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I'm Oprah Winfrey, welcome to Super Cell Conversations, the podcast, I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time taking time to be more fully present. Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us. Starts right now.

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John Legend has been poised for greatness since he was a precocious toddler learning piano at the age of four.

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By the time he was 11, he was writing his own songs and singing them in church with dreams of one day becoming as famous as the legends. He idolized Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and the music that called for lasting social change would become the bar from which John Legend measured his own work. In five years, he would go on to win nine Grammys and sell out concerts around the world, writing his own songs and collaborating with music superstars along the way.

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But John's genius goes far beyond music. His outspoken concern for education, poverty and politics landed him on Time magazine's list of the most influential people in the world.

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Tonight on next chapter, I'm at the Los Angeles home where John lives with his fiancee, Chrissy Teigen. John, hello. Hello. Welcome to our home. Oh, I love the bamboo. Yes. Wow. And we got some bamboo. We got a guy, a cactus, all kinds of stuff about, oh, I love this. This we love we have barbecues here all the time, really. And it's kind of just a nice vibe.

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I get to relax with friends. Nice. We like to cook a lot. This is my favorite spot back here. A little reading cove if you ever want to read. That's a good place to do it.

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I love a man with a reading color. I love a reading color. Also feels like coyote country.

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Do you have dogs? Man Yes. That's scary because there was a coyote back here and he attacked our little French bulldog. But she she got away. She got away. She got away. I know. I never let my dogs go out. Yeah. It's scary at night.

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Yeah. So welcome.

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Oh, right now we're inside. Yes. This is your first house in L.A.. Yes, this is my first house in L.A.. You know, any time I tell anybody in the past two weeks that I was going to be talking to you, you know, the first thing they say, oh, he's so smart.

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Yeah. Actually, Quincy Jones has brilliant baby. John always says nice things about me.

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So in some ways, you're really breaking a musician stereotype, Ivy Leaguer activist, political insider. Is it your goal to do that? You know, it was crazy. I wrote an essay when I was in I think I was a junior in high school, and it was for this thing called the black history makers of Tomorrow and the essay competition. And every year they would have a contest for the high school kids to say, how do you plan on make an impact on black history?

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And my dad still has that essay that I wrote back then. And basically I said exactly what I'm doing right now. I said, I want to use my career in music to make change in the world and influence my community and try to do good things in the world. I'm just been fortunate enough to be able to actually actualize the dreams that I have for myself.

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Before John Legend became one of the biggest names in music, he was John Stevens, born to a churchgoing gospel singing family just outside of Springfield, Ohio. John's father, Ron, was a factory worker. His mother, Phyllis, took in work as a seamstress at first home schooled by his mother. John was considered a prodigy when he entered high school at just 12 years old.

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I felt at the time that the school systems weren't up to par. I wanted the best that I could possibly give them. I felt like I wanted better for my children.

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Then at sixteen, John graduated salutatorian of his class. After turning down offers from prestigious universities like Harvard and Georgetown, John graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania. You've been a musician really since you were four years old, 11 years old.

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Fame is a different animal. Name is different. Yeah.

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You know, I feel like fame has been relatively kind to me versus some other people. I'm not so famous that, you know, I can't walk on the streets in New York without kind of having a little bit of peace. I'm not so famous that it's overwhelming. And it also happened to me at an age where I think I was ready to handle it because I had already been an adult for a while. I worked a real job. I had gone to college so it didn't hit me when I was like fourteen or sixteen, like so many stars, which, you know, I wanted to be them when I was a kid.

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I watch Star Search and I wanted to be those people that got discovered when they were, you know, 10, 12, 14 years old and became a big star. But in retrospect, I think it was better for me that it didn't happen then because because I can handle it a lot better now.

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John was 26 when he wrote and released the 2000 smash hit Ordinary People. That song catapulted him to a level of fame he had only dreamed of.

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My theory about fame is, is that if you don't know who you are when it hits, then you believe everything that everybody says you are because you have nothing to be grounded. Yeah, yeah. I think I've been fortunate. I have the same friends that I've had for years. I just feel like I knew who I was before all this happened. And it's very it's it makes it a lot easier to handle.

