2 1GT Thursday December 3 2020 | the times

times

as recording festive schmaltz such as

the 2016 album A Legendary

Christmas. He doesn’t look or sound

like a political firebrand.

“I’ve always been interested in

politics, long before I was a successful

musician,” Legend says. “Artists I

looked up to used their platform to

influence the broader conversation,

from Bob Dylan to Nina Simone to

John Lennon. Paul Robeson raised

money for civil rights marches. Stevie

Wonder campaigned for Martin

Luther King Day. I always believed

that if I was successful I could do

that too.”

Legend and Teigen have also

gone public on a more personal

trauma. Teigen built her profile

as a funny, accessible but glamorous

social media personality, sharing with

her 33 million Instagram followers

everything from pictures of Legend

making their two children pancakes

on a Sunday morning to hanging out

with Kamala Harris.

Then in September the couple’s

baby son Jack was stillborn at 20

weeks. Teigen asked Legend and

her mother to take a series of black

and white photographs of her in

hospital, tearful and bereft as she

held on to Jack for a few moments

after the birth, which she then

posted on Instagram.

The posts marked a very modern

approach to dealing with the kind of

personal tragedy traditionally kept

private, underscored by the Duchess

of Sussex revealing in November

that she had suffered a miscarriage.

The reaction was overwhelmingly

positive, but you cannot help but

wonder if Teigen’s husband was

reticent about exposing such an

intimate, painful moment.

“I was nervous when we were taking

pictures in the hospital because

emotionally I didn’t know if I could

handle looking at them,” says Legend,

who speaks about this in the same way

he speaks about everything: calmly

and quietly. “But I really do believe

that it was good for Chrissy to share

her story with people.

“What we’ve seen is that there

are so many people who have gone

through the same thing or similar who

felt like they had to hide it in shame.

Her being willing to share has opened

up the conversation and made people

feel they are not alone. It made me

admire her even more because of the

bravery she showed.”

The photographs showed another

I was nervous

when we were

taking pictures

in the hospital

It was good for

John Legend and Chrissy Teigen are

used to documenting their life online.

Photographing their son’s stillbirth

was traumatic. By Will Hodgkinson

P

lenty of celebrities have

celebrated the outcome

of the US election. None

have done it quite as

loudly as John Legend

and Chrissy Teigen. “My

God, it feels like I just

took off a weighted

blanket, unhooked my bra and took

out my extensions all at once,” Teigen

wrote on learning that Donald Trump

would not serve a second term. Later,

the 35-year-old model and her

41-year-old singer husband cheered

through the sunroof of their SUV on a

victory parade along West Hollywood.

Now, just in case anyone remains

unsure about where he stands on

the political divide, Legend has

re-released his version of John

Lennon’s Happy Xmas (War Is Over).

“I felt a sigh of relief at the end of

the Trump era,” says Legend, speaking

from his Beverly Hills home two

weeks after the election results.

“Donald Trump is trying to hold on by

hook or by crook, but he isn’t going to

do it because he lost in multiple states

and, frankly, it’s pathetic.”

For Legend and Teigen the US

election result is personal. Their feud

with the president goes back to 2011

when Teigen and Trump started

swapping insults on social media. It

got too much for the president and in

July 2017 he blocked her on Twitter.

Then, in September 2019, Trump

admonished “boring John Legend”

and his “filthy-mouthed wife” after

taking umbrage at the singer,

seemingly for failing to acknowledge

the work he claimed to have done on

criminal justice reform.

“Knowing his moral compass, the

fibre of his character, the idea that

Trump doesn’t think we’re good

people is something we wear with a

badge of honour,” says Legend, who

relays his take with Zen-like serenity.

“He is a despicable human being on

every level.

“He doesn’t like it that Chrissy

is an outspoken woman because he

thinks women should be quiet and

submissive, while Chrissy’s dislike

for him is rooted in the fact that

she could tell he was a fraud from day

one. He’s a hustler, a con man, and it is

interesting that he does well with the

white working class because he looks

down on them. If he didn’t need their

vote, he would be hustling them too.”

Legend’s outspokenness against

Trump sits in contrast with his

image as a super-smooth all-rounder,

the singer, actor and judge on the

US edition of The Voice who

epitomises the liberal version

of the American Dream.

In the 2016 romantic comedy La La

Land he played an accomplished jazz

musician gone pop, which mirrored

his reality as a mainstream modern

artist with a vintage sensibility. He has

had acclaimed, soulful hits such as

Ordinary People and All Of Me, as well

T

hroughout Sky

Atlantic’s high-

end thriller The

Undoing, which

I stoically stayed

with until The

Underwhelming

ending — it was

all a red herring, for heaven’s sake

— I was preoccupied by Nicole

Kidman’s face and the thought

that no woman is now allowed to

look older than in her thirties,

and not even her late thirties.

