Chrissy Teigen & John Legend Are Pregnant—Congratulations!
Photography by Pamela Hanson
Styling by Anita Patrickson
Hair by Jennifer Loura
Makeup by Liz Castellanos
Prop Styling by Evan Jourdan
Chrissy Teigen totally gets it if you’re annoyed with her. She understands if you’re so over seeing and reading about her oh-so-perfect relationship with that other seemingly flawless human, John Legend, and their glamorous life. “People must be over us!” she says. “We all have that annoying friend who bombards people with their relationship all the time. You might not say anything, but you think it.”
The crazy thing is, no one is annoyed. At least no one I know. Since interviewing the 29-year-old model, I can’t stop talking about her (yes, total girl crush on my part), and I’ve received plenty of reactions, most of which go something like this: “OMG, I LOVE HER!” And though her fame is skyrocketing this year — from the Hollywood awards circuit with her now Grammy and Oscar-winning husband, to her daily talk show, ABC’s FABLife, to an upcoming cookbook and, most recently, a forthcoming sitcom based on her coveted relationship — the world still can’t get enough of Teigen’s sharp cheekbones and even sharper wit.
The Thai-Norwegian beauty was discovered while working at a surf shop in Huntington Beach, Calif., and quickly signed to IMG, the agency that reps Kate Moss and Gisele Bündchen. After modeling for brands like Beach Bunny swimwear and Skullcandy headphones, the 5'9" model was named Sports Illustrated’s Rookie of the Year in 2010, which led to more high-profile gigs modeling for GQ and Italian Vogue. “Modeling was just easy, the money was good,” Teigen says of the last career she imagined for herself. “It’s not something I love, for sure.” Left to her own devices, she would’ve been a third-grade teacher: “I always loved organizing a syllabus; I’m kind of OCD when it comes to any project or layout.”
Part of Teigen’s universal appeal no doubt comes from the (misguided, sexist, I could go on and on) assumption that people who look like Teigen don’t have much to say, let alone have passionate opinions on everything from gun control to sriracha. And yet, thanks to an active presence on social media, we know that Teigen says whatever she wants, and loudly. Though she’s never censored herself before, as the self-proclaimed “nighttime girl” prepares to introduce herself to a very new demographic — America’s daytime television audience — she is reconsidering her approach to social media. “I don’t want to start shit anymore,” she says. “I still have my views. And I am still a cynical person, but sometimes I get very exhausted with the backlash or the feedback.” Trying to please millions of anonymous fans is impossible, even for Teigen. “I just don’t have the energy to care about that stuff anymore. I do find myself sort of holding back on some things.”
Teigen does read the comments — all of them. And yes, her feelings do get hurt. “People are always like, ‘I love you because you don’t give a f**k’ and I’m like, 'Oh my god, I give so many f**ks’ I really care. I genuinely care what people think about me.” Just because she doesn’t post inspirational quotes, or encourage her followers to “rise and shine and greet the day, beauties!” as she puts it, doesn’t mean she’s not a nice human. Though her cutting one-liners play well across any platform, she says, “I feel like the most caring, loving, sensitive person, I really do. I just don’t show that.”
Maybe because she hasn’t had the opportunity to show it — until now. Though she’s danced on Lip Sync Battle and had a cameo on The Mindy Project, FABLife will show off a very different side of Teigen. Tyra Banks has assembled a panel of experts in various fields — our own Joe Zee for fashion, Leah Ashley for DIY, Lauren Makk for interiors, and Teigen’s on food duty. “It is a little bit different for me because I am not an expert, but I really love not being the expert,” she says. “I want to make food relatable and fun and accessible to people, to get everyone who thinks they can’t cook in the kitchen to impress their friends or their boyfriends or their wives.” The world doesn’t need anymore recipes, so instead she’ll offer tips, tricks, hacks, and celebratory ideas for whatever national donut/hot dog/milkshake holiday social media’s buzzing about at the moment. “We’re not just in the kitchen stirring and giving out measurements.”
Lest you underestimate Teigen’s passion for food, she launches into a gushing ode to a certain type of salt: “I have this favorite kosher salt that changed everything I cook. It’s Diamond Crystal kosher salt and it’s like my baby. I bring it everywhere. I bring it when I travel — like my pepper mill, which is very crucial to me too because I need giant chunks of pepper — but the salt … I find that a lot of people just use Morton’s table salt and it’s really strong and really salty [but] Diamond Crystal Kosher is very light. You can be heavy-handed with it, but you can still taste the food. It’s changed everything.”
It’s obvious, at this point, that Teigen sits at the savory end of the taste spectrum. You will never see her eat a pastry, or bite into a piece of cake — “I can’t do a continental breakfast."—but she does mention something about a salted caramel and peanut butter ice cream sandwich in her freezer. Ice cream? Yes. Baked goods? No. "Every once in awhile, I’ll get the urge to bake, and I’m the worst baker.”
Thank god she’s bad at something. Two things, actually. “I cannot memorize lines,” she answers, when I ask if there’s a chance she’ll play herself on the sitcom she and Legend are developing with Kenya Barris, creator of Blackish. “I personally cannot act; we’re going to have to get some real actors.”
News of the show sent the Internet into a tizzy in August, when Barris told Buzzfeed, “It’s inspired by them — they’re both super-creative and super-effusive, and I’m just fans of them and everything they stand for.” Headlines read “Chrissy Teigen and John Legend’s Life Is So Darn Awesome, It’s Inspired a Sitcom,” and “Yes, You Will Watch a Sitcom Based on Chrissy Teigen and John Legend’s Love,” but it wont be about their relationship, per se. “I don’t know that it’s so much about our relationship as it is about our world. Having this home life, but also having what seems to be a wild and crazy relationship in the public life, and also our teams. John has this team that makes up John Legend, and I have a team that comes together to help me with everything in life, so the assistants and all of it, that’d be really fun. And then, yeah, the dynamic between John and I, of course.” She adds, “If I could actually write it, I mean, Curb Your Enthusiasm is the type of humor that I see in it.”
Tuning into the still untitled show might be a better way to get to know Teigen and Legend than the way some fans have tried. “Sometimes John and I will be eating dinner and people will come right up to the table and pull up a chair and sit with us, and at first it kind of freaks you out, but then you realize that people think they know you,” Teigen says. “I see people out that I feel like I know, and I jump up to give them a hug and I’m like, 'Oh crap, we’re just friends on Twitter.’ But that’s a cool thing! Everyone thinks that social media is making us less social, but I disagree. I think it’s opened me up to a group of people I’d never normally have access to — and that’s great.”
This is why — OK, one reason why — Teigen would crush it when it comes to online dating. She famously played around on Tinder, and says she and Legend recently went to a Match.com wedding for “the perfect couple,” lamenting the fact that she never really got to date before settling down. Two long-term relationships and one husband later (she and Legend met on the 2007 set of his music video for “Stereo”), Teigen loves hearing about single life from her friends and offers one big tip for anyone dating online: Own it. “Every time I ask someone if they’re dating someone, they’re always a little hesitant to say they’re doing it on Tinder, Grindr, whatever — people should just be more confident in it. Never go into it thinking that you’re some kind of bad case, because it’s not true. Just in this world we live in, we don’t have a lot of time to meet people the old-fashioned way.”
And with that, it’s time for Teigen to assemble the breakfast of her dreams: toasted Ezekiel bread smothered with smashed avocados, chili flakes, prosciutto, cherry tomatoes, red onion, and, on the extra hungry days, a fried egg. Peppered, of course, with plenty of Diamond Crystal kosher salt. “I’m not being paid by the way, I just f**king love it.”
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