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Sunday, September 15, 2013

Singing Hearts!

John Legend marries swimsuit model Chrissy Teigen.

John Legend is a married man. The American singer has officially married Chrissy Teigen in a wedding ceremony in Italy.

The legendary singer was one of the first artists signed to Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music and Sony Music. 

He is a nine time Grammy award singer and entertainer. He also is a goodwill ambassador and a huge supporter and friend of President Barack Obama. 

Born John Roger Stephens (born December 28, 1978) in Springfield, Ohio. He is one of four children of Phyllis, a seamstress, and Ronald Stephens, a factory worker and former National Guardsman.

Paparazzi snapped the picture of the couple in Italy getting married. 
Throughout his childhood, Legend was homeschooled on and off by his mother. At age four, he began playing the piano and at age seven, he performed with his church choir. In 1987, when he was ten, his parents divorced. At the age of twelve, Legend attended North High School, from which he graduated four years later. Upon his salutatorian graduation, Legend was offered scholarships to Harvard University, Georgetown University and Morehouse College.

He attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied English with an emphasis on African American literature.

While in college, he helmed Counterparts, a co-ed jazz and pop a cappella group as president and musical director. Legend's lead vocals on the group's recording of Joan Osborne's "One of Us" received critical acclaim landing the song on the track list of the 1998 Best of Collegiate a Cappella compilation CD.

Legend was also a member of the prestigious senior societies Sphinx Senior Society and Onyx Senior Honor Society while an undergraduate at Penn. While in college, Legend was introduced to Lauryn Hill by a friend. Hill hired him to play piano on "Everything Is Everything", a song from her album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

During this period, Legend took time to hold a number of shows around Philadelphia, eventually expanding his audience base to New York, Boston, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. He finished college in 1999, and thereafter began producing, writing, and recording his own music. He released two albums independently; his self-titled demo (2000) and Live at Jimmy's Uptown (2001), which he sold at his shows. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Legend began working as a management consultant for the Boston Consulting Group.

During this time, he began working on his demo and began sending his work to various record labels.

In 2001, Devo Springsteen introduced Legend to then up-and-coming hip-hop artist Kanye West; Legend was hired to sing during the hooks of West's music. 
Common, Kanye West and John Legend.
After signing to West's label, he chose his stage name from an idea that was given to him by poet J. Ivy, due to what he perceived "old-school sound". J. Ivy stated, "I heard your music and it reminds me of that music from the old school. You sound like one of the legends. As a matter of fact, that's what I'm going to call you from now on! I'm going to call you John Legend." After J. Ivy continued to call him by the new moniker "John Legend," others quickly caught on, including Kanye West, and the name stuck. In spite of John's reluctance to change his stage name to John Legend he eventually announced his new artist name as John Legend.

People Magazine reports that John Legend and Chrissy Teigen made it official when they exchanged vows in front of friends and family in Lake Como, Italy on Saturday. 

The model bride wore a strapless ivory Vera Wang gown with an open back, lifted tulle skirt and hand-cut petal embroidered details, which she described to PEOPLE as "kind of [having] a sexier feel at the top, like a swimsuit, so I have to get my body ready. I have to buckle down." 

Teigen changed into another strapless ivory Vera Wang dress for the reception – the design featured a micro-pleated bodice and sheared organza full skirt. 

And at the after-party she had a third Vera Wang design of the night – a crimson strapless mermaid gown with a hand-draped bodice, inverted flange skirt and embroidered crystal wheat detail. 

The nuptials follow a seven-year courtship for the couple, who became engaged in 2011 while vacationing together in the Maldives. 

Earlier this year, Teigen, 27, told PEOPLE her Grammy-winning groom, 34, would perform his new song "All of Me" at the wedding, which was written for her. 

John Legend, Jamie Foxx, Nick Jonas and Seal perform at The White House. John Legend is a friend of Barack and Michelle Obama.
"He writes a lot of love songs, but this one is specifically about me so it makes it more special," Teigen told PEOPLE in May. "My Dad even cries when I play it for him in the car." 

The model bride was so careful about preparing her figure for the frock that her bachelorette party included Pilates classes. 

But despite her rigorous attention to her physique, she says she was much more laid-back about wedding planning overall. 

"[John] and I have been working and traveling so much that we just let our wedding planner do everything," Teigen told PEOPLE in May. "We're not neurotic about it. I just want to finally see all of my friends in one area." 

But she cops to being a bit more involved in one aspect of the wedding – the cake. 

"I'm not a big sweets person, which is why I'm really specific about the cake, which is going to be a really multi-layer cake," she told PEOPLE in June. "It's layers and layers of crepe and pastry creme in between with raspberry sauce." 

With the wedding behind them, perhaps now is the time the couple will start thinking about all those kids Legend told PEOPLE he wants. 

"We'd like to have kids," he said in May. "I grew up in a family with four kids, so I think three or four is a good number. We don't plan it. We just do it."

We here at Journal de la Reyna wish John Legend and Chrissy Teigen well. The Stephens are a perfect couple. Beautiful and very intelligent couple.

1 comment:

  1. Congratulations Mr and Mrs. Legend.

    S. Baldwin

    ReplyDelete