Patti LaBelle says Elton John never returned her Tupperware

Patti LaBelle says Elton John never returned her Tupperware. (Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Patti LaBelle is very fond of her Tupperware.

The singer, who loves to cook (and sells her own line of “Patti Pies”), shared an interesting tale on Sherri Shepherd’s daytime talk show.

LaBelle explained that back before Elton John was famous and he was going by his birth name, Reginald Dwight, he was playing piano for her with his band Bluesology when she performed in the U.K. They had fun off stage as well, according to LaBelle.

“So we played cards a lot, honey. I took all their pounds,” she quipped. “All their money. I had to feed him then because they didn’t have any pounds. No money to eat, right?”

LaBelle said she would often have them over to her “flat” (the U.K. equivalent of an apartment) with her bandmates Nona Hendryx, Sarah Dash and Cindy Birdsong. She’d cook for everyone, LaBelle recalled, and send home leftovers in her Tupperware.

“My Tupperware is very important to me. I don’t give it out…and my shopping bags,” LaBelle said. “So, I gave them some food to take back home, and they never paid me back.”

She said she’s brought up the lack of Tupperware return to Elton John on a few occasions, telling him, “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?”

LaBelle collaborated with John on his 2005 album, “Classic Moments.” They also performed together in Las Vegas, where the Tupperware thing came up again, she told Shepherd.

“He took his rings off and put them on the piano,” LaBelle recalled. “When we finished, I said, ‘Elton there’s your rings.’ He said, ‘That’s your Tupperware.‘”

She said she still has the “beautiful” ring, which she treasures.

By Lisa Respers France, CNN