Patti LaBelle is serious about her singing and her Tupperware.
During an appearance on Sherri, the legendary singer revealed that she once gave Elton John some food but he never returned her beloved Tupperware. LaBelle shared that the iconic pianist used to play for her before he rose to stardom. One night she gave him some to-go food but he failed to bring back the container.
“He was my piano player in London. For about a year. Bluesology [John’s first band], his [birth] name was Reginald Dwight, right? That was him right back in the day,” LaBelle recalled. “So we played cards a lot, honey. I took all their pounds. All their money. I had to feed him then because they didn’t have any pounds. No money to eat, right?”
She went on to say that she would bring John’s band to her “flat,” to hang with her LaBelle bandmates Nona Hendryx, Sarah Dash and Cindy Birdsong.
“We’d play cards, and I won, and they had no food. So I made them food to take home in my Tupperware. My Tupperware is very important to me. I don’t give it out — and my shopping bags,” continued LaBelle. “So, I gave them some food to take back home, and they never paid me back.”
Since then, LaBelle says that she mentions it to John everytime she sees him.
“I said to Elton, ‘I want my durn Tupperware.’ Here’s the deal, he calls me about two years later,” she said. “He said, ‘Patti, please come to my show tonight. So I said who are you opening for?’ He said, ‘I’m Elton John now.’ I said, ‘Ain’t that a witch.’ He made it before I did, right?”
In 2005, LaBelle and John recorded a new version of his classic hit “Your Song” for her 2005 Classic Moments album. While in Vegas at John’s Red Piano residency in Las Vegas, she brought up her missing Tupperware once again.
“And he took his rings off and put them on the piano. When we finished, I said, ‘Elton there’s your rings.’ He said, ‘That’s your Tupperware.”
Along with the missing Tupperware, LaBelle also spoke about the highly-anticipated “Queens Tour” where she’ll be performing with Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight, and Stephanie Mills. Beginning on May 9 in Las Vegas, the tour throughout North America and before concluding Oct. 5 in Cleveland.
“I am so excited to join these icons, who I call sisters, on this tour! It’s going to be something special. And I can’t wait to see everyone there,” LaBelle said in a statement.
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