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John Legend Had the Best Response to Melania Trump’s Plagiarism Scandal, and It Involved Taylor Swift, Kimye

Two for one. John Legend combined two of this week’s biggest, most-memed scandals — Melania Trump’s possibly plagiarized speech and Taylor Swift’s feud with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West — into one spectacular tweet.

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During the Republican National Convention on Monday, July 18, Melania gave a speech supporting her husband, Donald Trump, that was strangely similar to Michelle Obama’s 2008 address at the Democratic National Convention. People on social media pointed out that a whole paragraph was lifted almost word for word from the FLOTUS’ remarks eight years ago.

John Legend
John Legend Ian Gavan/Getty Images

The “All of Me” singer, 37, was dragged into the drama when the RNC’s chief strategist, Sean Spicer, appeared on CNN on Tuesday, July 19. Spicer defended that the phrases were “common words and values” that have been used by countless famous figures. “Melania Trump said, ‘You work hard for what you get in life.’” he said. “John Legend said, ‘Work hard to be anything you want in life.’ Kid Rock said, ‘Work hard to be anything you want in life.’” The Legend quote comes from his 2010 song with The Roots, “Our Generation (The Hope of the World).”

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The “Glory” crooner — a longtime ally of Kardashian and West — responded to a journalist’s tweet about Spicer’s comments on Tuesday with a Taylor Swift quote, writing, “I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative.”

Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift performs onstage during the 2014 iHeartRadio Music Festival. Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Earlier this week, Swift used that same phrase in her statement hitting back at Kimye after the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star, 35, released a series of Snapchats detailing her phone call with West over the lyrics to his track “Famous.” In the clip, Swift seemingly gives her approval on the rapper’s “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex” line. However, in an Instagram post Monday, she said that he never told her that he was going to refer to her as “that bitch,” and she never signed off on that part of the verse. 

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“Where is the video of Kanye telling me he was going to call me ‘that bitch’ in his song? It doesn’t exist because it never happened,” the “Shake It Off” singer wrote. “Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part of the song is character assassination. I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of, since 2009.”

While the tweet may appear to indicate he’s Team Taylor, Legend and his wife, Chrissy Teigen, have never taken sides in the infamous feud. Although the couple are close pals with Kardashian and West, Teigen previously said that Swift’s Grammy dig at the “All Day” rapper made them feel “weird.” “It’s so awkward. It’s an uncomfortable moment. It’s weird. John and I were very uncomfortable by it,” the model said on Watch What Happens Live in March. 

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