John Legend has had enough of social media’s collective smart mouth.
“I used to be on social media a lot more than I am now. I generally post more on Instagram and some on TikTok, but I kind of stopped posting on Twitter,” Legend told Yahoo Life, adding that X (formerly known as Twitter) has become “a little too toxic.”
“After a while, having that much transparency between you and your audience — not just coming from you, but also coming to you — all the incoming [discourse], it was just a lot. After a while, I was just like, ‘You know, I don’t need that.’ And it’s truly better for my mental health. I just found it better for my mental health to stay away.”
Although “The Voice” coach considers himself “pretty unflappable,” he takes steps to care for himself mentally and physically and applies the “everything in moderation” philosophy to most aspects of his life, including diet, exercise and alcohol. The EGOT winner also partnered with Pfizer to raise awareness about the COVID-19 vaccine ahead of the holidays.
“Some people feel like it’s controversial to talk about vaccines,” he told the outlet. “To me, it’s just intuitive. … I want to protect my family, and I want to encourage other people to do the same.
“There’s a lot of misinformation out there,” Legend continued. “I think a lot of people have a general kind of distrust of the authority, or mandates or the establishment, and I understand that. What I tried to rely on is, I talked to my doctor, not any random person on Facebook. I believe if you listen to the experts, the evidence and the recommendation of the medical community is very clear. And I’d rather listen to them than a random average Joe on the internet.”
Legend’s break from social media follows wife Chrissy Teigen’s on-again, off-again relationship with social platforms. In 2021, after a roller-coaster relationship with Twitter, the model and cookbook author left the social media platform, where she’d long reigned as tweetress supreme, citing a toxic environment that had taken a toll on her mental health.
“For over 10 years, you guys have been my world,” Teigen tweeted shortly before deactivating her account in March 2021. “I honestly owe so much to this world we have created here. I truly consider so many of you my actual friends.
“But it’s time for me to say goodbye,” she added in a follow-up tweet. “This no longer serves me as positively as it serves me negatively, and I think that’s the right time to call something.”
She caved and returned three weeks later.
