Both Chrissy Teigen and John Legend share a lot of themselves on the internet, in particular Teigen who has had quite a rollercoaster relationship with Twitter. Their public personas have made their marriage something of a public relationship as well, one that appears to be very loving. And there are a lot of music videos where they look quite sexy as well, which doesn’t hurt.
Here’s the relationship timeline of the model, her musician husband, and their gorgeous kids.
September 2006
In September of 2006, Teigen and Legend actually met on the set of Legend’s music video for “Stereo,” in which 20-year-old Teigen stars as his love interest. Teigen told Cosmopolitan in 2014, “I walked into John’s dressing room to meet him, and he was ironing in his underwear. I said, ‘You do your own ironing!?’ He said, ‘Of course I do.’ I gave him a hug.”
The shoot went well, and they ended up back at Legend’s hotel room, where they had some In-n-Out takeout, and “I’m not going to lie. We hooked up,” Teigen told Cosmo.
“We did the music video, we were together for like 12 hours,” Teigen shared with Wendy Williams. “We spent the entire day together, me in my underwear and him in a full suit, and I went to go say goodbye to him, to his hotel, and we didn’t ever say goodbye that night.”
The pair casually dated for the next year but generally had very different schedules. Legend was touring with his album Once Again, and Teigen was modeling. They didn’t rush to define the relationship.
But Legend later told ET that he was falling for her that year.
“We were texting a lot, and I started to see her sense of humor,” he said. “We would talk on the phone, and I started to fall in love with how engaging and witty and funny she is.”
He continued, “Once we started spending more time together between tour stops and all this other stuff, we realized we had such a connection. I wasn’t nervous about it. When you feel a real connection to somebody, for me it wasn’t nerves, it was more like excitement. ‘Oh, this could be great.’”
February 2008
The couple made their first appearance on the red carpet together at the 50th annual Grammy awards.
December 2011
Legend proposed to Teigen while they were on vacation together in the Maldives, a surprise he later said was almost ruined as they went through airport security.
“Chrissy was standing right next to me and I was, like, ‘Oh, my God. I’ve hid it so well this whole time. Now as we’re just about to get to the Maldives she’s going to find out I have a ring in this box and it’s going to ruin the surprise and I’ll have to get on my knees in the airport,’” he joked.
The Maldives proposal was Christmas-themed, with the ring hidden in a plate of arugula.
June 2013
Legend’s hit song “All of Me” was released, and it was very evident to Teigen that it was about her. She told Huffington Post, “The first line of it is, ‘What would I do without your smart mouth,’ so if that’s not about me, I don’t know what is.”
She added, “I did cry when I heard it. I’m emotional, but like I don’t really don’t cry at things like that so yeah, it was beautiful. And live it’s pretty unreal.”
Once again, Teigen played the love interest for Legend in his music video for the song, released in October 2013. Only now, she wasn’t pretending. It included real footage from their wedding a month earlier. Legend was nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance at the 2014 Grammy Awards for his performance on the song.
September 2013
On September 14, 2013, the couple were married in Lake Como, Italy, a place they had visited together early in their relationship. Photos from the Italian event were shared exclusively in Martha Stewart Weddings, and Legend shared, “One of the first vacations we took together was to Lake Como, so we thought it would be nice to marry where we fell in love.”
He described their wedding style “rustic-chic, elegant-but-not-too-glossy.”
Before they could be legally married, however, they had a quick ceremony at a courthouse in NYC.
“We actually got married after going to a couple fashion week shows at Vera Wang, ironically who actually did my dress, but we got married at the courthouse right after,” Teigen told E! News. “We are dumb and didn’t realize that our Italian wedding would not be recognized unless we had a real ceremony in New York City.”
May 2015
Appearing on the cover of DuJour magazine, the couple were already discussing children.
“[Chrissy] thinks I’m not athletic enough to have a boy. I’m a musician, I’m good with women, and I’m a feminist, so I think I’ll be a good ‘girl daddy,’” Legend shared.
“We want a lot of kids,” Teigen added. “I would love to have three or four of my own, and then adopt a few. So basically I’ll be pregnant the rest of my life.”
October 2015
A few months later, the theoretical became reality as Teigen announced she was pregnant in an Instagram post.
“John and I are so happy to announce that we are pregnant,” Teigen wrote. “As many of you know, we’ve been trying to have a baby for a while now. It hasn’t been easy, but we kept trying because we can’t wait to bring our first child into the world and grow our family… We’re so excited that it’s finally happening. Thank you for all your love and well wishes. I look forward to all the belly touching!”
The pair were very open about conceiving via in vitro fertilization, and Teigen told The Cut it was a difficult process.
“It’s a complete miracle when it works. There are so many people that still struggle, even with access to IVF,” she said. ”You hear stories about IVF working the first try. But you’ll hear a lot more stories about when it takes a few times… You just look for anything to blame, especially yourself. I think hearing stories is just really important. You realize there’s no right way to do it, or right way to react.”
April 2016
On April 14, 2016, Teigen gave birth their daughter Luna Simone Stephens, announcing it a few days later on Instagram again.
March 2017
Though the couple were thrilled to be parents, Teigen later opened up about her experience with postpartum depression in a personal essay for Glamour, saying, “I had everything I needed to be happy. And yet, for much of the last year, I felt unhappy.”