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And also because you were always so smart, literally. I mean, I used to think I was smart because I skipped the second grade. That's nothing compared to you skip to grade first grade in seventh grade. So why did you skip first grade? Because you already knew how to read. I already knew how to read. I knew my they tested me. All this stuff like multiplication tables, all these things. Are you doing multiplication tables? The first grade I, I didn't know how to do is division at that point.

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Yeah. So when they, when they did excuse for. So I go into high school at twelve years.

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I was twelve years old when I got to. Oh yeah. So I was, I was about a foot shorter than I am now. I was a scrawny little kid. Yeah. Did the kids believe they didn't bully me.

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They kind of joked with me but I had my older brother was right there with me. I had some. Other friends from my neighborhood with me and everybody kind of let me be, they didn't they didn't bully me. I got called Doogie Howser, though that was like a nickname. Some of them call me because for obvious reasons and but Dougie was like a doctor. Good compared what could have happened. Yeah. Yeah. And I was lucky I didn't grow up in a place where you you were made to feel terrible for being smart and made to feel terrible for being a nerd, which I kind of was.

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But despite your age and, you know, being this young kid in that environment, you were prom king. Yes.

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Eventually I kind of grew into it. And class president. I was student body president. So everybody knew you. You know. You know why? Because I say, you know, because that was how people kind of started to know who I wasn't. And also was the way I come out of my shell, too. But music. And that's why I'm a big advocate for arts in the schools, because certain people need that kind of outlet and they may not know how to shine exactly in the classroom at first because they need that kind of outlet to help them grow into who they are.

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So I graduated from Penn and all my friends were applying to consulting firms, banking firms and all these things. And that seemed like the normal path that you would go after you left Penn to make money, to make money, to have stability, to kind of get in the rat race. And I end up getting a job offer at Boston Consulting Group. And at that point I had loans to pay off. I was a little worried that music wouldn't happen right away.

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And so I wanted to have some kind of income coming in because I didn't have a family that could kind of cushion me. I had to kind of take care of myself. And so I didn't want to be a starving artist just yet. So I took the job and I said, you know, it'll probably last a year, maybe two at the most, and I'll get a record deal by then. But it took a little longer after I graduated in ninety nine.

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I didn't get a record deal until 2004. And all of that time I was in New York playing gigs at night, writing songs. I was working with Alicia Keys. I would go to work in my business casual or my suit and then go to the studio right afterwards. Did you think you could do both at the time?

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Did you think I could do both for a while and I didn't sleep back then. I sleep a lot more now. People think I'm so busy now, but I was actually a lot busier back then when I wasn't making any money than I am now. And eventually, after years of getting told no by all the record labels, eventually they decided that my time had come and they signed me to Columbia in May of 2004.

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Then you came to my house in 2005. I came to your house in 2001. And I always tell people when they ask me, how did you know you were famous? I was like the day I got a call from Oprah and Magic Johnson on the same day you says something's happened. And it was soon after ordinary people had come out and the album had come out in December of 04.

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And how much do you love that song? I mean, because it's my life and I wrote the song. I started out as a song for the Black Eyed Peas, which is kind of crazy how things work out. So I'm in the studio with Wil. I am. And Will is saying, you know, play me different beats that he had worked on. And he was like, you got any hooks for these? You know? And so I was writing.

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And so what is a Hook Me hook is basically the chorus and the chorus of our song. I'm tired. Ordinary people say that's the hook. We don't know which way to go. It's really the thing you remember most about the song. Oh, OK. Oh yes. That's the hook. Got it. Some would say take it slow is the hook as well. So that's all kind of part of the hook. And I wrote all of that in the studio with Will I am that day and I hadn't written the verses yet.

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And I was thinking, you know, this is a great chorus, maybe they'll use it. And then I was thinking maybe actually I could write a really good ballad for me for that song instead of letting the Black Eyed Peas use it. And so I took the song, the chorus and. And the hook. The hook. Yes. But the more I played the song for people, people were like, we just like it. Simple like this.

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Like that. With nothing else on it. No, nothing. I was just, you know, your voice up. Yeah. Just you your voice in the piano. Wow. And so that was the version that came out. And it's weird when I listen to it now because I it sounds like the rough version to me now, because my voice I know how to make it sound a little better in the studio now than I did back there.

