Oscar, Golden Globe and Grammy-winning artist John Legend has responded to being racially abused while walking through JFK Airport in New York City with wife Chrissy Teigen on Friday.
Heartbreakingly, the musical maestro and La La Land star told Variety he was initially shocked but was not hurt by a paparazzo referring to him as a "monkey" because it's "just a part of American history".
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"Black folks have had to deal with being called monkeys for a long time and dehumanisation has always been kind of a method of racism and subjugation of black people and that's just part of American history," he said, adding, "and it's part of the present, apparently".
"We saw with the former president, Obama, whenever people wanted to discount him or discount his wife, they compared them to apes. And we've seen that frequently. 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. But it's a shame that it still exists."
Sports Illustrated model and Cravings cookbook author Teigen, whose Twitter account is a highlight on the social media site, particularly thanks to her put-downs of US President Donald Trump, initially drew attention to the racist incident by tweeting the paparazzo's comments.
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
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) January 19, 2017
Photographers are known to shout questions and abuse at celebrities to make them react. If they can get a comment or preferably, an angry outburst, on tape, it is worth more to sell on to the likes of tabloid outlets such as TMZ, the Daily Mail or People.
Legend was on his way to a performance at the Sundance Film Festival, where he thanked women for showing their "display of solidarity" and shared snaps of the women's march in Park City, Utah, where the festival is held annually.
Meanwhile, Teigen joined the half a million marchers in Washington, D.C.
I have hope!!! pic.twitter.com/jAzCzZgtzl
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) January 21, 2017
She also had this message for Trump's White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who lied about attendance at the inauguration on Monday.
People in pain. People need jobs. People need healthcare. People want equality. But let's have a press conference on crowd size. My god.
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) January 21, 2017
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