--- title: Melania Trump Alleged Plagiarism Response From John Legend description: John Legend responded to remarks from RNC Chief Strategist Sean Spicer regarding Melania Trump's alleged plagiarism by quoting Taylor Swift. canonical: https://time.com/4413697/john-legend-melania-trump-plagiarism-response/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-19T21:20:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:34:33.288Z og:title: John Legend Had the Perfect Response to Melania Trump's Alleged Plagiarism og:description: He took a page out of Taylor Swift's book og:url: https://time.com/4413697/john-legend-melania-trump-plagiarism-response/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: John Legend Had the Perfect Response to Melania Trump's Alleged Plagiarism twitter:description: He took a page out of Taylor Swift's book twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # John Legend Had the Perfect Response to Melania Trump's Alleged Plagiarism  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Jul 19, 2016 9:20 PM UTC  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Jul 19, 2016 9:20 PM UTC In the wake of accusations that [Melania Trump’s](http://time.com/4412477/melania-trump-campaign-blames-hillary-clinton/) Monday night [speech](http://time.com/4412083/republican-convention-melania-trump/) at the Republican National Convention [plagiarized](http://time.com/4412175/republican-convention-melania-trump-michelle-obama/) Michelle Obama’s 2008 convention address, many in Donald Trump’s camp quickly came to the defense of the presidential candidate’s wife. One of these people was RNC Chief Strategist Sean Spicer, who claimed that Melania’s words were so common they could have been lifted from a myriad of other sources — including _My Little Pony_ and a John Legend song — in an [interview with CNN](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBQ5Zvm5-bE) Tuesday. However, Legend quickly made it clear that he didn’t wish to be lumped into this category. The 37-year-old singer replied to a [tweet](https://twitter.com/gattotony/status/755456206093873152) summarizing Spicer’s remarks with the statement, “I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative.” > [](https://twitter.com/johnlegend/status/755461353414938624) This, of course, is the same phrasing that Taylor Swift used in her already infamous response to [Kim Kardashian West releasing video evidence](http://time.com/4410084/kanye-kim-kardashian-taylor-famous-call/?iid=sr-link1) Sunday night of Swift’s telephone conversation with Kanye West regarding his song “Famous.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4413697/john-legend-melania-trump-plagiarism-response/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4413697/john-legend-melania-trump-plagiarism-response/"},"headline":"John Legend Had the Perfect Response to Melania Trump's Alleged Plagiarism","datePublished":"2016-07-19T21:20:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:34:33.288Z","description":"He took a page out of Taylor Swift's book","url":"https://time.com/4413697/john-legend-melania-trump-plagiarism-response/","keywords":["Newsfeed","politics","celebrities","john legend","Melania Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4413697/john-legend-melania-trump-plagiarism-response/","name":"John Legend Had the Perfect Response to Melania Trump's Alleged Plagiarism"}}]}] ```