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And I'm like, man, I should have done a few more takes that. But it is what it is. And it obviously changed my life.

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Yeah, I know that your passion for for education is almost as strong as your passion for music.

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And you told me once that the education crisis in America is a civil rights issue of our time.

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Yeah, speak to that is real. You know, when I give speeches, sometimes I read from a speech that President Lyndon Johnson, he gave he signed the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act. And one of the things he said when he spoke at Howard, that is not enough for us to have long I'm paraphrasing, but it's not enough for us to have laws in place that. Say everyone's equal if we don't give people the opportunity to actually realize that and actualize it.

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And when we don't have schools that are doing what they need to do to give people a real opportunity, then we're not really fully fulfilling the civil rights that people fought for. What makes you the angriest?

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Well, I think that a lot of people give up on our kids and they think that because they grow up in a certain neighborhood, because they have certain conditions in life, that they're there's no way that they're going to succeed. And if you go into it with those expectations, most people rise to whatever expectation. Yeah, they'll rise to those expectations. And we have to change that expectations game and say, you know, hey, we've got to do better.

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Our kids got to be better, our parents got to be better and our schools have gotten better. You started the Show Me campaign in the past six years.

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Johns Show Me campaign has raised millions to fight the cycle of poverty and help repair what he calls our broken school system. His goal is to help every child in America receive an outstanding education internationally.

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Show Me has helped girls go to school in Kenya and villagers in Tanzania get access to clean water, health care and education.

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What you once said that it may be too risky for artists to take a political stand, and yet you do just that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get told to shut up and sing every once in a while, but I came up reading about Marvin Gaye, reading about Stevie Wonder, reading about Paul Robeson and all these people that weren't just musicians and use their platform to really make change. And so I feel like I want to carry on that legacy.

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Do you have haters? Of course everybody's got haters.

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You're never successful if you don't have some haters. But I feel like I'm in a good place. There's always going to be somebody that hates you and always going to be somebody that says something bad about you, whether it's true or not. And you just as you know, you just have to to either ignored or just learn to deal with it. Yeah.

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Let's talk about what happened. I was watching that Henry Louis Gates special. Yes. Finding your roots, finding your roots. So he told you so. You have a long line of people that were fighting for justice, you know, and he told me that we had family that had been freed by one of their masters, but the family of the master tried to reclaim them. And Ohio. My Kentucky. Ohio, yes. And my my my home state of Ohio, which was where I was born and raised.

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They fought for my family's freedom and eventually won it. It's pretty incredible. That's an incredible story.

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Yeah. I mean, it's really it reminded me of Toni Morrison's book and then later the movie we did Beloved, because it's about the slave master coming back from Kentucky, going over the river to Ohio.

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And Toni Morrison knows all about Ohio. All about that. Yes. Yeah, she she she was one of my favorites. I was an English major in college. And what's your favorite? Toni Morrison. I love Song of Solomon. And I loved I love Lewis. I also. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Plus it has to be my favorite. Yeah. Is writing music like a spiritual plac. You kind of open yourself up and you know, I know Quincy spoken of this many times too about leaving room for God to walk in the door. Do you sort of open yourself up to that do you think?

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I think music is very spiritual and no matter what your religion is, I think you just feel connected to life, to the universe, whatever it is. When you when music is right, when when, when, when it comes together. And it's not always right and it's not always beautiful, but when when it does come together, like sometimes can move me to tears.

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In 2006, John Legend, that model, Chrissy Teigen Chrissy has appeared in Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues and has created a name for herself with some of the craziest tweets on Twitter while vacationing in the Maldives. John and Chrissie got engaged there.

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She. Hi. What are you doing in my home? Came to see you, came to see you. Am I in the middle? Yes. Oh, dear. Yes. Oh, man. Are you good? How are you? Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. So do you all have a date for the way we do? You just start telling people. Yes, we're being a little coy about Jon's being coy. I mean, I got it.

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I have a big mouth. I love. I love saying it. He's taught me better.

