Biography

Received and turned down offers from Harvard and Georgetown, when he was 16. He decided to attend the University of Pennsylvania, graduating with a degree in English.

The fifteenth person, eleventh man, fourth person of color, and first black man to receive the status of EGOT. The other recipients (chronologically) are Richard Rodgers, Helen Hayes, Rita Moreno, John Gielgud, Audrey Hepburn, Marvin Hamlisch, Jonathan Tunick, Mel Brooks, Mike Nichols, Whoopi Goldberg, Scott Rudin, Robert Lopez, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice, Alan Menken, Jennifer Hudson, Viola Davis and Elton John. Actually, John, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice became EGOTs together in 2018 when they won the Emmy as producers of the live television concert performance of the musical "Jesus Christ Superstar".

On the TV show, Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (2012), John found out some very interesting things about one of his ancestors. One of his ancestors was named Peyton Polly, who was born a slave in 1797. In 1847, he, his brother and son were set free by their master. Several years later, seven of Peyton's other children were put up for auction and his brother Douglas Polly bought them. They moved from Kentucky (a slave state) to Ohio, where they could be free. In June 1850, some men from Kentucky came into Ohio, assaulted Peyton and took the Polly children away. Some of the children remained enslaved in Kentucky while others were enslaved in Virginia. Eight months after the kidnapping, Peyton went to the authorities and the case went to the Governor, who sent investigators into Kentucky and Virginia to get the children. The children enslaved in Kentucky remained enslaved until the end of the Civil War, but those in Virginia were freed.

Following the airing of the Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (2012) episode in question, two of John Legend's cousins (descendants of Peyton Polly) filed a court case to set the record straight. These cousins learned that the reason the Polly children were auctioned off was due to their owner's debts and also that the owner's wife wanted them out. The owner's brother-in-law disapproved and forged a document saying they were fugitive slaves and tried to claim ownership using the legal system in Ohio (a non-slave state), but unsurprisingly failed. This reportedly led to the June 1850 raid on Preston Polly's homestead.

He and wife Chrissy Teigen announced her third pregnancy in August 2020 by revealing her baby bump in his music video for the song 'Wild' but unfortunately suffered a miscarriage in September 30th 2020. The couple had named the child Jack.

Met Ye through his college roommate--who happened to be Kanye's cousin.