John Legend Says Trump's Team Ran 'Scam' by Backing Kanye Presidential Bid

John Legend has accused former President Donald Trump's team of conducting a scam by backing Kanye West's failed run for the White House in 2020.

The rapper and designer, 45, announced his presidential bid on the Fourth of July, 2020—revealing that he was running as an Independent under the "Birthday Party"—after publicly expressing his support for then-President Trump.

Amid the fallout from his ill-fated campaign, West saw his friendship with fellow musician Legend, 43, become strained, which the singer addressed last month during an appearance on The Axe Files with David Axelrod podcast.

Addressing how his comments were reported on at the time, Legend told The New Yorker that "what it got described as was, we stopped being friends because he supported Trump, which was a mischaracterization of what I said."

"What I was saying was that he was very upset with me that I didn't support him running for President, and that was the real impetus for us having a strain in our friendship," he said.

"I don't know what will happen in the future, but he was very upset with me that I didn't support him and I supported Joe Biden. It's up to him whether he can get past that."

When West publicly spoke of his support for Trump after the Republican's successful bid for the White House in 2016, Legend privately messaged the hip-hop star about using his platform to back the one-term U.S. president. West shared screenshots of those messages on social media.

"Everyone saw how I talked to him about it," Legend said of his messages to West. "I talked to him with love and with empathy, and tried to help him see another way of looking at things. And obviously he went the way he went with it."

While West's stance and actions left his friendship with Legend in tatters, the singer has expressed a particular distaste for Trump's personnel. The team raised money for West's presidential campaign and helped get him on the ballot by signing petitions for him.

At the time, Trump was campaigning for an ultimately unsuccessful bid for a second term in the White House. In his new interview, Legend branded the move a "clear scam" to siphon Black votes away from the eventual victor President Biden.

"The most frustrating thing about his run for the Presidency for me was how much it was an operation run by the Trump campaign," said Legend.

"I don't know how aware [West] was of the fact that there was so much Trump personnel throughout his campaign, raising money for him, getting petitions signed for him, getting him on the ballot.

"I saw their work on his behalf as a clear scam and an operation to try to siphon Black votes away from Biden," said Legend, "so there was no way I was going to support it. Kanye was upset with that, and we haven't been friends since, really."

Legend, who is married to model Chrissy Teigen, said: "I don't feel like politics should be everything in your relationships, and your relationships with people shouldn't only be determined by who they voted for.

"But I do believe that certain things you believe in are indicators of your character, and obviously that will affect your friendships.

"I mean, what are friendships? If they're not your blood relatives, in many ways they're defined by your impression of that person's values, and whether or not there's some level of compatibility with the way you see the world.

"We're so online these days, and the fights we've had over the past six years on Twitter, particularly around Trump, kind of made politics everything for a lot of people," said Legend.

"I don't want to live a life that's so consumed by politics that it's the sole determinant of who can be my friend and who can't. But values matter and character matters and moral compass matters."

Newsweek has reached out to representatives of West and Trump for comment.