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As you as you probably can tell, one of us is a little quieter than the other. Yeah. Yeah. Gosh, let me see it. Cube cut. Let me oh, this thing's Kushan. Whatever. I do a good job. I would trust him though. I mean, you skipped the first grade in the seventh grade, but when we first met, I don't think I would have been as good at picking out anything for her. But I think having gone shopping with her enough now, did you get the dress, too?

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He did. Give me I take this dress out. I don't know. But I don't I don't normally buy addresses for her because I feel like that's a thing a woman should probably usually do for themselves and try it on. Yes, but it was on the mannequin and I'm terrible seeing a dress on the hanger and thinking whether or not it needs to visualize it, visualize it. But it was on a mannequin and I was like, Oh, Chris, you look great in that.

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So I got oh, I mean, that's nice. He's so great. Once you propose, I propose December of 2011.

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OK, how did you know what had happened? What had happened that you'd said, OK, I'm ready for the next set because you have been together for seven years. Right. So how did what was going on is a good question. I don't think it was like one particular. 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.

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And I felt like it was time to propose. She didn't pressure me. She didn't say, you know, it's time to put a ring on it. It was just felt like.

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I felt like. It's time for us to get married. Were you thinking, though, Chrissy, it's time to put a ring on it? There were. I mean, after a year for you kind of start wondering, like, when is this going to happen? And 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.

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And I would be like, it's tough. Yeah, there were a few false alarms that John, trust me, but this one was totally unexpected when it actually happened and I really had no idea.

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OK, so you had on other occasions thinking this is the moment and I think you just lose hope. Then maybe I just know what's funny is.

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We were traveling to the Maldives. I don't know if you've been to the Maldives, but it's beautiful. I've seen them in the picture I've seen. Yes, she actually she did a Sports Illustrated shoot down there and she's like, we got to go to the Maldives. And so we went there over the holidays in 2011. I knew I was going to propose by then. I was planning it a couple of months in advance and I was trying to hide the ring in my bag and she could see anything on my back.

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I don't hide stuff from her, so I had to put it in a nondescript box that she wouldn't question. It was in my carry on bag going through the airport security and security, wanted to look to my bag and they wanted to look in that particular box. And Chrissy was sitting, standing right next to me. And I was like, oh my God, I've hit it so well this whole time. Now, as we're just about to get to the Maldives, she's going to find out.

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I have a ring in this box is going to ruin the surprise. I'm had to get on my knees in the airport, just in front of security, in front of security. So what did you do?

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So for some reason, they decided not to look in the box. It just they just didn't look. Wow.

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I had read somewhere that you learned how to treat a woman from your father.

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Yes, my dad is a gentleman and he always has been. And so I felt like he was always the, you know, the open, the doors, the flowers, the right and the nice note did the whole thing. He did all that. And so he was kind of like my training for how to be chivalrous and just be a gentleman. Is that what attracted you to him or was it the songs? I mean, everybody wants a guy who can say, I'm going to be honest with you.

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When I first signed up for that first meeting, the initial meeting was a music video. I really didn't know much about him. I was pretty half naked. John was in a full suit. But life is not fair sometimes. And yeah, we just got to know each other there. But the music wasn't an attraction. But for me, he's not like anyone I've ever met before in my entire life. He really does things that are so sweet.

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You actually feel sick telling your friends like, oh, John did this for me. And and they're always like, well, why didn't you do that for me? Like, they go back to their husbands and their boyfriends. I read somewhere where you said you're tired of people saying that, you know, being with John, John, you're so lucky to be with people love doing that. People love coming to me. And they say, oh, what's your name?

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Chrissy. Oh, you're so you're so lucky to have this man. I'm like, thank you so much. Yes, I know. I know. I'm very lucky. Trust me, I know. I'm very lucky to have John all the time, every day.

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I think that no one likes to feel like they won the lottery. So someone that they're with because, you know, we're in a relationship and I'm lucky to have her, too.

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John Legend and his fiancee, Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Chrissy Teigen, made headlines when The New York Post published a story accusing John of cheating. Chrissy immediately took to Twitter, angrily denying the story.

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Now, you have made quite a name for yourself on Twitter. You have no reluctance whatsoever. Yeah, that's a problem.

