John Legend Reveals the Inspiration Behind His Grammy-Winning Song

John Legend’s parents, Ronald and Phyllis Stephens, helped foster his passion for music, surrounding him with it from a young age. With his mom as the church choir director and his dad as the drummer, it wasn’t long before he joined the choir, too. “Every setting that I spent time in was filled with music,” Legend told The Guardian. “And by seven, I had begged my mother to let me into the choir.”

The Voice coach also credits them for instilling many of the values he holds dear. “My parents always taught me that if you’re going to succeed in life, part of success is having humility. It’s a good way to live life, treating other people the way you want to be treated,” he told People.

Legend has enormous respect for his parents, so it’s not surprising that his song “Ordinary People,” about second chances in love, was inspired by them.

His Family Began Unraveling After His Grandmother Died

Legend grew up with three siblings and several foster siblings. “It was difficult for us,” Legend told The Guardian. “Whenever you introduce new energy into a house, it can be disruptive, and we had varying levels of success, especially with teenagers who were carrying a lot of trauma and loss.”

When he was 10, his maternal grandmother died, which sent his mother spiralling. “It was a massive trauma for my mother,” he said. “She started to withdraw, she became depressed, she fell out of love with my father and they got divorced. She ended up turning to drugs to self-medicate what she had gone through and we were estranged from her, even though we were living in the same city.”

“We lived with our single dad, and our Christmases without our mother were more painful than merry,” he told the audience during his Christmas tour.

Between the ages of 10 and 20, Legend, his siblings, and his father barely spoke to his mother, and she was in and out of jail. “She was lost to us for a decade,” he says. “She went from being such a hands-on mother and even home schooling us, to disappearing. It forced me to be independent, to look after myself.”

Legend’s Parents Married and Divorced Each Other Twice

By the time the EGOT winner graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999, Phyllis and Legend began to reconcile. “It’s an amazing story because she came back and now she is healthy and not addicted to drugs anymore,” he said happily. “She’s a good grandmother and is in such a good place.”

However, around the same time he began reconnecting with Phyllis, so did his father. “My parents actually found their way back to each other and got remarried,” he said. A fairy tale ending.”

“Until it wasn’t,” he continued, laughing. “They got divorced again, second divorce. It’s all good. Everybody gets along now. It’s fine. They each found their new spouse, okay. Everybody’s good.”