In a cover story for Marie Claire, Chrissy Teigen is opening up about a racist incident she and husband John Legend went through 10 years ago. The pair, who share two children with a third on the way, says they were followed and harassed by two “neighborhood-watch-type” white men in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 2010.
The 34-year-old said: “We were in a nicer neighborhood at night, driving slowly, looking for John’s godmother’s home. These two guys were in a pickup truck slowly tailing us, flashing their lights and trying to speak to us. When we pulled over, they were like, ‘What are you guys looking for?’ and we gave them the address.”
Teigen continued, “They literally said, ‘Get you’re a***s out of here!’ and proceeded to follow us all the way into her driveway. They got out of the car and stared at us as we knocked on the door and went inside. It was a terrible, scary experience.”
Said the model and cookbook author, “That was my first taste of seeing what happens to Black men everyday. It was horrifying and could have gone wrong so quickly. I was sobbing afterward for hours, and I noticed John wasn’t emotional about it. Seeing that he wasn’t very thrown by it was really upsetting because he obviously had experienced it before.”
Teigen says that she teaches Luna, 4, and Miles, 2 about racism already.
“There are books that I read when I became a mom that would explain to them hard and traumatic situations,” she said. “But it’s really hard to teach them about their privilege; there are no books for that. But regardless of money or status, they’re always going to have their skin color.”
She said she’s also recruiting Legend. “When it comes to them being treated differently because of the color of their skin, I’m going to look to John for a lot of help with that because while they are Asian and white too, their skin color is Black,” Teigen added. “We just try to talk to them like little adults, saying it in words they’ll understand, making it known that it’s very serious, and letting them ask as many questions as they need.”
