John Legend Admits He "Wasn't a Great Partner" to Chrissy Teigen Early in Their Relationship

Updated on 10/20/2022 at 4:30 PM

Chrissy Teigen and John Legend exchanged "I dos" in a lavish Italian ceremony in September 2013, and ever since then, they've brought new meaning to the term "relationship goals." While Teigen admits to "pretending not to care" when she first met Legend on the set of his music video for "Stereo," she couldn't help but rave about him during an interview with Cosmopolitan back in April 2014, saying, "I'm with someone who is totally secure in himself. He's not trying to be anything other than what he is. The confidence he has brings it to me."

Teigen and Legend have never been shy about their romance, whether they're flaunting it or getting real about it. Back in March 2016, Legend tweeted a video revealing why he thinks his and Teigen's relationship works so well and said it's because "we support each other in everything that we do."

Most recently, the singer reflected on his early days with Teigen and admitted he wasn't as committed as he should've been to their relationship, citing his "selfish" ways. "When you stop being so selfish, when you think about not only the joy you get from a situation and the pleasure you get from it, but also think about your responsibility and your commitment in that situation. You just grow, and you mature," he said during an Oct. 17 appearance on the "On Purpose with Jay Shetty" podcast. "Part of it is it's just a matter of time. You need time to become that person you want to be."

Whether they're being honest about their relationship or bragging about their love, see what else Legend and Teigen have said about each other over the years.

Chrissy Teigen on John Legend

On what Legend looks like: "A Paddington bear," she told Self magazine.
On Legend's romantic personality: "He's such a romantic all the time, like, literally, we would just go up to the Berkshires or something and he would say, like, 'Let's ride bicycles to the lake' or 'Let's go up to the rooftop and have a glass of wine,'" she recalled on "Oprah's Next Chapter."
On the time Legend proposed to her: "There were a few false alarms with John, trust me, but this one was totally unexpected when it actually happened and I really had no idea," she said on "Oprah's Next Chapter."

On why their marriage works: "I'm with someone who is totally secure in himself. He's not trying to be anything other than what he is," she told Cosmopolitan. "The confidence he has brings it to me. We're by no means freaky-deaky, but let's just say we're open to things. We're very okay with PDA. When we go to a restaurant, he loves when I wear a dress so he can do some upper-thigh rubbing. I would love to see more husbands and wives making out!"
On the craziest place she and Legend have ever had sex: "We were on our way to Thailand to see my parents, flying commercial first-class. We were under a blanket. We weren't even in one of those pod things," she told Cosmopolitan. "I feel like we should get a trophy for that."

John Legend on Chrissy Teigen

On his first encounter with Teigen: "When we first met, we were both seeing other people at the time, so for a little while in the beginning we weren't really committed to each other," he recalled to A Drink With. "After we met, I left to go on tour in Europe. At first we just texted a lot and saw each other rarely, but when we did see one another, the sparks flew."
On when he knew Teigen was the one: "I wasn't like, 'This is the woman I'm going to marry' from day one," he told Los Angeles Confidential per Entertainment Tonight. "For me, I'm the kind of person who needs to grow into that feeling. It was probably a couple of years in when I could already see us being together forever."
On when he knew it was time to propose: "I don't think it was one particular moment, but I knew I loved her, I knew I could see myself living with her and spending time with her forever, I knew I could envision us having kids together, and I felt like it was time to propose," he said on "Oprah's Next Chapter." "She didn't pressure me, she didn't say, 'It's time to put a ring on it.' I felt like it's time for us to get married."
On not being a great partner to Teigen early in their relationship: "I think I was more selfish then," he explained on the "On Purpose with Jay Shetty" podcast. "I wasn't a great partner at the beginning of our relationship. Even though I was very into her and very excited to be with her. I was still selfish. I was in my mid-20s, still not ready to fully be the committed partner that I am now."

On why their relationship works: "We support each other in everything that we do and I love seeing her succeed at the things she loves to do and she loves seeing me succeed at things that I love to do," he said in a video posted on Twitter. "That's the way you should be with your partner."
On the longest they go without seeing each other: "Usually only a few days, no more than that," he told A Drink With. "The longest amount of time we've spent apart, I think, was three weeks while I was on tour in Australia and New Zealand and she couldn't fly out because she was working. Mostly it's no more than five or six days."
On Teigen's reaction when she first heard "All of Me": "She loved it and she cried when she first heard it," he told CBS This Morning. "I sang it to her. I just whispered it to her when we were at home. I wasn't even at the piano. I was just, like, excited about it. I didn't even have the recording yet. It was late and I was like, 'You just have to hear this song,' and I sang it to her and she just started crying."
On Teigen sharing a photo of baby Jack: "I was hesitant to share it," he told BBC Radio 4, per The Guardian. "But I think Chrissy was really right. Way more people than anybody realizes go through this and they think they are alone. It was a really powerful, wise decision by Chrissy to share it."