Some of the artwork in Chrissy Teigen and John Legend’s California home has an interesting backstory.
The “Cravings” cookbook author and her Grammy Award-winning husband told an anecdote about an art installation in their house for a tour video by Architectural Digest, published Tuesday.
“This used to actually be a full wall with a fireplace, and we didn’t like it,” Legend said, pointing to two columns at the couple’s Beverly Hills property. ”[The] fireplace felt like a little too fake and cheesy. We decided to make it two pillars instead, and we put this beautiful ― based on Chrissy’s idea ― put this beautiful art installation up.”
“I did ketamine,” Teigen said as she began to laugh, and Legend turned to nod at the camera.
“Therapeutic ketamine ― a therapy,” she explained, with Legend saying her use of the anesthetic was “doctor-supervised.”
“I came home and I was like, ‘Wouldn’t it be so amazing if we had two beautiful butterfly wings that were holding our house up?’” Teigen recalled, adding that her designer’s interpretation of the wing idea is what eventually made it onto the walls.
“They’re kind of like butterflies, flowers, but each wing-slash-petal was installed one by one,” Legend said.
Teigen added that the delicate, hand-painted pieces move when touched.
Butterflies clearly hold a special place in her heart, as she also has a tattoo of a butterfly based on a drawing by her daughter Luna.
Teigen and Legend jested that the installation pieces haven’t “been hurt yet” by their children, though the singer said that’s “because our kids can’t really reach them that well.”
Check out the artwork at the 7:29 mark in the video below:
Elsewhere in the video, the couple showed off an olive tree and joked that they’d had it “embalmed.”
“We sometimes stay at Kelly Wearstler’s house. She’s a great designer,” Legend said. “She has a Malibu house, and it has a tree right in the living room-kitchen area. And we were like, ‘We want a tree inside our house too.’ So, this tree actually is an olive tree that used to be alive for real, but it’s not alive now.”
“We literally dug 6 feet deep, put the roots down,” he explained. “And it has silk leaves that don’t fall down. They’re attached to the tree, and it still looks and feels real, but it’s not alive. It was formerly alive.”
“We embalmed it,” Teigen quipped.
To check out the tree, watch the tour video above. And for another glimpse of one of Legend and Teigen’s glamorous properties, watch a 2015 video of their New York City home below: