That’s what I remember thinking as I climbed the stairs to his trailer ahead of our interview.
“Every artist doesn’t choose to do that, and I don’t think they need to.
“I loved sports, but I was never a good athlete.
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“I was really into math and reading, as well as performing on stage.
Though that’s not necessarily valued in high school culture as much.”
We limit our kids' potential by so narrowly prescribing what their gender roles should be.
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He seems 10 years older and five inches taller than he actually is.
Those stereotypes are present in people’s minds when they’re pulling the trigger.
What if she doesn’t want to be a princess?
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“I think we have to allow for those questions.
As a society, we push boys into science and engineering and not girls.
We limit our kids' potential by so narrowly prescribing what their gender roles should be.”
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Everybody has to work to develop their own confidence and resilience.”
I can’t allow every little comment I read to sway my thoughts about myself back and forth.
It can really weigh on you.”
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You know, sometimes it can be affirming," Legend says of reading his Twitter mentions.
“I just had a concert and a bunch of people is tweeting me they loved the show.
You just cannot read ityou really can’t.Just don’t look.
When he needs space from the negativity, Legend likes to take social media breaks.
“Be with your friends, be with people you love, and just live life.
We all don’t ‘need’ to just be plugged into everything all the time.
I love to be plugged in.
I love to communicate with my fans.
I love to read the news and find out what’s going on.
But sometimes I don’t read my mentions.
I don’t need to know what everyone’s telling me all the time.
I want to encourage people to find that and embrace it.”
We’re working to encourage and value different expressions ofmasculinity.”
Speaking of the people he loves, I bring up his relationship with Chrissy Teigen.
I tell him something he already knows: They’re almost sickeningly adorable in the most beautiful of ways.
They’re beloved by hoards of discerning fans.
But, he reminds me, they’re also really different people.
Its clear Legend is the more reserved of the two, whileTeigenis outspoken and extroverted.
His eyes literally sparkled the minute he began talking about Teigen.
“There’s a perception Black men are this ‘hyper-masculine’ stereotype,” he says.
“When you don’t fit that stereotype, it can be hard to find your place.
There’s plenty of Black men who don’t fit that stereotype and their masculinity is valid.
We need a more inclusive definition.
And by the way, it ends up being a dangerous stereotype.
“Oh yeah, I have makeup on now!”
I ask him what he thinks about this progression in regard to beauty and ‘maleness.’
“Its not obvious or visibleyou can see I don’t wear eyeliner,” he says.
“But every guy has a choice to do that.
It’s part of being an artist and expressing yourself; it’s like another way of performing.”
I think we should encourage people to be themselves.
Part of the choice for anyone to wear makeup is how they want to be seen or present themselves.
We should be open to a range of expressions like that.
And with that, we parted ways, and I climbed back down the stairs in his trailer.
