Chrissy Teigen is shrugging off Sharon Osbourne‘s criticism of John Legend and Kelly Clarkson‘s lyrical reworking of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” The controversial holiday song has been making headlines after Legend and Clarkson teamed up to remake it with more respectful lyrics — though not everyone agrees that it needed a makeover in the first place.
Osbourne called the lyric change “ridiculous” on last Monday’s episode of The Talk, but Teigen, who has been married to Legend since 2013, wasn’t offended by Osbourne’s opinion.
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At the 2019 Baby2Baby gala presented by Paul Mitchell on Saturday, Teigen told Entertainment Tonight, “Sharon’s always going to have something to say, it’s her job. I remember those days of getting to talk s— for money. It’s very fun.”
Osbourne left a scathing review of the lyric change from Legend and Natasha Rothwell, which includes, “What will my friends think? (I think they should rejoice)” and “If I have one more drink? (It’s your body, and your choice).”
“What would John Legend do, if in 40 years, if somebody wanted to … re-record one of his songs, and there was some group that found it offensive, and somebody just went, ‘Oh, I can change the lyrics on that,’” Osbourne said on The Talk. “It’s, to me, like a master painting.”
“It’s a piece of art,” she said of the original song, written by Frank Loesser in 1944. “To change an innocent lyric, to what is it, ‘Your mind and your body?’ What the hell are you on? That’s ridiculous. I have to tell you, I love John Legend. I love John Legend’s wife [Teigen], his family. He’s an amazing artist that I really respect. Why do you do this? That’s not right.”
“The thing is, if you don’t like the song, don’t record it,” she concluded.
Osbourne’s sentiments were echoed by Deana Martin, the daughter of the late crooner Dean Martin, whose 1959 version of the song is among the most famous iterations. During a recent appearance on Good Morning Britain, Deana called Legend’s changes “absolutely absurd.”
“He’s stealing the thunder from Frank Loesser’s song and from my dad. He should write his own song if he doesn’t like this one, but don’t change the lyrics. It’s a classic, perfect song,” she argued, adding, “He’s made it more sexual with those words that he has just said.”
She went on to say that her father, who died in 1995, would have “laughed” at the lyrical changes and found them “absurd.”
But Teigen has been vocal in defense of her husband, taking to Twitter to retweet a comment from journalist Yashar Ali who wrote that Legend “is not holding people captive and forcing them to listen to the new version. He’s also not going around and confiscating the original version of the song.”
Teigen sarcastically responded, “Yashar you’re wrong here. I watched he and Kelly physically burn all original versions in our backyard. It was crazy actually I was like whoa guys settle down.”
Legend also chimed in, writing, “We also burned everyone’s streaming accounts unless they refused to play the old version. #PCFascists.”