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Sometimes, like I mean, you will f bomb them. You will. Yeah, I obviously I'm very outspoken and I'll say anything and more. I guess I'm the slowest learner ever, apparently, because I keep saying I'm learning to to hold it back a little bit more. But I feel like I've really calmed down since the beginning of Twitter, which is crazy for people to believe you come down. This is me. Yes. This is our country.

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Yeah. OK, so when the Post accused you of cheating, you went on and you I why do I do these things?

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OK, well, we've had a few times with the tabloids and they've been very creative in the past is like one time we we decided to go to a hotel, John.

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This is one time he had to go to a hotel because it's dirty. So we just were we were just feeling frisky. And we live here in L.A. My parents, we were over and we were over in Beverly Hills or Santa Monica. And we were like, let's just go to hotel over here and we don't want to drive back home. And we went there and then the tabloids said that I went to a hotel with someone who was not crazy.

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She was tall and blonde and Chrissy knew it was her. But yeah, I'm used to people making up stories about us.

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But yet when that thing came out in the post, you were pretty pissed or did you believe that or be upset with it?

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Because, I mean, I'm not upset. I never for one second thought that had John had done anything, I knew who he was with that night. I mean, I didn't question it at all, but it wasn't fun to have people questioning my favorite story that they made up.

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I wasn't opposed. It was another paper they made up that I got into a drunken brawl at a at a club one time. And this was like in a bunch of tabloids. And anyone who knows anything about me knows I would never get into a drunken brawl anywhere.

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OK, John, do you ever think she's crossed the line? You know, at first when she first started when Twitter first started, I was worried, like, you know, don't be too honest, don't share too much. But then. I think she's actually more brazen on Twitter than she is just in regular life when she shows more of her sweet side and regular life. And so once I got used to it, I looked at it as I love it, even when she posted a nude photo on Instagram.

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But the thing is, I see her in Sports Illustrated and it's no different. I read that one of the things that you love most about him is that he is you, so. Oh, yes, definitely.

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I mean, I'm sure there's times where Jon is like Chrissy. Why did you say that? Or Chrissy or. I mean, basically. He makes me feel like I'm the funniest, most beautiful person on Earth all the time. Well, my thing is for me, I, I feel like he believes that a lot of times I feel like people are like, you know, they want us to be like the president and first lady were. Anything she says represents my views or represents us as a couple.

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And I feel like she should be her own entity in her own persona. And I'm not going to say so. You can serve my needs and my career. You have to muzzle yourself and not be who you are, because part of what I fell in love with was that person who she is. And so why would I tell her to muzzle that? Just so you know, it's it's safer for. But what I do think about and what does hurt me is when someone writes me something like I am upset with John right now because of something you said or I'm not going to buy John's music, that that hurts me because that's you know, I never mean to connect him in any of my crazy things that I spew out.

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I know.

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But he is an activist and he has speaks out himself. And obviously it feels secure enough that you can take a stand on things that are important to you in life.

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I think being us being authentic is better than us not being authentic. I think she has a lot more fans than any other model would ever have because people connect to her as a person. And I think why people love her and some people hate her, but most people I think what I think a lot more people love her is because she's not afraid to be herself and they actually feel like she's a real person. I see authenticity as a big theme in your life.

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And your family's like, OK, you want to have babies?

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Yes, of course. Yeah, I have lots of babies. Lots of it. Me too. Yeah, I do.

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I grew up in a family of four kids, so I'm used to having see, I think that's where you are going to have some smart, pretty baby, huge foreheads and huge forehead and smart babies. I read that you called because your end and your beginning. Yeah, I wrote a song called All of Me. The song says, you know, all of me loves all of you. And what I'm talking about in the song is like, any time you're in a long term relationship with somebody that's going to be give and take is going to be a back and forth and there's going to be compromise.

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There's going to be work. And I feel like in the song, what I'm saying is I'm in for all of that. That's why we're getting married. I mean, for all of that, I accept it all. Yeah. And hopefully she'll accept all my things.

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Oh, my goodness. Thank you. Thank you. It's a beautiful thing. That's great.

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I'm Oprah Winfrey and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. You can follow Super Soul on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. If you haven't yet, go to Apple podcast and subscribe rate and review this podcast. Join me next week for another super soul conversation. Thank you for listening.