label, he also dropped some of the most successful singles of his career while signed to G.O.O.D. Music, namely his No. 1 2013 hit "All of Me."
Watch Legend discuss his relationship with Ye in the video above.
