John Legend‘s name apparently comes with a tale of its own. One that involves a porn producer with a keen interest in music. Born John Roger Stephens, John had to strike a legally binding deal with a porn producer before going public with his stage surname, Legend.
John Legend shares he had to deal with porn producer for his stage name
John Roger Stephens’ transition to John Legend was a wild ride. The All of Me hitmaker had to negotiate with an adult producer named Johnny with the same surname. For those intrigued, let’s start from the beginning.
The Grammy winner was named “John Legend by a spoken-word artist from Chicago named J. Ivy, who couldn’t stop gushing about “this kid John Roger Stephens’ musical genius”.
The 46-year-old singer shared in an episode of Words + Music that J. was mesmerized by his voice while he was working on the tracks for The College Dropout. “He said, ‘Man, we’re gonna have to call you the legend.’ “, John Legend added.
However, adopting a new name is easier said than done. The Conversations in the Dark singer’s lawyer dropped the ultimate bombshell. For him to go by “John Legend,” he will first have to trademark the name. Much to his surprise, someone already owned it.
“And lo and behold, there’s a porn producer—I kid you not—a porn producer who dabbled in rockabilly music, and he went by the name Johnny Legend”, the celebrated artist shared.
“The fact that he made music, rockabilly music, and his name was Johnny Legend, meant that there was a possible trademark infringement case”, John added.
“We had to find Johnny Legend, negotiate with him, cut a mutually exclusive deal stating that he was Johnny Legend, and I was John Legend”, John explained. The Minefields singer also shared that the two had agreed not to sue each other. Johny wouldn’t try to get into the soul music business pretending to be him. Moreover, he too kept his side of the agreement. “I didn’t produce any porn, didn’t make any rockabilly music pretending to be Johnny Legend”, the singer jokingly added.