Probably it’s 35, max. All right,

maybe 37, but only if you’ve been

blessed with extraordinarily good

genes. (Or so you say.)

Older than that, it’s almost as

if you are being offensive or

impolite. And there’s no point

pleading, “But I have such a

wealth of experience,” because

that won’t cut it even if you do

have a wealth of experience and

know that Muji duvet covers are

the best (zipped) and that you can

swap shallots in any recipe for an

onion, thereby saving yourself

much faff. (See? See what older

women have to offer the world?

Yet older women are shunned.)

Women are, of course, caught

in a trap. They are judged for

looking older and judged if they

take steps to make themselves

look younger. Damned if you do,

damned if you don’t. And it’s not

the sort of trap that, say, Hugh

Grant finds himself in. Why

society is uncomfortable around

ageing women is a conversation

for another day — next Tuesday

morning works for me — but in

the meantime here’s how older

women can protect others from

having to look at them, since that

has to be the decent thing to do.

Spend all your money on plastic

surgery, Botox, fillers, facials,

lasers, needling, liposuction, hair

dye, creams, serums and lotions.

Sell your jewellery. Sell your car.

Embezzle. Borrow. Remortgage

your house. Throw all your

savings at it. If fears about your

financial security kick in you will

need to ask yourself: am I being

selfish here? And: what right do I

have to go around as I am and

upsetting everybody?

If you have to be on a budget

there is one simple, cheap

adjustment you can make: don’t a

wear a facemask, wear a face bag

with two little holes for eyes. This

is, essentially, what worked for the

Phantom of the Opera. Think of

yourself as the Phantom of the

Opera and you are on the right

track. You could even hide away

in a basement lair. If you don’t

wish to hide away in a basement

lair with a bag over your head,

then you must ask yourself: have I

got my priorities right? You must

say to yourself: yes, I’d like to

move freely and unashamedly in

the world, but what if I’m hurting

other people by reminding them

of their mortality? And

remember: living in a basement

lair with a bag over your head

doesn’t mean you can’t prowl

around old theatres at night. In

fact, it would be good to get out.

(You don’t have to die for love,

by the way, but we do all have

to die of something.)

Focus on underpinnings. Spanx

and other shapewear can hold it

all in, and watch out for further

developments, such as a steel-

strength polo-neck that will give

you the long, graceful, swanlike

neck of a ballerina, with effects

that will last for two hours after

you’ve taken it off. This will make

you more pleasant to the eye even

though it’ll hurt like hell and you

will curse the day you were born.

In 1988.

Follow the lead of Greta Garbo,

Joan Crawford and Hedy Lamarr,

and never exit the house. Keep

yourself jolly by knowing that

somewhere in the world someone

has been trying to peel a shallot

for the past six hours. Chuckle

aloud, if you like.

However, if you do get

depressed or lonely, remind

yourself: this is just the price you

have to pay for being a

considerate humanitarian. If you

do need an item from the outside

world send a comparably aged

man who doesn’t have to go

through any of this shit. Tell him

not to bother with Debenhams,

since that’s dead to us now.

Get into your Muji duvet cover,

zip it up, stay there.

What

would I

buy there?

you definitely get the

point of Harrods

because it keeps

tourists from under

our feet. (Yes, you

must visit Harrods.

You can buy overpriced

tea in a tin shaped like

a London bus there.)

But Debenhams?

I have never heard

anyone in search of a

new outfit or a gift or

chinaware or a kettle or

cosmetics or anything

say: “I’ll go have a look

round Debenhams.”

Or: “I’m sure that

Debenhams will have

something.” I have

never been in search of

a new outfit or gift or

chinaware and so on

myself and said: “I’ll

see what Debenhams

has.” And I have never

heard anyone who is

about to get married

say, “The wedding list

is at Debenhams,”

followed by the outright

lie, “Not that you have

to buy us anything!”

Actually, this isn’t

entirely fair because if

you have watched the

reality show Don’t Tell

the Bride you’ll know

that you can buy seven

bridesmaids dresses for

£7 from there. (Girls,

please don’t stand near

a naked flame.) In fact,

I saw Don’t Tell the

Bride once and had an

epiphany: so that’s the

point of Debenhams.

But otherwise, I was

amazed it was still

going. And now that’s

enough excitement for

this week, but next

week: House of Fraser,

what’s the point of that?

Talking of “the death of

Debenhams”, I have to

say I don’t think I’d

remembered it was

alive. What is/was the

point of Debenhams?

You kind of get the

point of John Lewis and

you kind of get the

point of Selfridges and

Deborah Ross

Nicole Kidman’s face

and what steps to take

if you look over 37