John Legend isn’t about to let anyone bad-mouth the people in his hometown of Springfield, Ohio.
The singer-songwriter is speaking up after baseless claims spread online, amplified by former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, about Haitian immigrants supposedly eating people’s pets, have spiraled out of control.
In a nearly six-minute long Instagram video posted Thursday, Legend denounced those claims and urged people to show grace for our “Haitian brothers and sisters.”
Springfield, where he was born in 1978, has been “shrinking for decades,” he says, but during the Biden administration more jobs opened up in manufacturing that needed employees to fill them. At the same time, he explains, Haiti erupted in turmoil and the U.S. federal government expanded a legal immigration program for Haitians fleeing the violence.
In the last few years, some 15,000 immigrants have settled in the city, which had a population of about 60,000.
“You might imagine there are some challenges with integrating a new population,” Legend continues. “…But the bottom line is these people came to Springfield because there were jobs for them and they were willing to work. And they wanted to live the American dream.”
Then he addressed the ugly rumors.
“Nobody’s eating cats. Nobody’s eating dogs,” he says. “We all just want to live and flourish and raise our families in a healthy and safe environment. How about we love one another?”
Legend ends the video with a nod to his roots and the name he grew up with: “John R. Stephens from Springfield, signing off.”
The post has accumulated more than 142,000 likes and 11,000 comments, and counting. Legend also spoke out on the topic during an appearance on BBC Newsnight.
The rumor about Haitian migrants started swirling on social media leading up to the debate, with posts from Ted Cruz, Elon Musk and JD Vance adding fuel to the fire. But what really brought the issue to the fore was Trump’s now-viral claim on the debate stage Tuesday night: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats.”
Officials in Springfield, Ohio, told CBS News they had not received any credible reports of Haitian migrants harming pets.
In an interview Wednesday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, told CBS News, “This is something that came up on the internet, and the internet can be quite crazy sometimes.”
“These Haitians came in here to work because there were jobs, and they filled a lot of jobs,” DeWine said. “And if you talk to employers, they’ve done a very, very good job and they work very, very hard.”