Riley Cardoza – Page Six
Taylor Swift paid Nelly $US50,000 ($70,000) for a surprise performance that lasted just three minutes – and she gave him the cash in a McDonald’s bag.
The rapper made the odd request after Swift called him “out of the blue” and asked to join her onstage in Houston, Texas, as a “really big favour” in 2011, he told Breakfast Club listeners this past week.
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Swift, who Nelly had known “for a long time”, said over the phone that she and her friends had “made a routine to Hot in Herre” the previous evening and wanted to fly him out from St. Louis.
Although the 36-year-old said she didn’t “really have a budget” at the time and didn’t want to “disrespect” Nelly, she offered him the five-figure sum, as well as a ride on her private plane and a presidential suite stay at the Four Seasons.
“I said, ‘Can you put that [money] in a McDonald’s bag?’” Nelly recalled, noting that sure enough, “her manager, Robert Allen … toss[ed him] a McDonald’s bag with $US50,000 in cash.”
The Ride Wit Me hit maker, who “never even saw” the luxury hotel room because he went straight from the show to the airport, wouldn’t have performed “for free” and money wasn’t “an issue”.
However, he gushed, “It was hilarious. I’ll take it.”
Nelly, 51, performed Just a Dream at the 2011 show, which was part of Swift’s Speak Now tour.
He joined her onstage again two years later for the Red tour, treating audience members to a performance of Hey Porsche that time around.
In 2015, he sang Hot in Herre during a stop on the pop star’s 1989 world tour.
Swift, for her part, has “popped out at some of [his] shows” over the years and sang Dilemma with him.
Nelly gushed on Wednesday that “hell yeah” he considers himself a Swiftie.
He and his wife, Ashanti, attended Swift’s July wedding to Travis Kelce at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
Nelly defended the nuptials’ massive – and star-studded – guest list, saying “you make a lot of friends” during a longstanding career like hers.
“People forget how long she’s actually been in the business,” he said. “And at the top of it. … And her husband might go down as the greatest tight end of all time by the time this is done.”
This article originally appeared in Page Six and was reproduced with permission