She continued, “I know he [Legend] must look over at times and think: ‘My God, get it together.’ But he has never made me feel that way. I love John and Luna more than I can imagine loving anything, and John and I still hope to give Luna a few siblings. Postpartum hasn’t changed that.”
November 2017
That didn’t stop them from their dreams of having more children. Teigen announced she was pregnant again in November 2017.
May 2018
On May 17, 2018, Teigen gave birth to her and Legend’s son, Miles Theodore. She shared her first pic of Miles a few days later, along with his full name.
“This is Miles Theodore Stephens,” she wrote in the caption. “We are drowning in his little peeps and nuzzles. Our household feels overwhelmed with love. Thank you for all your well wishes!”
September 2018
On September 10, 2018, Teigen posted the sweetest tribute to her husband after he won Hollywood’s most coveted award.
On September 10, Legend won an Emmy for producing “Jesus Christ Superstar Live In Concert,” achieving EGOT status, meaning he has won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony award. Teigen celebrated her husband on Instagram.
August 2020
In Legend’s music video for his song “Wild,” he and Teigen revealed her baby bump, making the announcement that they were expecting a third child.
September 2020
Tragically, Teigen experienced a miscarriage after experiencing complications with her pregnancy. She was initially put on bed rest, then hospitalized with excessive bleeding. In a vulnerable post, Teigen shared she and Legend had named their second son Jack. The carousel of photos show Teigen crying in her hospital room and bidding farewell to her son.
“To our Jack – I’m so sorry that the first few moments of your life were met with so many complications, that we couldn’t give you the home you needed to survive,” she wrote. “We will always love you.”
August 2022
In August of 2022, Teigen and Legend were expecting again. In her post announcing her pregnancy, Teigen implied they once again used IVF, and spoke about her reluctance to announce her pregnancy after losing Jack.
“The last few years have been a blur of emotions to say the least, but joy has filled our home and hearts again. 1 billion shots later (in the leg lately, as u can see!) we have another on the way,” she wrote.
“Every appointment I’ve said to myself, ‘ok, if it’s healthy today I’ll announce,’ but then I breathe a sigh of relief to hear a heartbeat and decide I’m just too nervous still,” Teigen added. “I don’t think I’ll ever walk out of an appointment with more excitement than nerves but so far, everything is perfect and beautiful and I’m feeling hopeful and amazing.”
January 2023
On January 13, Legend told the audience at a small private concert that Teigen had given birth to their newborn that very morning, adding, “What a blessed day.”
Later, Teigen shared a pic of Luna and Miles holding the infant, whose name she announced is Esti Maxine Stephens.
“The house is bustling and our family could not be happier,” she wrote. “Daddy sheds nightly tears of joy seeing Luna and Miles so full of love.”
March 2023
Mom and dad had a date night out. The two attended Vanity Fair‘s Oscar after-party, Teigen debuting red hair.
June 2023
Legend and Teigen shared they’ve welcomed their fourth child, son Wren Alexander Stephens, via surrogate on June 19. Teigen shared on Instagram:
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted four children. As a little girl, 2 glow worms and 2 cabbage patch dolls were perpetually in my arms, helping me stir in my kitchen, watching Alf with me. We’d sleep together nightly, each getting the same amount of kisses as to not make the others jealous. My mom always searched for the Pound Puppy with 4 pups in her pouch, having no qualms about opening and peeking inside before purchasing.
After losing Jack, I didn’t think I’d be able to carry any more babies on my own. To be honest, I’ve personally blocked out a lot of my mindset during that time, but one clear memory is being surrounded by people who wanted to make sure I wouldn’t go through that pain and loss again.
In 2021, we reached out to a surrogacy agency, with our first correspondence inquiring about perhaps having two tandem surrogates, to each bring us a healthy boy or girl. Twins, kinda?!
At some point, early in our surrogacy journey, I came out of a therapy session, walked downstairs and said to John, I want to try to carry just one more time. If it doesn’t work, we will be okay. We’ve already seen the worst. I promised I would be okay no matter what happened. I remember saying I just couldn’t go on wondering my whole life if I should have tried again.
And so we restarted the IVF process, the same process that gave us our beautiful Luna and Miles. We made new embryos. We did my transfer and were so happy to learn it worked—we were pregnant with our little girl, Esti.
Teigen went on to explain they had connected with a great surrogate at the time, one who ultimately carried Wren. “Our hearts and our home are officially full,” she said.
September 2023
Teigen and Legend renewed their wedding vows in a ceremony at Lake Como, Italy, for their 10-year anniversary. “It was really special,” she told Peopleshortly after. “Way more emotional than I anticipated, but really so good. And I just feel so lucky and so blessed and in all the corniest of terms. It was so fucking sweet and amazing.”
“I didn’t want it to be a vow renewal,” she admitted. “I come from the world of Real Housewives and a vow renewal is the kiss of death, but I was like, ‘Let’s kiss it. Let’s do it.’”
She added, “I really don’t like celebrations, whether it’s my birthday or anything. But I do love gratitude and I love thanking the people that have been there for the past 17 years of our relationship. To me, that was everything.”
Aimée Lutkin is the weekend editor at ELLE.com. Her writing has appeared in Jezebel, Glamour, Marie Claire and more. Her first book, The Lonely Hunter, will be released by Dial Press in February 2022.