Besides being regarded as a legendary singer, the “Godmother of Soul” Patti LaBelle is also known for her cooking prowess. Among her superstar friends who have tasted her food is legendary British singer and songwriter Sir Elton John.
But during an interview with Julia Louis-Dreyfus on her Wiser Than Me podcast, LaBelle revealed that she actually cooked for John before he shot to superstardom. The On My Own singer touched on the topic when Louis-Dreyfus asked how she regularly cooked for her superstar friends, PEOPLE reported.
“I’ve cooked for so many,” LaBelle stated before saying that she had cooked for Richard Pryor. The Grammy winner also said she used to make food for John, but that was before they became superstars.
RELATED STORIES
“Elton John was my piano player back in the day,” LaBelle revealed. “And so his band would come to my flat after the shows and we would play cards for money. And they lost every time.”
“So I won all the pounds and sent them home with Tupperware with food every night we played because they couldn’t afford food,” she added. Prior to going solo, John was a member of Bluesology – a band that he formed. He was also known by his birth name, Reginald Dwight.
LaBelle said John got in touch with her some years later and invited her to his show. “He said, ‘I want you to come to my show tonight.’ I said, ‘A show, where?’ He said ‘At the Spectrum in Philadelphia,’” she recalled.
“So I said, ‘Oh, who are you opening for?’ He said, ‘I’m Elton John now.’ I said, ‘You heifer!’ Oh, did I tell him some bad things! I said, ‘You made it before me, honey.’”
“And it was just a beautiful, beautiful moment,” Labelle told Louis-Dreyfus. The If Only You Knew singer and John reunited in the 2000s during his Red Piano Las Vegas residency and performed a duet, PEOPLE reported.
“And after this song was done, he had taken his rings off,” LaBelle recalled. “And I said, so here, ‘Here are your rings, Elton.’ And he said, ‘No. That’s for your Tupperware that you gave me back in the day.’ So he paid me with a beautiful ring.”
LaBelle also stated that though she’s still in possession of the ring, she “never” puts in on as “it’s so manly.” “I love my Tupperware,” she also said. “He’s a good friend.”
LaBelle’s cooking prowess was manifested and lauded in 2015 when her sweet potato pies hit the shelves in Walmart stores.
“Whenever I’d make pies at home, people would just go crazy and would ask for more. So I said, ‘I know this is right, and I think we better do something with this idea,’” she told PEOPLE in 2017. “I expected them to do well because the taste is phenomenal, but I didn’t know that it would become what it is.”
