Like many of us, Jill Scott has been doing some cleaning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The singer and actress was going through some photos in her office when she came across one that inspired what may be the cutest story about spinach of all time.
“I’m in here and I’m going through pictures and I’m finding stuff and I’m thinking about all the women who have been so gracious to me in this career and I thought about Miss Patti LaBelle,” said Scott, noting that when her first album, Who Is Jill Scott Words and Sounds Vol. 1, was released she was invited to spend time with Labelle, a fellow Philadelphia native.
“I get this phone call that Miss Patti LaBelle wants me to come to her house, OK? So that’s major! I’m like, ‘Hell yea!’ I don’t know what to wear. I don’t know what to do, but I go,” she began.
“First of all, I’m blown away by the grandeur of it all. I had never seen a brown person with this much exquisiteness around them before,” Scott recalled of LaBelle’s home. “I’m geeked!”
“That was enough to have her welcome me into her home and share her energy with me,” she continued.
The evening got even better, Scott said, when LaBelle, whose infamous for her cooking, asked if she was hungry.
“I was like I get to eat Patti LaBelle food?! Who gets this opportunity?” Scott gushed.
But she soon discovered the problematic side dish: in addition to “melt-in-your-mouth” brisket, LaBelle served spinach.
“I hate spinach,” Scott noted, adding that she was prepared to politely tuck the offensive vegetable under her tongue, and chase it with the juicy brisket. That’s when she discovered that like Labelle’s lifestyle and vocal abilities the spinach was far beyond average.
“I put the spinach in my mouth and I immediately started crying,” Scott said. “Y’all be clowning me ‘cause I be crying but listen. When I tell you I had been eating wack spinach my whole life? I thought I hated it because the spinach was wack.”
The”Golden” singer said that LaBelle must’ve been touched by how much “gratitude” Scott was showing because then she gifted her an opulent moment that she will never forget.
“She comes from upstairs and puts a million dollars worth of diamonds around my neck while I sat there eating brisket and spinach, crying with a million dollars worth of diamonds on my neck,” she recalled, smiling. “I love you Ms. Patti. Thank you.”